Breakthrough Bakery

I have had a baking issue forever. I have never been able to make pastry. No biscuits, no pie crust. Certainly not croissant or napoleon or any thing like a french pastry. I have always said that if I pop biscuits out of a tube they will be door stops. It was not an actual joke. I’ve had the pastry finger of death my entire life. Well, knock on my big wooden cutting board, because I might just have it licked.

It all came about because of Southern style chicken n’ dumplings. I was determined to learn this. At work I was asked to make it and I really, totally, bitched it up. I keep telling myself that it could happen easily as I’d never eaten this dish as well as never made it before. However I spent Friday night in a black depression because it was a kitchen disaster. Over salted like mad. Too many dumplings, not enough sauce. Apparently other than that it was pretty much what it was supposed to be. Hah.

The dumplings are essentially a pastry noodle. Flour, fat and seasoning, then liquid. Then rolled out very thin and cut. They become a noodle when they are boiled not baked. The recipe I was using called for the fat to be blended to the flour by hand. This was to be my revelation. Everyone (read Uncle Bunny, Bakeshopboy and Dramamama) kept saying that if I only would get the feel for the dough I would get it. But my mom always had me using a pastry blender which was so ineffective and tedious that I think I was always giving up before the right consistency was reached. Thus no flaky or light to be had in the kingdom. Well, doing it by hand is THE way to feel the dough! (I believe) I totally get it now.

I made another batch of chicken n’ dumplings at home this weekend. Pronounced everything they are supposed to be only better by Dali Madison. Then when my horrible plague woke me up at 4:30am this morning, craving biscuit and honey, I just got up and whipped up a batch of biscuit scones. They weren’t perfect but they were right there in the upper half of the spectrum of reasonable goodness.
I may never before have felt my Scotch side as much I did pulling a tray of beautiful, egg wash browned scones out of the oven before dawn broke.
There is another piece of this I learned the hard way though. Which is that when the liquid goes in the mixing by hand goes out. What a waste of good scone-ness.