Baking Scones

Perhaps M.F.K. Fisher would have understood the beginning of this story. Like so many of hers, although it's partly about food, it's also partly about the mysterious, spontaneous movements of the heart – if that doesn't sound too pretentious.

I was up late last night, working and listening to some Celtic songs on the laptop, when I realized I had to bake scones. Not just to bake them, either, but to eat a little plate of them with a dab of butter and some homemade raspberry jam. (Conveniently enough, I have a fair supply of raspberry jam close at hand.) Having staved off the urge for some time, eventually I decided the thing had to be done. That's when I deciphered the connection between the warm still air, the sweet sad music and the need to bake.

You see, a few years ago my brother Dwight spent a summer dying in a Montreal hospital. We were very close as youngsters, but we had grown pretty far apart by that time. In early August, sensing we didn't have much time left, I took a train down and stayed for a week at the old family home in Montreal. I spent every day at the hospital, talking about childish things and helping him eat and move about. Every night I went to an internet cafe to report to his old friends on how he was, and to let them know what they might be able to do for him.

How quickly we fall into routines! By the second day, I had already marked out one little space in the routine to help me recharge so I could be cheerful and useful to my family. Every morning, I'd go around the corner to the Gryphon, a local tea shop, where I'd sit alone in a sturdy wooden chair and read part of a book of Yeats poetry they had lying around, listening to Celtic music and sipping coffee while eating a plate of their fresh-baked scones with homemade raspberry jam.

The human brain has an oddly straightforward method of linking physical, emotional and spiritual matters. Last night, the feel of the weather and the sound of the music told my subconscious that this is the time of year I last saw my brother alive. It gave my conscious mind the message by forcing me to add the missing component: the taste of the scones with jam. And that's how I remembered.

How to Bake Devonshire Scones

Makes about six – a good way to use up soured milk

1. Preheat the oven to 450F and prepare a floured baking sheet.
2. Sift 1 cup of flour together with 2 tsp baking powder and ¼ tsp salt into a basin.
3. With cool fingertips rub in 1 to 2 tbsp fat (I use butter).
4. Add just enough soured milk or yogurt to make a light, springy dough (about ½ cup, perhaps, but it's best to go by feel). Don't overwork it.
5. As soon as it will hold together, but before it gets sticky, press the dough into a loose ball and turn onto a floured board. Knead it lightly to remove cracks if necessary, roll out lightly about ¾" to 1" thick and cut out rounds with a fluted cutter (if you're lucky enough to have one, or a glass if you're not). You can reroll the leftover bits, but they will be tougher and not quite so pretty, like the third scone in the top picture.
6. Bake near the top of a hot oven on the floured sheets for 7 to 10 minutes; they should be mostly pale golden with just a touch of brown.

For variation, you can add raisins, currants, dried cranberries, chopped apple, a dash of vanilla sugar, a few pinches of chai spice, some lemon zest, or whatever else you like to the mix just before adding the milk. You might choose to glaze with beaten egg or milk, or sprinkle some sugar (or cinnamon sugar) over the tops before baking.

There is a second part to this story.

The recipe I use was taught to me by a friend whom I've not seen for at least 25 years. We spent a good deal of time together in the early '80s, but she was married to a man in the British Foreign Service, and I was about to leave Montreal to pursue graduate studies, so we lost track of each other entirely when she moved back to the UK. But whenever I bake scones, I pull out the tattered old ring-bound notebook where I keep favourite recipes, and I see her name again, and I think of her.

It finally occurred to me last night that, the internet having been invented since last we spoke, I should look her up... with the result that this morning we were on the phone chatting as if a quarter century had not just elapsed. (Her husband got himself an OBE in the meantime; she has a thriving career in kinesiology.)

Is there a point to all this? Maybe that you shouldn't beat yourself up next time you have an irrational impulse relating to food. If you listen hard enough, you may realize you're trying to remind yourself of something important that you've been too rushed and distracted to remember. And if not... well, there's nothing wrong with a batch of fresh-baked scones.