
It’s no secret that I’ve attempted to bake scones many many times and so often they come out resembling hockey pucks, or the stone that we used to play hopscotch when we were kids, or as we call it in Scotland ‘peever’. I was quite happy with the lemon and poppy seed scones that I baked earlier this year, but I really want just plain scones, for eating with my home-made jams, and cream on high days. So in the spirit of try try again I decided to try Mary Berry’s Very Best Scones recipe from the book Mary Berry’s Baking Bible. They turned out to be very tasty and actually better than any shop bought ones which can be quite doughy and damp.
450 g (1 lb) self-raising flour
2 rounded teaspoons of baking powder
75g (3 oz) softened butter
50g (2 oz) caster sugar (I used ordinary white sugar)
2 large eggs
about 225 ml (8 fl oz milk)
1. Pre heat the oven to 220 C / Fan 200 C / 428 F / Gas 7. Lightly grease two baking trays.
2. Measure the flower and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.
3. Beat the eggs together and make up to 300 ml (1/2 a pint) with the milk, put about two tablespoons of the mixture aside in a cup for glazing the scones later. Gradually add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring it until you have a soft dough. The mixture should be quite wet, sticking to your fingers as then they will rise better.
4. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out to a thickness of 1-2 cm (1/2 or 3/4 inches). Use a 2 inch fluted cutter to stamp out the scones, pushing straight down into the dough but avoiding twisting it. Keep gathering the dough together and rolling it out until it’s all used up.
5. Arrange on the greased and warmed baking trays and brush with the reserved egg mixture to glaze. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-15 minutes until well risen and golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
These scones are really delicious with butter or jam and even better with cream I’m sure.
I had a measuring tape out to make sure that I wasn’t rolling the dough out too thin, it was only then that I realised that neither of my scone cutters are 2 inches in diameter, mine are 2.5 and 3 inches in diameter. So I expect these scones to turn out even better when I can make them the correct size. I made 15 scones, but it should have been 20 if I had had the right size of cutter.