2012 Cooking Club Week 29: Scones

Little Alex

I actually had two recipes ready and decided to go with this one.



Ingredients:

300g flour
2 heaped tablespoons baking powder
75g butter, cold and cut into cubes
100g caster sugar
100g cream
1 egg
50g raisins, soaked overnight
Zest of a lemon
Seeds of a vanilla pod

Firstly stir the baking powder into the flour to distribute evenly. Then rub in the butter and flour until it "resmebles breadcrumbs" as they say. I myself did this in a food processor, but it can also be done with a pastry blender (the thing in the bottom right of the first photo) or by fingertips. Now add the sugar and stir it in.



Zest the lemon and cut the vanilla pod open lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Lightly whisk the cream, egg, lemon zest, vanilla and raisins.

Add the mixture to the flour and work in together. The thing here is to use the absolute bare minimum of mixing needed to combine them.



When this is done, place the dough/pastry onto a floured surface and lightly roll flat with a rolling pin, until it has a height of about an inch. Try making a shape that will allow four scones to be cut out. Then reform the leftovers and stamp out some more. I got seven scones, using the 2.5 inch pastry cutter.

Preheat the oven to about 220°C.



Transfer the scones to a baking tray and brush the tops of them with milk.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until risen and golden.



Unfortunately mine didn't rise as much as I would have liked this time, but they still tasted good! I had the oven on at too low a temperature, which I didn't notice until 10 minutes in and I think that was the reason.

Rawhead

Made these this morning. They are the nicest scones I ever had. The only problem was mine didn't rise either. After a bit of research I realised that they shouldn't be rolled thinner than 1 inch and the oven needs to be hotter at 220 degrees.
Thanks for the recipe.

Little Alex

Thanks, Rawhead.

I believe you could be right. The last time I made them they rose straight up and not outwards. I'll make them again at 220!

LaChatteGitane

Also, don't turn/twist the cutter. Apparently if you do that they will not rise.

I was just looking for a scone recipe.
Legend!

fitzcoff

I made these today, I didn't have the raisins soaking overnight as it was a notion I got this morning, I also didn't have any lemons or a vanilla pod so I used a tsp of vanilla essence instead.

They got a bit overcooked, got distracted but taste lovely. They didn't rise as much as I thought that they would. I used plain flour in mine.

John Mason

I made these yesterday. they didnt raise at all. i have been making scones for years and i have never once got them to raise BUT having said that they still tasted lovely and will be eaten (we are well used to eating flat scones in this house)

Faith

Hi Little Alex,

Quick question - your recipe lists cream, but your picture shows sour cream. Which is correct?

The Black Oil

I can't see the pics in the OP, image tags with links, but the pics aren't displaying.

Faith

Really? I can see them all perfectly .

BaZmO*

The Black Oil wrote: »

I can't see the pics in the OP, image tags with links, but the pics aren't displaying.

I can't see them either. I'm on a phone though.

The Black Oil

Faith wrote: »

Really? I can see them all perfectly .

Same on more of Little Alex's posts in this forum. Just blank, no pics, e.g., here. They used to work.

Faith

Do you want me to repost the pictures?

/edit: I can see the ones in that link perfectly too, TBO. Maybe it's my cache.

/edit 2: Nope, cleared my cache and they're still showing.

Padraig Mor

The Black Oil wrote: »

Same on more of Little Alex's posts in this forum. Just blank, no pics, e.g., here. They used to work.

Same for me.

I can see them too. However sometimes they show, sometimes they don't. They're hosted by Boards are they?

Toto Wolfcastle

Yeah, I can see them and the ones in the link too.

Faith

Well, I made these this afternoon, using sour cream as in the picture. I gotta say, this recipe didn't work for me. They're gorgeously light and fluffy, but they fell to pieces the minute I cut them. I'm also not mad about the addition of lemon in them.

Thanks for the recipe anyway!

The Black Oil

Maybe seeing the photos is a mod thing, then.

The Black Oil

The Black Oil wrote: »

Maybe seeing the photos is a mod thing, then.

Nope, I logged out and then back in, could see them when logged out. It happens from time to time with me with the wthax.org website images too.

Faith

I raised this issue in the Site Development forum and Danny very nicely got to the bottom of it. Little Alex has very tight profile privacy settings, allowing only mods and admins to see most things. This includes his photos hosted by boards. So registered users can't see the pictures. Dónal, you could see them when you were logged out because of your cache.

It seems that LA isn't active any more, but I'll chance PM'ing him later to make him aware.