After my great success with Sourdough Bread – all thanks to the virtual guidance of Patrick Ryan from Firehouse Bakery in Ireland and the website ilovecooking.ie – I knew I needed to try his recipe for scones. I used Ryan’s Apple & Berry Scones Recipe. This was easy to follow, and easy to be exact thanks to the digital kitchen scale. I am not sure that the final product looked the way he intended, especially since I chose to omit the sliced almonds, but they were really pretty. And perfectly crumbly.  I served it with Emily G’s Triple Berry Jam and it was the perfect addition.
 
I learned a lot about scones in general when I did my research to select a scone recipe. The website FoodCrumbles.com talked about the science of baking scones. I encourage you to read the article for yourself, but here’s the part I found most interesting: “In order to get that crumbliness, you need those fat pockets (from the butter). Not starting by mixing the flour and butter at the start can cause them to not form properly. However, there’s another thing to keep in mind. The butter has to remain solid while making the scones. If the butter melts completely those pockets are gone and it will become more bread like than scone like. Also, remember to not extensively knead the scone dough. Knead so that everything just comes together, but not anymore or again you will lose those air pockets.”

After my great success with Sourdough Bread – all thanks to the virtual guidance of Patrick Ryan from Firehouse Bakery in Ireland and the website ilovecooking.ie – I felt emboldened to try again. This time I made Ryan’s Olive Sourdough Loaf recipe. The steps were almost identical to the regular loaf, so I felt confident about that.  And it was beautiful when it came out of the oven, but that has happened before but without success.  The Olive Loaf was perfect!  It looked beautiful and tasted fantastic. Another Sourdough Win!
 
HINT: If you decide to try this one too, I recommend getting started with the dough around 2pm/2:30 in the afternoon.  That gives you plenty of time to let it proof before putting it in the fridge overnight for the second proofing.  Then you can cook it first thing in the morning.