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. 

Serve with lashings of cream and jam or warm from the oven with a good spread of butter and a hot cup of tea.

The Little Book of Scones by Grace Hall and Liam D'Arcy is published by Square Peg.

Very Easy Fruit Lollies

On one of our many pilgrimages to IKEA last year I spotted a very cute ice lolly set that I couldn’t resist. I’d read about how frozen foods can ease the pain from teething and knew that I’d get plenty of use out of them long after Sidney had a full set of gleaming white teeth.

A couple of weeks ago we melted in our annual summer heatwave, with temperatures soaring here in Brixton. At about the same time I discovered my lolly moulds in the drawer at the bottom of our dresser. Time to make something ice cold and delicious.

I had far too much fruit in the fridge after succumbing to the temptation of a multi-punnet bargain at Sunday’s farmers’ market. I had two punnets of ripe red strawberries and one of super sweet, juicy cherries that weren’t going to last the week. It was the ideal way to use them up.

There are lots and lots of recipes for fruit pops on the internet, all proving that it’s really, really easy to make healthy ice lollies. Lots add sugar, some add cream. I kept it really simple and left out added sugar as my fruit was sweet enough already, and I used Greek yoghurt rather than cream, for no other reason than that we always have it in the fridge and I rarely buy cream unless it’s for a specific recipe.

Essentially you can mix and match the ingredients to your taste. Using yoghurt or milk on its own gives an icier result than if you were to add cream, but leave the lollies out for a few minutes to soften up and it’s not a problem. I had six moulds and only filled three of them from this recipe. The other three were already filled with blueberry, banana and raspberry lollies I’d made earlier in the week.

Sidney loved his lolly. It was a little cold and hard to start with, but once it softened up a little he kept coming back for more. And luckily for me we had the paddling pool out so cleaning up the lolly that found it’s way into his hair, behind his ears and all the way down his tummy wasn’t as hard as it might otherwise have been.

Here’s how I made them.

a handful of mixed berries (fresh or frozen)

1 banana, sliced

2 tbsp yoghurt

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and whizz with a hand blender. I kept some of my banana slices whole and some of the berries chunky. It’s particularly nice to use whole blueberries because they pop when you eat them.

Pour the mixture evenly between lolly moulds and freeze for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.

Leave for 5-10 minutes to thaw a little, then eat them up.