I think the weather finally turned to Fall here in the Pacific Northwest, even though we’ve technically been on Fall for quite a while. For this month, I thought I’d make something that isn’t too hard to make; something that you can enjoy with a warm beverage in the morning.

There is a place in the neighborhood where I work that has the best fig scones, although they also make other things that become the stars, and their scones get overshadowed by the more popular items. But what I like about their fig scones is that they are very cake-like and tender on the inside with a harder surface on the outside. I wanted to recreate them, even using dried figs like they do, but these turned out to be a lot craggier on the outside than the ones that they sell. I think it’s the demerara sugar I used.

I used this recipe from The Kitchn, as a guide, and discovered that cragginess in a scone isn’t a bad quality for a scone to have. If you don’t have demerara or turbinado sugar, they will still be good, just not as craggy. I like that word! CRAGGY!

I know it kind of looks like I just busted out a bucket of KFC extra crispy chicken thighs, but trust me, they are everything you want in a scone! Craggy on the outside, with an almost cake-like texture on the inside. The secret is to use about two-thirds cake flour with a third of regular AP flour. Less AP flour means less gluten development.

And I’ve never had unsulfured and unsweetened dried mission figs before, but they are now my preferred type of dried fig! (Ideally I think fresh figs would be the way to go, but one can’t always find fresh figs, especially in the middle of Fall!) I lucked out finding these variety of dried figs at the local Safeway closest to me.

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