Scones

The next layer in out afternoon tea extravaganza is the classic scone! However you pronounce it, or whichever order you put the cream and jam on, these are to afternoon tea what meat is to chilli con carne. We have these all the time at home on lazy afternoons and as they are so easy and simple to put together they can be made at a moments notice. Scones are so versatile, and whilst these ones are very simple and plain you can customise them so much. I’ve written a few alternations you can try out at the bottom of the post if you want to jazz your afternoon tea up a bit more.

Recipe

Makes 14 Scones

Time: 20 minutes, plus cooking time

Ingredients

• 100g Unsalted butter
• 465g Self raising flour, plus extra for dusting
• 3 tbsp Caster sugar, plus extra for the topping
• A pinch of salt
• 220ml Milk
• 1 Egg for glazing

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C and line two baking trays with baking paper.
2. Put the butter and flour into a bowl and use a round-bladed knife to chop the butter into small chunks. When you can’t cut the butter up any more go in with your fingers and rub the butter into the flour to get a mixture with the texture of breadcrumbs.
3. Add the sugar and salt to the mixture and stir it in with a round-bladed knife.
4. Now slowly add the milk in a steady stream, mixing continuously with a round-bladed knife until the mixture comes together into a dough.
5. Lightly flour a surface and turn the dough out onto it. Roll the dough out to about 3cm in thickness. Then take a round pastry cutter and stamp out as many scones as you can, placing them onto the lined baking trays as you do. For the best results push the cutter straight down into the dough, don’t twist as this will make the scones rise unevenly. Knead together any leftover dough and repeat.
6. Crack the egg into a bowl and whisk it up with a fork. Then brush the egg onto the top of the scones to glaze.
7. Bake the scones in the oven for 10-15 minutes until risen and golden brown. Then transfer them to wire racks to cool and then serve with jam and clotted cream!

Why not try…

• Sprinkling a little caster sugar onto the top of the scones before baking them – this will give them a delicious crunchy sugar topping!
• Adding 40g of raisins to the mix to get fruity scones.
• Add the zest of 1 lemon to the mixture when you add the milk to get citrus scones. Then serve them with lemon curd and clotted cream.
• Mixing 50g of grated cheddar cheese into the flour, before adding the milk, to get cheesy scones.

Thanks for reading!

Emma x