No-rise Scones

This is from Sundays at Moosewood.

Ingredients

• 1.5 tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups flour
• 1.5 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450 F.
In mixing bowl, combine butter and flour with your hands, rubbing the lumps of butter between your fingers and thumbs. Add the sugar, salt, and raisins. Slowly stir in the milk, until a soft (but not sticky) dough has formed. DO NOT OVERKNEAD.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a 1/2 inch thickness and cut out 2-inch rounds. Place them on a buttered baking pan.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until just beginning to brown.
Eat while hot.

Thoughts: This was dreadful. There is no other way to say it. Dreadful. Why the hell would this recipe not call for baking powder? The little blurb before the recipe says "oh no, baking powder is so bitter. This way, you can savor the taste of the flour". Bullshit. No-rise scones are not worth it. They came out super flat (obviously) and so they probably cooked for too long. They were totally rubbery and over-cooked in the middle. Moving away from the cookbook's inadequacies, I also probably overkneaded the dough, though I sort of thought that if you don't have a leavening agent, you can't overknead. Perhaps I was mistaken.
There's nothing else to say. These totally sucked. I cooked the second batch at 10 minutes rather than 20 in order to attempt to remedy the over-cooked nature, but it didn't seem to help much. They were softer, but hardly more edible.
Fellow bakers, do not ever follow a scone recipe that does not call for baking powder. SO not worth it.

Disaster Index: 9/10