Savoury yoghurt scones
What have you got in your fridge — or on your counter or at the back of your freezer — that needs to be used today? The answer to that question for me a few weeks back was yoghurt. Somehow a kg of yoghurt always seems like the right amount to buy, and yet it’s rare we make our way through that much in a timely fashion. A quick ‘yoghurt’ search and I found myself on The Guardian’s 10 best yoghurt recipes where I found Heidi Swanson’s recipe for yoghurt scones. The idea of ‘mouthwatering, feathery layers’ reeled me in and I cubed the butter and put it in the freezer to chill straight away.
While waiting for the butter to chill, I got to thinking how I could make these scones extra savoury. I thought of replacing a couple tablespoons of the flour with some spices to build on what I imagined would be a tangy yoghurt scone. I grabbed some mustard powder, paprika, turmeric, and chile powder. I mixed these in with the other dry ingredients Swanson lists and made the recipe mostly as she directs, by hand rather than with a food processor.
I baked two of the scones right away to see how they turned out. They were golden, savoury, and, indeed, full of mouthwatering, feathery layers. The rest I froze…until the next day when my partner Akshay stopped me as I was about to put them in the oven with a couple of suggestions. “You know, those scones were delicious, and the edges were the best part — crunchy and extra toasted. If we cut the scones in half we’d have even more edges.” That sounded good to me and a sharp knife made it so. Akshay’s second idea was one I hear often (from him): add ajwain.
Ajwain is a spice Akshay introduced me to. I find it a little reminiscent of thyme or za’atar with a hint of menthol and fennel seed. One word of caution: use ajwain sparingly. Too much in a dish can overpower it and the spice can become bitter if it’s toasted for too long. I can vouch for its deliciousness so far in parathas, chocolate chip cookies, and yoghurt scones. I ended up sprinkling the seeds on top since the scone dough was already made, but I think next time I’ve got another half kilo of yoghurt calling out to be used I’ll lightly toast the ajwain, let it cool, and mix it in with the other spices (mustard powder, paprika, turmeric, and chile powder) and dry ingredients.
I’d also like to try out this recipe with another savoury spice mixture. What do you recommend? Until I hear from you, I’ll be making my variation of Swanson’s yoghurt scones (from Super Natural Everyday), written out below.
Ingredients:
155g spelt or wholemeal flour
125g plain flour, plus more if needed
1 tsp mustard powder
½ tsp paprika
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp chile powder
2 tsp lightly toasted, cooled ajwain
1½ tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
115g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
310g Greek yoghurt
Method:
Heat the oven to 230C / 210C fan / gas mark 8 / 450F.
Place a tray in the oven so the pan is hot when you put the scone dough on it to bake.
In a large bowl, combine the flours, spices, salt, and baking powder. Add the cold butter to the dry ingredients and, with your hands, a fork, or a pastry cutter, work quickly to squeeze the butter and dry ingredients together until the butter is incorporated and looks like small sandy peas.
Again, working quickly to keep the butter from melting too much, add the yoghurt until it is mostly incorporated — if there are a few dry patches, they’ll get mixed in with the kneading and pressing below.
Flour a work surface and squeeze the dough into a ball. Move the dough to the floured surface and knead it five times.
Press the dough into a 2½cm-thick square. Cut the square in half and stack the two rectangles on top of each other. Repeat this step two more times — this helps create the flaky layers — adding more flour to help with sticking dough as needed.
Press the dough into a 2cm-thick rectangle. Cut the dough into 24 small scones. (At this point you can freeze the scones for later baking. Increase the baking time by 2 minutes to account for the dough’s frozen state.)
Transfer the scones to the preheated tray, leaving 1½cm between each scone. Bake for 15 minutes, until the bases and edges are deeply golden. Eating this hot and with salted, cultured butter is an excellent choice.