A great treat with morning or afternoon tea, scones make a nice in-between meals snack. In England, scones are traditionally served as part of a Devonshire tea, where scones are topped with clotted cream and jam. They are washed down with a hot pot of good English tea (with milk of course). In my opinion, this is the best way to eat them.
Excellent jam is a scone essential. So much so, that the first instruction in scone making should be, "Buy or make yourself the best jam possible." If you don't have good jam, it's worth a quick trip to the store to get some.
The other important tip is to serve your scones fresh from the oven. Once cold, scones tend to harden and dry out, typical of those store-bought "rocks" sold at your local coffee shop.
Makes 8 scones
2
cups flour (10.5 oz)1/3
cup sugar2
tsp baking powder1/2
tsp salt4
oz butter1
cup currants (raisins work almost as well)1
tsp vanilla extract2/3
cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup whole milk if you don't have any buttermilk)
Preheat oven to
425°F220°C
.
To a medium-sized bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut the butter into eight pieces and add atop the flour.
Flour and butter in a bowl. The start of so many baking recipes.
Rub the butter into the flour until it is fully incorporated and only a few pea-sized lumps remain. The best way to do this is to scoop a little butter and flour up with your hands. Holding your hands above the bowl, slowly allow the mixture to trickle through your fingers while rubbing it together with your fingertips. This technique aerates the mixture and results in a lighter scone.
The butter and flour are combined. If you work gently, the mixture should still be grainy and not clump together too much.
Add the currants, vanilla and milk and stir until the mixture comes together into a sticky dough.
Empty the mixture onto a well-floured work surface. Knead the dough a few times until it becomes smooth. You want to work the dough as little as possible, so if find yourself kneading after half a minute, you should stop.
The dough should be moist, yet dry enough so it can still be worked.
Shape the dough into a rectangle twice as long as it is wide, about 3/4 inch thick. Transfer to a lightly floured baking dish. With a large sharp knife, cut the dough into eight pieces (two rows of four scones each). Separate the scones, moving them about 1/4 inch apart. As the scones bake, they will expand and stick together again. Once out of the oven, however, they will be easy to separate and yield the perfect scone - one that is crisp on top and moist on the sides.
The scone dough has been shaped and cut. All that remains is to separate them a bit so they have room to expand when baked.
Bake between 15 and 20 minutes until the scones have risen and the tops are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.
Fresh scones from the oven. They look so good that one of them invariably arrives at the table already inside my belly.
Cut each scone in half and spread with jam and clotted cream, freshly
whipped cream or butter. Serve warm.
Variations
In the absence of good preserves, a scone can be spiced up in a number of other ways. Try adding the zest of an orange in place of the vanilla and a dusting of sugar on top before baking. Or maybe go savory with a little sharp cheddar cheese folded into the mix instead of sugar, raisins and vanilla.