Fruit Scones - Two Ways

 

As I mentioned before, it was my Grandad’s birthday recently, and he is seriously the hardest person to buy presents for! I mean, what do you buy someone who already has everything they need?! After a lot of thinking and fruitless shopping trips, I finally decided to make him up a hamper of fancy tea, posh jams, clotted cream and some homemade scones - an ‘Afternoon Tea’ Hamper if you will. I knew he loves fruit scones, but I couldn’t decide whether to make them with raisins or glacier cherries, so I ended up doing both. These are super easy to make, and the end result is very light scones, studded with lots of fruity goodness! I soaked the raisins in whiskey for an hour before adding them to the dough, for an added kick.



Ingredients:

For plain scones:
350g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp baking powder
85g unsalted butter, cubed
3 tbsp caster sugar
175ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Squeeze lemon juice
1 egg, beaten to glaze

To make them fruity:

1 cup chopped glacier cherries or 1 cup whiskey soaked raisins

Pre-heat your oven 200c and dust a couple of baking trays with a little flour.

Combine the flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl, and add the cubed butter. Rub the flour and butter together with your fingertips until the mix looks like fine crumbs. Add the sugar and continue to mix with your hands.

Warm the milk in a pan over a low heat. Once it starts to steam, remove from the heat and add the vanilla and lemon juice.

Make a well in the dry mix, and pour the milk mix into the well. Use your hands to mix the wet and dry ingredients together. It will be a little sticky.

Dust your worktop with flour and tip the wet dough out onto it. Add the fruit to the centre of the wet dough, and fold it over a few times, kneading gently to distribute the fruit.

Use your hands to shape the dough into a flat sheet about an inch thick, and use a round cookie cutter to cut out your scones. Re-roll any off-cuts and repeat this step.

Place your scones on your prepared baking trays and generously brush the top of each scone with beaten egg.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until they’re turning golden and have a firm outer shell.
Enjoy warm, or leave to cool before serving with clotted cream and jam.