Glut: Strawberry Scones

Last week I made butter and was left with a little buttermilk. We were heading down to Camber Sands for a good old British weekend by the sea with a friend and her girls, so I decided to make scones to take with us.

I also had half a punnet of strawberries that were about to turn to mush, so I figured strawberry scones were the way to go. When I make scones I always turn to my trusty Little Book of Scones. I should confess that I edited this book back in the day, but I’ve made several of the recipes and they are just delicious, so it’s still a book I keep handy on my shelf.

I used the basic part of the Raspberry Scones with Vanilla and Lychee recipe and just replaced the raspberries with strawberries. I didn’t go to the trouble of making a cream to go with it, but the one in the book sounds incredible so I’m definitely going to try it one day. To make it you add caster sugar and vanilla extract to whipped cream and then fold in chopped lychees. I would never have thought of putting lychees and raspberry together, but the authors are pretty creative cooks and excellent judges of flavour, so I trust their judgement.

Scones are so quick and simple to make, they’re really no bother at all – particularly handy when you want to bake something quick to satisfy hungry little people. And everyone’s happy when you turn up with a tin full of fresh scones and a packet of home-made butter.

Here’s how I made them.

Strawberry Scones

450g self-raising flour

a pinch of salt

175g butter, cubed

75g golden caster sugar

1 tsp custard powder

90g strawberries

1 heaped tsp baking powder

2 eggs

75ml buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 190°C/gas 5.

Put the flour, salt and butter in a bowl and rub together until you have a fine breadcrumb texture. Add the sugar, custard powder, strawberries and baking powder and stir it all together.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and pour in the buttermilk. Whisk until the mixture is light bubbly and then pour the mixture into the bowl with the flour and strawberries. Fold everything together until just combined and then bring it all together with your hands. You’ll find it starts off feeling dry and then gets really wet as the strawberries release their liquid.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead very gently until smooth.

Roll out the dough to about an inch thick and use a small cutter or glass to punch out scones. I made mine pretty small – about 2 inches wide. Because the dough is wet it’s harder for larger scones to rise. If you find they’re sticking to the cutter, dip it in flour before you punch out each scone and you’ll find it much easier.

Bake for about 20 minutes and leave to cool on a wire rack.