What is a micro bake off, you ask?
In collecting feedback from you all, it’s clear that the content you enjoy the most is the bake offs. So this micro bake off series is to help increase the frequency of bake offs while also focusing on more niche recipes that wouldn’t normally merit a full nine recipe comparison.
For now, these micro bake offs won’t be as data-driven because I’m working on a smaller, more casual scale (I had around 6 tasters for this bake off). But this can change in the future if you let me know you’d really like to see some data!
Okay, why strawberry scones?
For this strawberry scone micro bake off, we have my friend Kanna to thank! See below for her polite request:
Although the plain scone bake off has been done and dusted, I thought this would be an interesting exploration of both the scone bases and the treatment of the strawberries as Kanna notes above.
Here in expensive NYC, we’re heading into the season where strawberries can be found 2 for $5 (or sometimes even $1/basket!!), so this also felt seasonally appropriate.
Strawberry Scones: The Recipe Contenders
Claire Saffitz
“It feels fairly light for its size so I know it’s not super dense and heavy…Only very lightly sweet…I love the crunchiness on top. I love how not-sweet it is and how much it would welcome a little strawberry jelly on there.” - Claire Saffitz
Claire’s scones are perhaps the fussiest upon first look. Her recipe includes:
Roasted strawberries: for 60-80 minutes to help draw out moisture and concentrate flavor
Cake flour: for a super light texture along
Moisture: strained whole milk ricotta (which requires another few hours of hands-off prep time) and buttermilk
Method: You’ll roll out the dough and add the roasted strawberries between layers of dough in a light lamination process. While the rolling pin feels like an extra step, I actually found this to be the easiest method to mix the dough (least messy hands).
On the plus side, she does note that this is a great application for super ripe or not-great strawberries because you’re concentrating the flavors.
Melissa Clark/NYT
“I’ve taken to mixing dried strawberries directly into the dough, which bake up into jammy pockets in the tender crumb. This evenly distributes the berries, giving you bits of intense fruit all the way through…[her scoring method] helps keep the interior particularly moist and fluffy, while the crust bakes up golden and craggy, with edges that crunch. And it’s fun to pull apart the warm pieces with your hands for serving.” - Melissa Clark
Melissa Clark’s recipe is more straightforward on its face. Her recipe includes:
Dried strawberries: these get rehydrated in boiling water.
Grated, cold butter: this goes straight into the dry ingredients
Moisture: Buttermilk and egg.
Method: You’ll pat the dough into a circle and score the dough before baking. So easy!
The most difficult thing about this recipe was actually sourcing the dried strawberries—ultimately, I found them at Costco. Melissa specifically notes that you can’t use fresh strawberries: “Because dried strawberries can be hard to find, you might be tempted to use fresh or frozen berries here. Resist this urge. Fresh and frozen berries contain large amounts of moisture, which will steam during baking and can make the surrounding crumb soggy.”
Alison Roman
“These scones are different, with so much fat that the flour is really just there as a courtesy, and more fruit than you suspect will fit, but it does, lending flavor and moisture. They are puffy, fluffy, and downright cloud-like. Tender without being cakey, and gorgeously deformed (on purpose), because anything that holds a perfect triangle shape is not to be trusted. They’re great, and I hope they change your mind about scones. I know they changed mine.” - Alison Roman
Alison’s recipe looks characteristically easy (but was actually the messiest).
Fresh strawberries: just wash and chop!
Cold butter: gets cut and mixed in with your fingers
Moisture: Heavy cream and sour cream
Method: Everything gets stirred together. After forming the scones, she gives the option to refrigerate the scones for increased fluffiness (I followed this step).
I will say that this method felt like the messiest as the dough didn’t come together very easily with the strawberries already mixed into the dry ingredients. But in the end (with some help from my hands), it all came together.
After distributing the scones to 6 different tasters, here were the results
Third place
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Tasting Notes to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.