Rustic scones with raspberry preserve and chantilly cream, hold me back…

I have grown up with my Mom’s scones (which she learned from her granny) and it has spoiled most other scones for me. Her scones are light and fluffy on the inside, slightly crispy on the outside with no hint of that horrible baking powder taste which so many other scones have. My feeling is that the biggest mistake made with ‘other’ scone recipes is that they are over handled (with the effort of getting them into shapes) and then to compensate for this they add too much baking powder which leaves a horrible after taste and feeling in your mouth.

My Mom’s recipe uses very similar ingredients to other recipes, but it is lighter in as much as it doesn’t use cream or as much butter and the baking powder is at least half as much as other recipes. The secret is in the handling of the ingredients and the fact she doesn’t manipulate the dough into shapes but rather lightly flattens all the dough and scores it so that once baked, you break off pieces of scone before slathering them with butter, jam and cream.

Since I haven’t had my Mom's scones in years now, this was my special request when visiting them on Tuesday. I was to bring the jam and went hunting for Chaloner’s Raspberry and Vanilla jam but alas couldn’t find any (tried three shops – they don’t know what they are missing). I did however find Bonne Maman’s raspberry preserve which was fabulous too. So much so that between the three of us we finished about four fifths of the bottle (shame faced gluttons that we are).

Naturally we gobbled down the lot with much finger licking and big smiles.

Colleen’s Scones

Serves 3 gluttons

2 cups of flour (bread or cake), sifted

1 Tbsp of sugar

½ tsp of salt

2 tsp of baking powder

75g of butter, cold and cut into very small cubes

1 large egg

½ a cup of milk (or butter milk or yoghurt)

2 tsp of lemon juice

Pre heat your oven to 190C˚ and place the wrack in the middle. Grease and flour a baking sheet.

Ensure that all the wet ingredients are as cold as possible and get everything ready before you start. Sift together your dry ingredients. Add your butter and lightly work it into the flour by rubbing it between your fingers. Lift the mixture in your hand high above the bowl letting the crumbs fall down as you rub them between your fingers (this adds air into the mixture). Don’t over rub the mixture, the butter should not melt but rather just be in very small crumbs covered with flour.

Whisk together the milk, egg and lemon and add this to the mixture. Combine the ingredients with a regular dinner knife, cutting and mixing until the ingredients are just combined.

Scrape the mixture onto the baking sheet and using a floured spatula or your finger tips, lightly flatten the mixture to about 2 cm thick. Then score (cut) the mixture half way through (1cm) from the top using a knife to form squares of about 3 - 4cm.

Bake this for 15 – 20 minutes until just baked through and golden brown on top. Check the done’ness with a skewer or small knife.

Serve immediately if possible with your favourite jam and lightly whipped cream with a dash of vanilla and sugar added.