Raisin scones are a British institution
While I’m a big fan of scones, for some reason I hadn’t made any until a few weeks ago. While on the face of it they’re very simple, after my third time of making them, I can see there’s more to them.
To me, there’s three key things to a good scone. 1) light and fluffy texture yet just a little bit crumbly, 2) that crack that appears in the middle, which leads to 3), they have to split easily when top and bottom are pulled apart.
Rather than going through what I feel like I’ve done wrong, let’s look at what I’ll do differently next time.
- Knead the dough a little less. I think I did about 2-3 minutes. Maybe 1-2 minutes is enough?
- Lower the oven temperature to 180°C. These weren’t baked all the way through. Our fan oven is hotter/faster than normals ones. In a conventional oven, you’d set the temperature to about 220°C
- Heat the oven before starting to make the dough so I can put them straight in after cutting
- Find my digital scales. Last couple of months I’ve been using volume instead of more accurate weight to measure my ingredients
Scones
Ingredients
- 225 g self-raisin flour
- pinch of salt
- 55 g butter
- 30 g sugar
- 150 ml milk
- an egg
- raisins
Method
- Start by mixing the flour and salt, then then work in the butter
- Stir in the sugar followed by the milk. Mix until you have a soft dough
- Turn the dough on to a work surface and kneed gently for a minute or two
- Pat down to about 2 cm thick sheet. Cut using a cookie cutter and place on a baking sheet
- Give the scones an egg wash and bake at 180°C for 12-15 minutes or until we’ll risen and golden brown
- Serve with clotted cream or butter and strawberry jam
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 15 minutes(s)
Number of servings (yield): 104