Scones without, with a few, and scones with a lot of raisins.
Scones with milk and scones with buttermilk. (3 different recipes with all a different amount…)
Recipes with a lot of butter/sugar/flour and recipes with not much butter/sugar/flour.
I’ve made recipes which resulted in a soggy bunch, scones that were too dry and fell right away apart, pale ones, burned ones and a couple which tasted rather good actually, but nothing like a scone.
I’ve made light and heavy ones and I’ve experimented with the brushing; milk, buttermilk or egg yolk. (which doesn’t make the slightest difference by the way…)
After 3, I must say, very busy bake-days, I finally came up with a recipe that kind of looked like the ones I wanted - They weren’t close to being perfect yet, but he, NOW it could go somewhere(!)
So I made them again, now with more raisins, a bit more flour (I wanted them to be dry…) and a lot less butter (the previous ones were far to buttery; they had a heavy, greasy smell and aftertaste, I wanted them to be a bit more neutral)
Well, 10 minutes in the oven + 3 minutes under the broiler later…HURRAH !- I HAD MADE THE PERFECT SCONE!
They were light, dry and scrumptiously crumbly. The inside just fluffy and moist enough, with a golden brown coating and a delicious crispy, buttery crust.
Scones with just enough raisins, a wonderful aroma, gorgeous colour and trust me, the best flavour ever.
Best to eat freshly baked of course, still slightly warm, with some (homemade) jam and a nice cup of tea…
The recipe for the best scones ever:
(makes 6 big ones)
- 225 g self-raising flour
- a pinch of salt
- 40 g granulated sugar
- 50 g cold butter, cut up in little pieces
- 75 g raisins (or other dried fruit)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 3 Tbsp milk
1. Preheat the oven to 220˚C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, sift the self-raising flour with the pinch of salt, and add in the sugar.
3. Add the butter and crumble this, using your fingertips, through the flour until you have a fine texture, looking a little like rough breadcrumbs.
4. Mix in the raisins and stir in the egg and the milk. The dough will now be very quickly ready. Knead it a couple of times, but don’t overwork it. The dough should now feel soft and can easily be formed into a ball.
5. Divide the dough into 6 round little balls, flat the top and shape them so they’ll be about 2 cm high and have a diameter of 7 cm.
6. Brush them with a little milk/egg yolk (doesn’t matter which) and bake them for 10 minutes.
7. They don’t have their beautiful colour yet, so turn on the broiler for 3 minutes.
8. Now they are perfect. The bottom and outside are golden brown and the inside fluffy and delicious. They can be stored at room temperature for a few days or you can freeze them, but best to eat immediately.
I hope you’ll try them, and agree with me…let me know! :)
6 comments:
I made these scones tonight and I totally agree with you.....they are PERFECT!!!! I've been looking for a scone recipe where the scones are not so fluffy and cake like, I like the more traditional scones, dense, yet moist. Thank you so much for your search of the perfect scone recipe!!
I have just made these, delicious. I have been very disheartened because I have had many disasters cooking scones but I will stick to this recipe in future. I made my scones about 3cm high by 4 cm wide and they took 17 minutes to cook and not 10 - but who cares! Thanks.
I love Irish soda bread so much! Making the dough into scones is a genius twist on the classic – yum!
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