These are not the nice neat and tidy looking scones you can buy in supermarkets and some cafes. They are a bit sprawly and pitted, but they are light and tasty.
Makes 10-12 scones, depending how good you are at cutting the things out!
Ingredients
Plain scones
- 500g plain flour
- 8 tsp baking pwder
- (you can substitute 500g of self raising flour for the above - my mother in law reckons it tastes better if you do)
- 1 tsp salt
- 75g fat (ideally a mix of about 1/2 something like TREX and 1/2 something like butter. It works well using a spread like benecol, too)
- 300ml milk (I use skimmed)
- Extra flour for rolling
Lightly greased baking tray(s)
For sweet plain scones add:
- 75g granulated sugar
- Small drop of vanilla (or use vanilla sugar or vanilla salt in place of the salt or sugar)
For fruit scones add:
- 75g raisins (or sultanas)
- 25g sugar
For cheese scones add:
- 75g extra mature cheddar
- 1 tsp English mustard powder
- (I usually put more cheese and mustard in - but don't put too much cheese in as the scones will get too soggy)
If you want to glaze the tops, one beaten egg (I don't do this)
Method
- Preheat oven to 220c
- Put dry ingredients in a bowl (this includes cheese, raisins etc)
- Add the fat and rub in until it's like wet sand
- Add all the milk in one go and mix together quickly
- Turn the mix out onto a floured surface and roll until it's just deeper than 1" thick
- Using a cutter that's about 2 1/2" diameter, cut out as many circles as you can.
- Ball up the remainder, roll out, continue cutting
- carry on until you have used all the dough
- Put in oven to bake for about 10 minutes - check after 8 to see if they're golden.
- Eat on day of baking.