As a side note to my Plum Jam Post, and for everyone who wanted to know, I thought that I should add the recipe for scones. If you grew up reading Enid Blyton books like I did, then you spent many hours drooling over descriptions of tea time with crumpets and scones. My cousin got me started on making these last year, and they are our go-to item for breakfasts and teas, especially for impromptu guests!

They originated in Scotland, where they use sour cream in the recipe. I have tried making them with sour cream, and they’re very good, but I like this recipe the best for delicious, fluffy scones, which calls for heavy cream instead.

Scones

You can make sweet or savory scones, adding fruit and nuts in sweet ones, and tomatoes, herbs and cheese in savory ones. I like making plain ones to serve with home made jam.

Scones with home made Plum Jam

It is advised to use dried fruit such as blueberries for the recipe, otherwise tender, fleshy fresh fruit will become mush. I, however, always prefer fresh to anything else, so I carefully mix in fresh blueberries in with my hand at the very end. (Blueberry scones are my favorite.) But even I wouldn’t try that with raspberries!

Blueberry Scones

Glazing is not compulsory, but I always do it when I’m making scones for guests. Otherwise, I wolf down so many straight out of the oven, that I can’t be bothered to glaze the remaining ones!

I mix the dough for plain scones for a few seconds in a food processor, and then finish kneading and mix in the fruit by hand at the end. Sometimes I use a cookie cutter to cut out the shapes (rarely) but mostly I just drop handfuls onto the cookie sheet and bake them. I never do ‘slices;’ I never pictured them that way in my head, so they just seem wrong to me.

Scones

Enjoy!

Scones Recipe Adapted from Alton Brown’s Scones Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
4 tsp aluminum free baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
6 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 cup cream
1 egg
Handful dried currants/ dried cranberries/ dried blueberries

Method:

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix well. Cut in butter. In a separate bowl, combine cream with beaten egg then add to dry ingredients. Stir in fruit. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Roll dough out and cut into biscuit size rounds. Bake for 15 minutes or until brown.

Scones

Notes:

There are two points to be noted. Firstly, the butter should be very cold. I put it in the freezer for a little bit before I start making them.  And secondly, the dough should be handled as little as possible for the lightest, fluffiest scones.

Blueberry scones are good with a lemon/lime glaze. Cranberry scones are well paired with an orange glaze.

For the glaze:

Mix the juice of 1 lemon with 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar. Spread on the scones when cool.

Blueberry Scones

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