These scones are delightfully soft and fluffy centered with enough sweetness they make a great afternoon teacake. Fill these with jam and cream and you will want to lock the door, grab a cup of tea and sit down to catch up with your favourite soaps.
The test is, do you make 2, 3 or unconsciously prepare all 12 that you devour using your fore finger to push the jam and cream back into your mouth as not to miss any of this traditional goodness.
Should you feel guilty for this, never, as no one would ever know as these are so easy and quick to make you could have another batch in the oven ready for when your friends come over.
Classic Scones
Ingredients
- 350 g self-raising flour plus dusting
- ¼ tsp. Salt
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 85 g Butter cut into cubes
- 3 tbsp. caster sugar
- 175 ml milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
- 1 egg beaten for the glaze
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC, put the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and rub in the butter until it resembles a sand texture and then stir in the sugar.
- Heat the milk until luke warm and not hot (This is too allow the milk to react with the lemon to recreate a buttermilk type effect). Make a well in the flour mix and then add the vanilla and lemon to the milk, stir then add to the flour mix.
- Combine the ingredients with a dinner knife until just mixed. Dust a work surface with flour and then tip out the scone mix onto the flour. Knead gently until binded and relatively smooth.
- Roll out the mix until it’s about 2-3 cm thick. Using a 5 cm cutter (I used a fluted cutter. A smooth cutter is preferred but not essential) dip in four and cut out as many scones as you can. Bind the scone mix and cut as many as possible again. At this point you may need to bind th last attempt and have a rough shaped scone. Re-working the dough over and over will prevent the rise and make these scones a little tough.
- Brush the scones with the egg and then place onto the baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes. They will be cooked when golden brown. These are best served warm. They can be frozen but should be cooled completely and frozen straight away.
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