fig & aniseed scone twist

I've started!  Heaven knows how long it's going to take me from here, but I have started! Yay!

This scone twist was pretty confidence-building.  It doesn't look as beautiful as it should (see me vs Dean in pic 2) which is annoying (very annoying, but I have to remember that the purpose of this is to learn, and learn I have), because it tastes amazing.  The scone was perfect.  Seriously!  Perfect (at least, it seemed perfect ... if it wasn't perfect, then that means a scone can be even better and the only thing I can say to that is - who knew a scone could be that good.  Not I, for sure).  I didn't half follow it to the letter after reading the recipe about 6 times though. 

What I should have done is paid more attention to the dough once I'd twisted it (and I think maybe my idea of finely chopped and Dean's are a bit different after comparing filling distribution - lesson learned) - knowing how it would develop in baking - and I should have made sure my swirls were more uniform.  You can see where a couple have stuck together in baking and left a gap on the other side.  Grumble.  But, hindsight.  I uploaded pic 3 to show how it looked inside, and I was a bit disappointed with that too (mind you, I also cut it about 10 seconds after the glaze went on.  That was bad, and I know it, but I swear that no mere mortal (and certainly not this mere mortal, who is weaker than most when facing down a baked good) who could smell that thing baking, or was in the immediate area when it came out of the oven would have been able to resist), but a couple more slices in and you could actually see the swirls, so I was pleased with that.  I just can't show you because between me taking a couple of slices and un-covering the swirls, and me getting back to it with a camera, the husband had at it and there are no swirls to be seen. 

The thing I'm most proud of about this is weird - it was my first step in my project and it tasted awesome, but I realised two handicaps too late.  Firstly, we didn't have any cinnamon (oops!  the box in the pantry was empty. There was some swearing) so I had to pound the hell out of a cinnamon stick in the mortar and pestle.  Yay me!  (ok, and yay the husband too because as I was staring glumly into an empty box of ground cinnamon, he was waving a cinnamon stick at me with raised eyebrows and inclining his head towards said mortar and pestle)  Secondly ... it came to the egg wash part of the process and I realised that the little ginger had at some point relocated the pastry brush out of the utensil drawer to an unknown destination.  So, there was improvising.  Maybe you can tell, maybe you can't.  Maybe I shouldn't have admitted to that.

And on that note, I think I need to go and find out what it tastes like lightly toasted and buttered.