After celebrating National Tea Day last week, we only thought it fair to share our expert’s top tips on how to produce signature scones to sit alongside the perfect brew.
We spoke to Karen Gilchrist from The Cornish Scone Company how its done…
“When the lovely people at FOODLOVER magazine asked me to write this article about how to make the perfect scone, sharing some tips along the way, I thought I’d take a look at what Google had to say about it. Well, according to Google, I have been doing it all wrong! I found pages and pages of advice.
According to Google, scones are really tricky to get right; apparently, so many things can go wrong at every stage of the making process?!
I find that all a bit strange. To me, scones are one of the easiest and quickest things to make. As long as you start with a good basic recipe you can’t go far wrong. The best advice that I can give you is to not be afraid.
Some simple tips to follow:
- If you are using cold butter straight from the fridge, handle your dough as little as possible (it is not bread so will not take a lot of kneading).
- When using a cutter, dip it in flour and then push into the dough, do not twist, if you twist, you will not get an even rise.
- Give the scones space to grow on the baking tray, if you put them too close together they may not cook properly in the centre.
- Finally, when you brush with a little egg or milk, don’t use too much, you don’t want it running down the sides because this will also affect the rise.
Scones are great for carrying flavour and now you’ve mastered the basic scone recipe you can try to put your own twist on it. If you like a sweet scone, you could opt for fruit, cherries, chocolate chunks, or lemon and poppy seed. If you prefer a savoury scone, you could start with some grated cheese and then add chillies, walnuts, cranberries or sundried tomatoes. The options are as good as your imagination.