Why Adding Egg and Light Cream Turned Scone Dough into Batter

Question

I was making a rhubarb scone recipe that did not call for any eggs, just 1 1/4 cup heavy cream.
I wanted the rising effect of an egg so I attempted to reduce the amount of cream by adding 1 egg. The other change , I substituted light cream for the heavy cream volume.
When I mixed the wet with the dry it became batter, I was forced to add an additional 3/4 of a cup of flour to get it to a workable dough consistency.

Lynn Clark · Accepted Answer

Hi Steve -
We aren’t sure of your question - are you asking why it turned into batter?
This is likely because you made two changes to the recipe. First, in order to replace some of the cream with egg you would’ve needed to measure the amount of cream you removed by volume or weight and replace with the exact same amount of egg to ensure the texture of the dough would be the same. Second, you used light cream instead of heavy cream. Light cream contains less milk fat that heavy cream (18-30% vs. at least 36%). The more milk fat, the thicker the cream, and the less water in the product. This would definitely make the dough more loose.
Hope that helps!
The Milk Street Cooking Team

Why Adding Egg and Light Cream Turned Scone Dough into Batter

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