Recipe: Scones for Cream Tea

While a full afternoon tea is sometimes a bit overwhelming with so many sandwiches, scones and then sweet desserts on top of all of that, I love a simple cream tea. A scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam and some English breakfast tea sip between bites.

I always thought they would be complicated to make, but I found a simple BBC recipe for classic scones and they were actually really easy. You can add raisins or experiment with the ingredients. I’ve seen all sorts. Just search scones on Pinterest and you see Cheddar Bacon Scones, Vanilla and Orange Scones, Snickerdoodle Scones and many other crazy flavours.  These are just the basic.

Ingredients:

• 350g self-raising flour, plus more for dusting
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 85g butter, cut into cubes
• 3 tbsp caster sugar
• 175ml milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• A little squeeze of lemon juice
• 1 beaten egg, to glaze
• Jam and clotted cream, to serve

Pre-heat the oven to 220C/430F and pop a non-stick baking sheet in the oven to warm.

Mix flour, salt and baking powder.

Add butter in small chunks.

Instead of stirring with a spoon, scrunch it with your fingers until it becomes a bowl full of what looks like crumbs.

Next, add the sugar.

 Microwave the milk for about 30 seconds and add the vanilla and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Make a shallow hole in the middle of the dry ingredients and using a knife combine the wet ingredients into the mix.

Place the dough on a floured surface and fold it few times (not too many) to make it smoother.

You’ll want it make it flat on top and about 4cm thick.

Earlier in the day, I went out to buy a round cookie-cutter that was, as the recipe suggested, about 5cm wide. The only one I found was much bigger so I just made 4 gigantic scones instead of about 8 small ones. Dip your cutter into flour first so it doesn’t stick and start making scone shapes, re-shaping the dough when you run out of cutting room.

Beat an egg and brush the tops of the scones before you pop them in the oven.

According to the recipe, they cook for 10 minutes, but because mine weretwice the size, I left them in for almost 20 minutes. You’ll know they are ready when they’re golden brown on top.

Serve with a cup of tea, clotted cream and some jam. You can decide which order the cream and jam go, but I usually go for cream on the bottom, jam on top! I still have Harrods tea left as well which I’m quite enjoying!

There are more recipes here if you’re looking for some inspiration!