Very Cheesy Scones
Don’t want to read about my enthralling love affair with cheese scones? I get it. I hate long blog entries, too. You can skip. Maybe come back and read it later, while the scones are in the oven.
Most folks think of a beloved library and it evokes thoughts of a favorite book they discovered in the stacks or maybe that distinct, yet indescribable smell of aging books. For me, it’s cheese scones. Specifically, the warm cheese scones ready at 10:30 AM most mornings in the University Library at Cambridge.
My routine would go something like this: 10 AM: Head to phallus-shaped University Library building. Enter, find comfy chair-desk combination. Unload notebooks, pen case and head to the card catalog, which at the time were enormous, ancient-looking bound books with a strip of paper pasted inside for each book in the library. Once I stood next to Germaine Greer, who had on a colorful tweed suit. But I digress, which as you’ll soon learn, is a skill of mine.
I’d put my book requests into the librarian and then knowingly look at my watch: 10:30. I would head straight downstairs to the tearoom, where the from-scratch, still-warm cheese scones would just have been added to the buffet. (Yes, the buffet.) I would join the man nicknamed “Flamethrower” in line. Flamethrower was notable for his constant presence in the tearoom where he could be found puffing on his pipe and reading a book. He sported not only tweed plus-fours and a matching tweed jacket (yes, patches on elbows), but bushy mutton chops, as if he’d been sitting there since 1908. Long flames shot out of the lighter he used to get his pipe going, hence the nickname.
But, as I mentioned above, I digress. Those cheese scones were (and hopefully still are) the pinnacle of all cheese sconedom. Flaky, intensely cheesy and salty, they were at their best served warm with butter. No recipe is on record for the UL’s famous cheese scones, although I have written to ask. In the meantime, here is a mile-high, cheesy, tender scone, with a small Puerto Rican twist.
Very Cheesy Scones
What You’ll Need:
1 1/2 cups /250 grams all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups /200 grams whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon adobo seasoning (I use and recommend Eric Rivera’s)**
1 stick/ 4 ounces/a little over 100 grams butter, cold, cut into 16 pieces
250 grams extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated
25 grams Parmesan, grated (plus extra for topping the scones)
1/2 cup/120 ml cold milk
1/2 cup/ 120 ml cold water
**if you don’t have access to adobo, traditionally a teaspoon of dry mustard is used. Alternatively, you could toss in a half-teaspoon of garlic powder.
Egg wash:
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
How to:
I used a food processor to cut the butter and cheese into the flour, but that’s because I’m always in a hurry. And sort of lazy. It’s easy enough to do by hand, especially if you have a good show to watch. Or nice company. Or both.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Pulse/whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, paprika, adobo) until blended.
Add the butter and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse meal. You should not see big hunks of butter in the flour. It should be evenly distributed. Add the cheese and pulse a few times until incorporated.
If using a food processor, empty the mixture into a large bowl. Drizzle the milk and water evenly over the flour-butter-cheese mixture and toss gently with a fork or silicone spatula to moisten the entire mixture. Just as the mixture begins to come together (there may even be a drib or drab of flour mixture about, swiftly gather the dough together, smooshing it into shape and place on a floured cutting board. (The idea is not to handle the dough too much).
Shape the dough into a rectangle, about 1 1/2-inches thick. Cut into shapes with, ideally, a 2-inch fluted biscuit cutter. If you lack such an object, just cut them into even squares with a sharp knife. Dough that remains from the first cut, should be swiftly folded into three (like a letter) and reshaped into a rectangle.
Brush the scones with the egg wash and sprinkle with cheese. Bake until light brown and risen, about 12-15 minutes.
Let cool long enough that you don’t burn your mouth, but be sure to eat them warm, with more butter than you think is reasonable.
