Back in the kitchen!

It felt so good to be back in the kitchen, experimenting and working toward delicious things. The results were interesting. I made plain scones with orange glaze and raspberry scones with vanilla glaze. Those sound delicious, right? Well...

I'm working on a big change in my baking, moving away from solid butter substitutes. The one I've been using for years has pea protein in it, which now, apparently, bothers my system. Nice. So, the big question is whether I can adapt my scone and muffin recipes to use oil rather than a solid fat.

Hmmm. The first batch I tried today came out like thick pancake batter. Okay. So I baked it in a cake pan. It came out fairly well, somewhere between a dense cake and a gluey scone. I had tried using a higher percentage of tapioca starch, but it would seem that was not such a great idea.

It got even more interesting on the second batch. I halved the liquid. Okay. Wow, that got thick. When I tried to fold in the raspberries, the dough felt incredibly stiff. I scooped it out onto the parchment lined tray and spread it into a circle. I came back a few seconds later to sprinkle it with some coconut sugar and the oddest thing had happened. That thick, stiff, resistant batter had sort of...flowed. It had softened and spread. I stood there for a moment, really puzzled, and then the lights dawned.

This scone mixture was a "non-Newtonian fluid!" Now, that makes me sound so fancy, but really, I have some really smart science-women among my friends, and I've learned cool stuff from them. A non-Newtonian fluid is like that glop (a.k.a. Ooblek, a.k.a. Goop) that you make with cornstarch and water. When you press it or hit it, it's instantly solid, but if you just let it sit in your hand or on a counter, it relaxes and flows.

That is what this scone dough was like! I think because of the high ratio of tapioca starch (which is similar to corn starch) it took on the characteristics of that fun substance from science class! So interesting.

Once baked, it seemed fairly normal. The texture still needs some work, but was better than the first batch.

So the first day back in the kitchen in a while felt pretty good. Though the scones need work, they are edible, the vanilla glaze was good on the raspberry ones, and the orange glaze is a thing of sheer beauty. I want to put it on everything!

As soon as I get the whole texture thing figured out with these scones, I will definitely share recipes with you all.

Thanks for stopping by. :)