Cream Tea Scones

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In continuation of yesterday’s post on cream tea, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to make perfect scones. As
with any baked treats, stick to the exact measurements, and there are very
little chances of going wrong! Scones are relatively easy to make and are a
very elegant accompaniment to your afternoon tea, or for your next tea party. I
came across this recipe in Pamela Timms’ delightful blog Eat and Dust and I
have made slight modifications to the original. Drop by her blog for more baked
goodies.This recipe makes 12-14 scones.

You’ll need:

450g plain Flour (that’s 4.5 cups)
1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2tsp Cream of Tartar (you can substitute the cream of
tartar + bicarb mixture with 3tsp Baking Powder)
A pinch of Salt
110g cold unsalted Butter, cut
into small cubes (that’s slightly more than 1 cup)
50g Caster Sugar (1/2 a cup)
1 Egg, lightly beaten with Milk
added; this mixture should be 250ml
Some extra Milk for brushing the
scones
Jam and thick cream or mascarpone
to serve (if you can get your hands on
clotted cream that would be the icing on the cake)

How to:

Preheat your oven to 220 C.
Sift together the flour, salt,
bicarb and cream of tartar (or baking powder, whichever you are using) so that
the raising agents are thoroughly mixed with the flour.
Add butter, and working quickly,
rub it into the flour mixture, using only your fingertips. The mixture should
resemble bread crumbs. Mix in the sugar.
Make a well in the centre of the
mixture and add the egg + milk mixture. Lightly mix together until you have
soft dough.
At this point you can go one of
two ways.
- You can pat the dough down on a
  floured surface and make a disc about 3 cm thick. Use a pastry cutter to cut
  out the scones.
- Or you can simply pick up small
  balls of the dough and pat them onto a floured baking tray. They should be
  roughly even-sized, about 3 cm tall.
Brush a little milk on top of each
scone. This will give them a shiny finish.
Bake for 10-15 minutes, till the
scones are lightly brown on the top.
Cool them slightly and serve warm
with jam and cream, with a pot of tea for that quintessential English Cream Tea experience!

Remember:

Handle the dough as lightly as
possible to get light, airy scones. Kneading the dough will only make them
chewy and hard.
If you think that the amount of
sugar is too less, remember that scones are not cakes and they are not supposed
to be sweet. The sweetness comes from the jam and cream. Traditional scone
recipes don’t use any sugar.
Don’t worry if your scones look
uneven; this is how they should be.