Stunning myself a bit, I have decided to throw caution to the wind on this living-on-the-edge thing during my midlife chaos/crisis event and go all in on “Baking Bridgerton.”
To my credit, I have not purchased a motorcycle, I have not joined a gypsy band (I did join a theater group… that’s a blog for another day), and I have not taken up basket weaving.
I also have not quit therapy, though my Couch Lady has likely contemplated buying her own motorcycle, leaving with the gypsies, and/or procuring basket-weaving supplies in the aftermaths of our sessions.
So, at the risk of burning the kitchen down, melting all the plastic utensils in the house, or stripping the microwave motor (do microwaves have motors? I don’t know but if they do, I can burn it out), baking it is.
I decided to get all three of Betty Crocker’s Bridgerton kits. It’s a trilogy, after all.
First up are Strawberry Scones.
A glance at the directions, and I notice you must roll the dough. That’ll be okay. Before Christmas I dabbled with cat-shaped cookies, and I’d purchased a brand-new rolling pin that’s only seen that one use, so I’ll get a little more money’s worth out of it.
Speaking of directions, let me say right off the bat, the box is unclear. Or at least unclear to this inept “baker.” (I use that term very loosely.)
I think Betty should hire me. I could read the directions and tell them fifteen ways someone’s gonna screw it up before step three and blame the company. I could save them millions in lawsuits. All I’d ask in return is a personal chef and someone to clean my house. I think this would solve problems all around.
The front of the box declares, “Simply add butter and milk or water.”
Well. Which is it, milk or water? And is that whole milk or two percent? Will it bake hot enough to kill whatever may be in my slightly-past-the-expiration-date milk? And butter? Salted? Unsalted?
See?
I’m not even off the front of the box and I’m already discombobulated. It also says the kit contains fruit-flavored scone mix, strawberry jam, and round cookie cutters.
That seems clear, but here’s the issue: There was only one cookie cutter, not plural cookie cutters. Did I get ripped off, or did the front of the box have a typo? And this cutter is tiny. Did they put the right one in the box? I mean either there’s a typo or not enough cutters.
My confidence in me is low. My confidence in Betty is even lower, no matter that she’s pretending to be Lady Whistledown.
But, we’re committed to this now, and not a motorcycle, so here we go, to make about six scones, per the side panel on the box.
Step 1: Heat oven to 375, or 350 for nonstick.
My pan isn’t nonstick, but if I put parchment paper over it, is it now nonstick? A little tip at the bottom back of the box says, “Use parchment for easy cleanup.”
And I do like easy cleanup.
I tailspin and overthink. Does this tip refer to parchment on the baking pan or on the counter to roll out the dough? I don’t know, so I do both. Can’t hurt.
Since I can’t decide if my setup is nonstick or not, I split the difference in the degrees and heat the oven to 360. I’m acutely aware this has got to be the easiest step, step one, and I’ve no idea what I’m doing.
In over my head on preheating the oven.
Step 2: Stir scone mix, butter, and milk.
But the ingredient list says milk or water, so what if I wanted to use water? Is that in a later step? You say I’m overthinking this. I say if I don’t overthink this, these will not be scones. They will be scraps for the rabid raccoon circling our house every evening. (Or this raccoon has Black Death because of some scraps of mine he already consumed…)
And the large bowl? I know NOW that angel food cake swells and enlarges, all the things. Do scones do that, too? How large is large? I get the largest bowl I have, and once the ingredients are in there and no swelling occurs, I realize I’ve overkilled it. Overthought it, too. But I’m trying my best with a chaotic brain and extremely limited skillset.
Step 3: Roll the dough on a floured surface to a ¾ inch thickness, cut with the included cookie cutter, and place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Okay, Betty. There’s, like, twelve steps in this step. Some bits are too vague, and then you throw in geometry. I cannot eyeball ¾ inch or one inch. I know this because of the Christmas cookies. Some of my cats were thin and crispy. And some of my cats were chonky critters who ate the next-door cat.
Rolling this out precisely probably matters, but I refuse to go get a ruler. I mean, there are limits.
And how much flour constitutes a floured surface? If I use too much, will the scones be dusty? I know they’re not as luscious as a croissant, but I don’t want them dusty.
I do the best I can. I grab a handful of flour and toss it all over my parchemented countertop. This is a bad idea—the amount of flour and the loosey-goosey parchment. My rolling pin flies all over the place, and the dough looks like a topographical map of the Himalayas.
I’m not trying to make Yak Balls, Betty. A little help here.
To parchment or not to parchment, and how much flour is floured?
But I do my best and it’s rolled. White powder all over the parchment and the counter and me and the floor. And all over Stella Marie’s fuzzy feet, who decided to jump up to the counter in the middle of this fiasco to see if, by chance, I was dishing out Tuna Feast in Gravy a few hours early.
I use that pathetic little cookie cutter to do the thing, and I think I’ve got the circles at least one inch apart. I still don’t know if my sheet is greased/ungreased/nonstick. And all that extra flour. We are most certainly bordering on dusty.
At this point, I’ve yet to catch on that I’ve got like 20 scones cut out and the box says it makes six. So… yeah.
There’s another tip on the back of the box: Beat 1 egg and brush top of each scone with egg wash.
I debate this. I mean, the parchment tip didn’t turn out so well. But I decide to live out on the edge and do the egg thing.
I beat and I brush each circle with egg.
Step 4: Bake for 16 to 18 minutes. Cool completely.
The moment of truth. I set three timers, and, miracle of miracles, nothing’s burnt. Neat rows of tiny circles. 20 or so of them.
Only a third of them have scrambled egg toppings, but we’ll not dwell on that.
I go off to decompress from this stress while they cool.
Step 5: Cut the scones in half and spread one teaspoon of jam on the bottom half, replace the top.
This is nice and specific. I got this, Betty.
NOW it dawns on me, as I hold a knife in one hand and a tiny little eggy-topped thing in the other hand that there will not be any slicing anything in half. I rolled the dough too thin and it’s a miracle that I didn’t burn them. (It’s that splitting the difference in the temperature up in the first step saved them, I think.)
I’m supposed to have six cut-in-half-able goodies. I have 20. With eggs.
Now I have to re-math and re-geometry this thing. I declare ten of the circles as bottoms and put a little squirt of jam on each, being sure to hide the eggiest of the egg parts under the jam, and declare the other ten circles as tops.
Six scones. I have ten. Now the calories are off, and I know there’s not 1 teaspoon of jam on each because they’re too tiny to hold that much goo. Especially with all the egg taking up space.
But, once assembled, they sort of looked like the picture. Minus the yellow bits.
And minus Stella Marie’s contribution, that is. (The Hubs is finding this out now—about the egg and the cat hair. We didn’t get sick and I didn’t serve these to outsiders, so all is well. It’s fine. Everything is fine.)
And they didn’t taste too bad.
But Betty, I’m inept. The clearest bit of direction on this whole thing was, “Do Not Eat Raw Scone Dough.” The rest could use some clarification for those of us on the edge of midlife chaos with one brain cell left expecting Downton Abbey characters to pop out of the Bridgerton label and guide a gal along…
We’ve got to do better next week, Betty. Clearer, more precise directions that don’t require an engineering degree.
Or an egg wash.
