Number Seventeen: Lily's Scones

To celebrate the jubilee we decided to have a little family tea party. No street party for us - our road is too busy to be closed off, and the cheeky neighbours round the corner didn't invite anyone on our street to their's! How rude. Well, their loss, they missed out on some impeccable scones.

This recipe comes from How to be a Domestic Goddess. It usually makes 12, but me and dad used a 6cm cutter instead of a 6.5 one, and I think our's weren't quite as thick as 3cm, so we got 20 of them! (The more the merrier!)

This is a great recipe - the scones look heavy but they're lovely and fluffy. Yum yum yum!

Ingredients

500g plain flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4.5 tsp cream of tartar
50g cold unsalted butter, diced
25g Trex (or another 25g butter if you don't have any)
300ml milk
1 large egg, beaten, for egg wash

Optional - 75g grated mature cheddar / 75g raisins or sultanas / 75g dried sour cherries with finely grated zest of half an orange

Also need 1 x 6.5cm crinkle-edged round cutter


Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220C (200C for a fan oven). Sift the flour, salt, bicarb and cream of tartar together in a large bowl.

2. Rub in the fats until incorporated (or as Nigella says, till it goes like damp sand.)

3. If using one of the optional extras, add this now. We used sultanas.

4. Add the milk all at once and mix briefly. Then turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly to form a dough.

5. Roll out to about 3cm thickness. Make sure you flour the rolling pin or it will stick.

6. Flour the cutter, and then cut out rounds from the dough, placing close together on a lined baking tray. You want them close together so that they bulge and stick together when they cook.

7. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash.

8. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes (but if you used a smaller cutter like us, check them after 8) until risen and golden.

9. Let them cool a little, and then serve! They are best when warm. We had them split and filled with clotted cream and strawberry jam, or you could try Nigella's favourite - 'Thunder and Lightning', which is clotted cream with black treacle.

Thanks for reading!

Now, back to revision..... :(