Baked anything tasty lately?

Mrs G!’s annual Hot Cross Buns went a bit blurry this year….,

Hot dog rolls with cheese/onion and mustard for the Leinster match tomorrow.

What’s left of Mrs G’s! Tarte Tartan. Quite possibly the nicest thing thing she’s baked. She used Mary Berry’s recipe. (And as if that wasn’t enough, she also made an Apple Crumble).

Bakewell tart was my choice too 😝

That’s exactly what I thought 😂.

This one is good

That's not burnt, that's extra crispy flavour. I bake everything like that when I bake.

There are so many recipes out there for scones and many don't work or are not really scones more rock buns in some cases cut into scones, it's all in the ratio! That video is pretty old I'd say but good from a method point of view, I'd use butter instead of marg and I stir with a knife and a lot quicker and shorter than that, they were fairly well mixed I thought!

Anyway in general scones are quarter fat to flour and anything else is to your own taste, I have seen recipes that are half fat to flour, that is pastry territory and while lovely and buttery when warm they are very hard once they cool. I prefer old ratio of quarter, I use 8 ozs self raising flour with a level teaspoon of baking powder and 2 ozs butter. Donkeys years ago when we used plain flour with Royal baking powder there was a guide on the side of the tin and it was always 4 spoons to 8 oz for scones and 2 for cake so I don't believe self raising flour that is mainly geared towards cakey type things has enough raising agent for scones which are a heavier mix.

If making plain ones I add a tablespoon of sugar, if making fruit like sultanas I don't add any sugar. For the liquid it's much harder to say how much because flours differ in how much they absorb so it can never be totally accurate, I would never add all the liquid at once, you can always add in a bit more but can't take it back! Now an egg is going to be used for the glaze and only a bit of it so I prefer to crack the egg first, mix with the milk and keep aside a little of that for the glaze, that way at least you get the benefit of the rest of the egg in the scones.

For the liquid I'd start with in or around 100 ml milk plus the large egg minus a bit for the glaze, you can always add another bit of milk if it's not sticking together, I still wouldn't even add all of that at the start just in case!

Personally I use the little mini processor things for chopping in the butter hard from the fridge, dodgy thumbs at this stage so rubbing in method doesn't work for me. Quick blast in processor then into bowl and add sugar/fruit or whatever (orange rind and chocolate chips are nice too for a treat) then liquid (not all), stir with ordinary butter knife just enough to mix, add another bit of milk around edge of bowl if needed, then usual way for cutting them out, handle as little as possible, don't knead and just press into shape with your hand, rolling pin is the death of many scones!

Also cut them high enough to start with, they never rise as much as you think they will, spent years teaching new seasonal staff how to make scones and invariably their biggest error was flattening the mix too much and expecting biscuit thickness to mutate into giant high scones in the oven, doesn't happen.

Really appreciate the video, and the time taken by @phormium . Thank you both!