It’s not something we every had in our house, a plain scone, but traditionally tea rooms in England will serve a plain scone with strawberry jam (jelly) and clotted or Devon cream.
It’s great to have a perfect plain scone recipe to then be able to add your favorite ingredients too.
This is as close to perfect as I’ve found so far, the key is a set of baking scales, because cups are just not accurate enough… I recently purchased this very reasonable set on Amazon, Weighmax Electronic Kitchen Scale
They are only $11 and you can free delivery if you have Amazon Prime.
I’m excited because English recipes are going to be a breeze now and I don’t have to use my postal scales anymore LOL 🙂
| Prep Time | 15 mins |
| Cook Time | 15 mins |
| Passive Time | 5 mins |
| Servings |
scones
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Ingredients
- 1 lb Strong White Flour King Arthur Bread Flour is ideal
- 3 oz softened salted butter Use Kerrygold if you can get it
- 3 oz caster sugar (fine granulated)
- 2 eggs free range organic are best!
- 5 tsp baking powder
- 8 oz whole milk
- 1 egg beaten with a little salt for glazing
- 1 oz Strong White Flour for rolling out
Ingredients
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Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220C (200C fan assisted)/425F/Gas 7.
- Line baking tray with parchment paper
- use 1lb of the flour into a large bowl and add the butter. Rub the flour and butter together with your fingers to create a breadcrumb-like mixture.
- Add the sugar, eggs and baking powder and use a wooden spoon to turn the mixture gently. Make sure you mix all the way down to the bottom and incorporate all of the ingredients.
- Now add half of the milk and keep turning the mixture gently with the spoon to combine. Then add the remaining milk a little at a time and bring everything together to form a very soft, wet dough. (You may not need to add all of the milk.)
- Sprinkle most of the remaining flour onto a clean work surface. Tip the soft dough out onto the work surface and sprinkle the rest of the flour on top. The mixture will be wet and sticky.
- Next roll the dough out: sprinkle flour onto the work surface and the top of the dough, then use the rolling pin to roll up from the middle and then down from the middle. Turn the dough by 90 degrees and continue to roll until it’s about 2.5cm/1in thick. ‘Relax’ the dough slightly by lifting the edges and allowing the dough to drop back onto the work surface.
- Using a pastry cutter, stamp out rounds from the pastry and place them onto the baking tray. Dip the edge of the pastry cutter in flour to make it easier to cut out the scones without them sticking. Don’t twist the cutter – just press firmly, then lift it up and push the dough out.
- Once you’ve cut 4 or 5 rounds you can re-work and re-roll the dough to make it easier to cut out the remaining rounds. Any leftover dough can be worked and rolled again, but the resulting scones won’t be as fluffy.
- Place the scones on the baking tray and leave them to rest for a few minutes to let the baking powder work. Then use a pastry brush (or your finger if you don’t have a brush) to glaze them with the beaten egg and salt mixture. Be careful to keep the glaze on the top of the scones. (If it runs down the sides it will stop them rising evenly.
- Bake the scones in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes, or until the scones are risen and golden-brown.
- Leave the scones to cool, then split in half and add butter, jam and clotted cream to serve.
Recipe Notes
REMEMBER... don't overwork your dough!
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