Hot Scones

Okay, scones are old fashion but then who cares when the have thick raspberry jam and whip cream on them!

What it so great about scones is that you can bake a large batch or two of them and freeze half of them. When unexpected friends or guest term up, you can pull them out around thirty minutes before you need them and they are ready to eat. They don’t lose their shape or taste when they have been thawed and therefore are an ideal quick item to have in the freezer.

Simply by putting in a variety of different ingredients you can change the taste of the scone from plain to savory to sweet.

3 cups Flour                                                            ¼ teaspoon Salt
4 ½ teaspoons Baking Powder                                50 g (2 ozs) Butter
1 to 1 ½ cups milk

Preheat your oven to 230 C (450 F). This is a hot oven and you will need to keep an eye on your scones as they will be ready very quickly.

Sift all your dry ingredients and then rub in the butter. Rub in butter means that you have got to get your hands dirty. Cut the butter into small cubes and then rub the butter and dry ingredients together with your fingertips. The mixture should be a bit like breadcrumbs, you should not have any plain butter left.

Next add the milk. Start off with about ¾ of a cup of milk and mix quickly. The Edmonds cookbook suggest that you use a knife to do this and having tried several different methods, this one seems to work. I use a blunt butter knife. Continue to add milk until you get a dough. The mixture shouldn’t be wet, if it is you have added too much milk. If this happens try adding a little more flour to the mixture until it is doughy but not wet.

Need the dough lightly on a flour board and then roll out so that it is about 12-20 cm (½ to ¾ inch) thick. You can cut your flatten dough into squares, although the kids might like to us a cup to get round scones.

Bake in your hot oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Eat still warm, cold, as they are or with your favorite topping.

Cheese scones
Do not add butter, substitute it with ½ cup grated cheese. Reduce milk to 1 cup. Cook at 215 C (425 F) for 10 minutes

Sultana Scones
Add ½ cup of sultanas and 1 dessertspoon sugar to the plain scone mixture. The rest is the same as the plain scone recipe above.

Serve with tea or coffee and slashing of jam and cream!