Return of the Scone: The Baker fights back

Okay, so after a short break, a little research and a dash of thought I decided to once again tackle the challenge of making the better for me scone. (I'm dropping the lower fat, lower calorie, better for me because it's a lot to type. But, don't worry, the goal is still to be all of those things.)

So, after the first round I can honestly say that what I made was nothing like a scone. It seemed the traditional full butter recipe had won the battle. But, I was not about to retreat. I want it all: good tasting, passes for scone but doesn't kill my daily calorie count scone. I knew the major problem with my first attempt was too many wet ingredients. That was really an easy fix, don't use as much buttermilk (or milk but more on that later.) The other issue was controlling the gluten and this is where watching Good Eats with Alton Brown came in handy.

Mr Brown, masterful chef that he is, did an episode on pie crust. In it he suggested using corn meal to help give the crust more crunch and keep a nice balance between flaky and tender. Hmmm this sounded promising. I also remember an episode where he talked about using corn meal as a means of controlling gluten. So, I decided that I would substitute some of my flour for corn meal.

This all seemed very promising, but I had a bigger problem at hand: replacing the butter. Last time I attempted to use applesauce and the results were flavorful. But, I wondered if just using an item that is so different from butter was ever going to create the right texture. I considered using oil but fat wise that hardly seemed better than butter. And then, like so many creative endeavors, while letting my mind wander one night it hit me. There was something that I often used as a spread, much like butter, that was low calorie, low fat and diet friendly: Laughing Cow Cheese.

At 35 calories per wedge laughing cow is a dieters best friend. Now, I wasn't so naive (or foolish?) to think that laughing cow alone would take the place of butter. I'm sure there are all sorts of molecular differences between butter and processed cheese. But, still something told me that this may just be the thing to make my scones.

Next time: how I built the recipe