Apple Scones

I was in a baking mood today so had a search through my recipe folder to find something I hadn’t baked before (I cut out recipes that I fancy in magazines and store them in a big A4 ring binder – there’s loads I haven’t attempted yet!). I haven’t made many scones and it’s been ages since I last made any so I decided on apple scones from BBC Good Food magazine.

Apple Scones

Ingredients

1. 225g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting  
2. 50g butter  
3. 4 tbsp golden caster sugar  
4. ¼ tsp cinnamon (I actually used about ½ tsp) 
5. 1 apple, peeled, cored and diced (I used a Granny Smith) 
6. 125ml milk, plus extra for brushing

Method

1. Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. 
2. Tip flour into a large bowl with butter then rub in using fingers until the mix looks like fine crumbs. 
3. Stir in sugar and cinnamon, add apple and give everything a mix.
4. Pour in milk and stir it in quickly, then fold dough over 2-3 times until it's a little smoother. 
5. Tip onto a lightly floured surface; pat into a round about 3cm deep.
6. Dip a 6cm cutter into some flour then cut out scones, flouring the cutter each time. Squash offcuts lightly back into a round and repeat until all dough is used up. 
7. Brush tops with a little milk then place on to a lightly floured baking sheet and bake for 18-20 mins until risen and golden. Allow to cool on the tray.

These didn’t rise as much as I would have liked and looking at the reviews on the website, this seems to be a fairly common theme with this recipe. There are various suggestions in the reviews section, including using an egg or using a tsp of baking powder, so I may try these next time. However, having done a bit of online reading this evening – it appears that I made a few rookie mistakes! Most websites providing tips for making scones suggest that butter should be extremely cold (mine definitely wasn’t) and so should the milk (mine had been sat on the side for a little while – being used to making cakes, I was bringing it up to room temp!). There seems to be lots of other varying suggestions out there about how to make “The Perfect Scone” – I feel a challenge coming on! I may return to this recipe and give it another go – but properly this time!

The magazine recipe suggested serving with clotted cream and a blackberry compote (recipe is also on the BBC Good Food website) – which sounds fantastic, but it’s a bit early for blackberry foraging yet. I ate mine plain and, despite not rising brilliantly, it wasn’t overly stodgy and tasted pretty good. My ever-hungry husband (EHH) slathered his with clotted cream and raspberry jam, which, although not a perfect accompaniment, tasted great when I sneaked a bite.