This recipe takes 4 ingredients and about 15 minutes to make from start to finish.  You can use your food processor to do the first step, however, if you work quickly with cold butter you can achieve great results by hand in about 3 minutes.

 

Quick Scones
Makes 6 – 8

Ingredients
–  225gms cake flour
–  3 flat tsp baking powder
–  60gms butter
–  140mls milk
–  40gms caster sugar (optional)
–  pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 190°C.  Sieve the flour, baking powder and pinch of salt into a large bowl.  Then working quickly and with cool hands rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine bread crumbs.  Mix the sugar in if you are using it, then with 2 butter knives mix the milk into the flour.  Criss cross the knives as though you are chopping up food for a child.  Only add about 85% of the milk to start, add more if needed.  However, the mixture should rather be slightly soft than too dry.  Tip the dough onto a floured surface and quickly kneed it until smooth, should only be about 4 or 5 turns, don’t over work the mixture or the scones will be biscuity.

Gently roll the dough until about 2cm thick and then cut out scones.  If you want your scones to have a glossy top, brush them with an milk wash, for soft tops dust them with flour.  This mixture should only produce about 6-8 scones, anymore and it means your scones are too thin and they will not rise.  Bake in the hot over for about 8-9 minutes.

 

Serve topped with fresh cream, scones and strawberry jam!