biscuit and scrambled egg

Biscuits if you are American, scones if you are not. I am writing this in the US, so biscuits it is. Call it whatever you wish. 

Scrambled eggs as sauce. The difference between this and an actual sauce, is that the whole egg is used, not just the yolks, and there is much less butter or oil drizzled in while whisking. Like a sauce the egg contains lemon and mustard, salt and pepper, butter or oil is whisked in while heating.  The egg will thicken at 148℉ / 65℃, and it will begin to set at just a few degrees beyond that. 

It  looks like there are three layers ↑ of biscuit. There are nine layers. I do not know why all the layers are not showing clearly. I suppose they were pinched on the edge when cut. Maybe they were wet with butter. They sure were flaky when I broke them open. See, there are two kinds of flakes literally built into these biscuits; the flakes that are formed by smashed peas of butter coated with flour, and the buttered layers formed by stacking. They would be soft and tender and airy without them, due to the chemical leaven, but they are actually flaky with them. This distinguishes these scones from all others in the universe. Well, that and pepper. I mean, come on, who puts pepper in their scones? I do, that's who. 

Cold butter is rubbed into flour. This flour contains a regular Wisconsin cheddar. Nothing special, but it does behave as a fat. The flour also contains two types of chemical leaven; baking powder and baking soda activated by lemon citrus acid. I did have buttermilk, but it was beyond the expiration date and it turned into something, er, different. Yogurt would do nicely as acid. As it is, I just soured some milk with lemon. 

Baking powder is baking soda with its own powdered acid, cream of tartar which is a byproduct of the grape wine fermentation industry. It is activated at low heat. Some baking powders are dual action. Those include an acid activated at high heat, typically an aluminum phosphate. In the case of a dual action baking powder used in conjunction with baking soda and acid, then three chemical leavening agents are all working to produce CO2 bubbles, all with baking soda, one is activated immediately upon contact with the liquid acid, the second activated at low heat, the third activated at high heat. 

Melted butter is heated in advance to paint the biscuits in layers, and to have at hand to drizzle into the egg while whisking. Butter within and between layers also tends to leaven. Water within butter, 20% usually, steams, expands, and evaporates, it cooks and sets the dough in a separated slightly inflated position. Thus flakes.  

The butter is rubbed into the flour along with grated cheese. When a crumbly mixture is obtained then the acidified liquid is added, in this case lemon juice with milk. There isn't much time available to work because the first volatile chemical reaction is active once wet ingredients come into contact with dry ingredients. You do not want to waste all that bubble action through dalliance and over handling . Best to simply shape the scones, or biscuits, whatever you call them, then insert them directly into a very hot oven. After the shock of the heat activates the second stage chemical leaven, then the heat to the oven is reduced for slower more reasonable baking. 

These biscuits will not have those two advantages working for them, speed, and preheated oven. They will suffer for it. I am dallying by rolling out the dough, buttering layers, folding, rolling again, buttering again, folding again. Through all of that, the bubble action has already started and all that activity tends to deflate. Worse, the dolled up biscuits are not going directly into a hot oven, one that will shock the second phase into action. Instead it is going into a smaller countertop convection oven in order to conserve energy. See?  That there is a sacrifice to conservation, a tradeoff between superbly-raised biscuits for  the avoidance of firing up a full-scale oven. Maybe I should have gone with the full-scale oven just for demonstration purposes, but the eco-conservationist in me prohibited it. Today. Tomorrow I may beat back that internal eco-conservationist, the ruiner of my fun. 

Do this twice. Three times if you're fast enough. 

To trim, make clean cuts. The water in the butter between layers steams, expands, evaporates, separates the layers and cooks them. I'm having déja vù again. Did I say that already? Did I say that alr ... ?  If the edges are pinched then the layers cannot fully elevate. As with pastry dough, you can build in flake flake flake flake layers. But you must work quickly because with chemical leaven the reaction is already started. 

Eh, not bad ↑ considering the benefit of speed and of an extra hot preheated oven was forfeited. 

The eggs are warmed first in hot water, as a form of tempering. Where I live the hot tap water is excessively hot. I measured it today at 130℉ / 55℃, very near the cooking point of egg, so there is very little distance to go whisking the egg in a double boiler, or a bain-marie until it cooks. The beauty of this is that you have total control. You can stop at a very thin sauce, or you can continue to a stiffer more broken substance. You can see the egg cook on the side of the bowl as you whisk. It is up to you to decide how far you want to take the whole process. If the egg is cooking too fast for your whisking, the bowl can be removed from the heat source while you continue whisking until the cooked portion of egg is incorporated. I did this a few times because I was dealing with other things, biscuits, photographing and the like, while this was going on.  Conversely, you can allow the heat on the bowl to firm the egg then scrape the cooked egg into the liquid portion to the stiffness you desire. Once you get the hang of it, the process becomes completely controllable and the full range of egg sauces, puddings, custards, is at your fingertips.