Simple jummy scones

We love having cream tea on a rainy sunday afternoon. Nothing tastes better than home made scones! I recently discovered a great secret making scones an even more attractive recipe. The scones puff up more when you rest the dough in the fridge for a couple of hours.

This means you can make the dough an evening in advance, take it out of the fridge, make scone shapes and place them in your oven. Now just enjoy those lovely scents filling your house as you make tea and take out your favorite jams and fresh fruit!

Scone2

Scones (8 – 10)

  • 225 grams plain white flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • pinch salt
  • 25 grams caster sugar
  • 50 grams butter at room temperature
  • 150 ml buttermilk (optional: add some vanilla essence to the buttermilk)
  • 1 egg, beaten, or coffee cream, for brushing or dusting
  1. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
  2. Rub your butter in the flour mixture untill you have a bread crumb consistency.
  3. Stir in the buttermilk combine your dough into a ball.
    This is the kind of dough you want to handle as little as possible.
  4. Wrap your dough in kling film and let it rest in your fridge from 1 hour to 24 hours. Whatever works with your schedule. This does enable you to plan ahead if you are making an elaborate high tea.
  5. Preheat your oven at 220 degrees C.
  6. Roll out your dough on a floured surface. I like to make a circular disk, about 1,5 cm thick and slice 8 scones with a sharp knife as shown in the picture.
    CuttingScones
  7. Place your scones on a baking tray lined with baking parchment.
  8. For golden and glossy scones, brush your scones with egg or coffee cream.
    You can sprinkle your scones with sugar for a crusty top.
  9. Bake your scones for 15 to twenty minutes or untill they are puffed up and golden brown.

Let your scones cool for at least ten minutes before digging in. This may be the hardest part of the recipe!

Scone

My Best Brownies

There are so many brownie recipes. I have tried so many recipes, for me this recipe’s gives me the best brownies. Slightly dense and moist in the middle, a crunchy top and appropriately chewy.

Best Brownies (makes 18 brownies)

For the batter:

  • 100 grams of dark chocolate in chunks
  • 150 grams of butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 200 grams of sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 100 grams of flour
  • 55 grams coco powder
  • 1 pinch of salt

Optional filling

  • 70 grams chopped almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and/or peanuts
  • 70 grams of chocolate, whichever you prefer
  • Alternatively you can mix in chuncks of your favorite candy bar (I like Snickers, but any other chocolate candy bar could work)

Every recipe calls for a different order for mixing the ingredients. In my experience it doesn’t really matter how you combine the ingredients, just make sure you don’t cook the eggs with the hot melted chocolate.

  1. Preheat your oven at 190 degrees C.
  2. Melt your chocolate and butter above simmering water.
  3. Line your baking tin (I use a  rectangular 15 cm by 30 cm baking tin).
  4. Take your melted chocolate of the heat, let it cool for a few minutes.
  5. Mix in the vanilla essence, sugar, this lowers the temperature of the chocolate a little more.
  6. Combine with the eggs, flour, salt and coco powder.
  7. Stir in the optional filling.
  8. Pour the batter in the baking tin and bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

Your cooking time depends on how dense you like your  brownies. Sometimes I slightly undercook my brownies. This way I can warm them up later (and cook them a bit more) in the microwave and serve them warm with vanilla ice cream or clotted cream.