O’Reilly’s Most Excellent Scones

Scones Visionary

by Edie Freedman

Tim O’Reilly’s Most Excellent Scones
Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media (oreilly.com), is many things: visionary, writer, technology advocate, and much more. He also happens to be an excellent baker.

I have worked with my friend Tim for nearly two decades and I know that his scones are legendary; he makes them for friends, colleagues, and just about anyone who shows up around breakfast time chez O’Reilly. I can speak from experience: it’s hard not to wolf down more than your share of these wonderful pastries, especially when they’re just out of the oven.

Tim's most excellent scone recipe follows...

Tim O’Reilly’s Most Excellent Scones

Makes 12-14 scones

Ingredients   
1 stick of butter
2 1/2 to 3 cups flour (experiment to see which you like better)
3 Tbsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 to 1 cup currants (or raisins)
1/2 to 1 cup milk (or substitute soy milk if you prefer; goat milk is also great)

Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees, and lightly grease a baking sheet. (You can just rub it with the butter paper.)

Cut butter into flour with a pastry blender. When done, the butter and flour should look like small crumbs.

Add the sugar, baking powder, and salt, and stir well.

Put currants (or raisins, if you prefer) into a well in the middle, and pour some of the milk in.

Stir around with a knife till you get just shy of a gooey consistency. (That is, it should hang together, but if it gets very sticky, you've put in a bit too much milk. You could add a bit more flour if you've gone in with less flour to begin with. But better to bake them sticky than add more than a total of three cups. The stickiness is just a problem for shaping them, since it sticks too much to your fingers.)

Shape into small lumps spaced evenly on the baking sheet. Depending on how big you make them, this amount should produce 12 to 14 scones. You probably need to wash your hands part way through, to get the sticky dough off. As it accumulates, the rest gets harder to handle.

Put in the oven and check at ten minutes to see if the tops are browned. If not, leave another minute or two.

Serve with jam, and if you're feeling piggy, with Devonshire cream (whipped cream works too, from one of those aerosol cans, so you can just put a spot of it on).

When I asked Tim for the recipe, he sent along a few additional tips:

Try making them without currants, and using them as a base for shortcake, with, say, yogurt instead of whipped cream, plus fruit.

Finally, as a tip, since the kids left home, I:

a) make a double quantity (and I love using goat butter rather than  regular butter.)

b) don't add the currants till right before baking, because

c) you can put the big batch in the freezer and keep it for months,  and use just a small amount to make a few scones as the occasion demands. If you leave out the currants, you can then go either way, to scones or shortcake. Makes whipping up a nice treat a matter of  ten minutes.

d) feel free to substitute soy, rice, or almond milk for regular milk.

And baking anything that's really cold improves the quality of the pastry. So, frozen mix works really well.

Some interesting links:
Wikipedia The scone is a British snack of Scottish origin. A small quickbread made of wheat, barley or oatmeal, usually with baking powder as a leavening agent. British scones are often lightly sweetened, but may also be savoury. In the U.S., scones are drier, larger and typically sweet. WikiScones

Tim O'Reilly Various Things I've Written
Tim O’Reilly Bio
Wired Magazine Interview

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