Dear Regular Newsletter Readers,
I hope this edition of our weekly newsletter find you happy, healthy and ready to enjoy the weekend ahead.
Recently, I have been checking my blog entries back through and although I have mentioned in the past about making/baking Victoria scones and sharing my endeavors with you I have not actually gotten around to introducing to you the recipe that I usually follow. I actually made some Victoria scones at the weekend and I have attached one or two pictures of my efforts. I cannot say that my scones look exactly like the traditional Victoria scones that you see in cook books as they are missing their trademark glace cherries, but nonetheless they were made using the same recipe.
As you can see in the picture of the two scones that are still whole the one at the front is the best looking one, it looks like a scone should look, nice shape, brown on the top and at the sides, whereas the one behind looks a bit anemic. I don’t quite know why this happened as I put the same amount of egg and milk wash on each of the 5 scones that I made, it was only the one in question that didn’t quite look the part; however, as soon as they were taken out of the oven they were quickly devoured by my family members, either with butter and homemade blueberry compote on top, butter and strawberry jam or just butter by itself. I’m happy to say that I received the thumbs up from all of the scone devourer’s. Eating hot Victoria scones fresh out of the oven with a little bit of good quality butter placed on top reminds me of my mum and how I would sometimes get home from school and she’d have one waiting for me to eat with a cup of freshly brewed tea – what heaven!
When I bake scones, apple pies, cakes, anything really, my mum often comes in to my mind as she was the reason why I like to bake; I guess it was all those hours that I spent with her apron strings tickling my ears as a young lad watching her bake and waiting in anticipation for her to ask me to help her either to kneed if she was making bread, mix if she was making a cake or peel if she was making an apple pie that left such an impression on me. When I look back, I could have easily have gone to culinary school instead of going down the eventual path that I chose because baking and cooking interested me so much back then. Perhaps when I retire from my current job, I might just enroll in a cooking school and see where that takes me. Who knows, in the future I may even open a little bakery somewhere.
Until next week, please enjoy your weekend and if you have the time why don’t you spend a bit of time in your kitchen and have a go at making Victoria scones, they really are so easy to make and delicious to boot.
The ingredients needed for making Victoria scones
l 225g self-raising flour (note: in Japan you cannot buy self-raising floor, you have to make it by adding baking powder – to 225 grams of flour you need to add 8 grams of baking powder).
l A pinch of salt
l 50g cold butter (cut into small cubes)
l 50g caster sugar (If like me, you have a habit of reducing the amount of sugar that you see in recipes because you like a less sweet taste, in this case dp not be tempted as 50 grams is the perfect amount, anything less and they will not be sweet enough).
l 1 (beaten) egg (free range if possible)
l 100ml milk (room temperature)
l 4 glacé cherries (optional – I’m personally not a glacé cherry fan, so I don’t bother, but in order to make the scones look quintessentially Victorian they should be added).
How to make Victoria scones
l Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas mk 6. Place a piece of parchment paper (baking sheet) into a suitably sized tray and put to one side.
l Add the baking powder to the flour and sieve it into a mixing bowl (sieving the flour will add air into your mixture and make your scones light in texture).
l Add in the butter and rub the flour and butter between your fingers and thumbs until you have a mixture that resembles fine breadcrumbs.
l Add the sugar into the mixing bowl.
l Beat the egg with the milk. Add most of this liquid into your mixture and with your hands bring it all together to form a soft dough. Make sure you keep some of the egg and milk liquid as you will need it later on to brush on to the scones.
l Place the dough onto a floured surface and knead lightly (if you knead the dough too much your scones may not be as light as they should be, so be careful). Divide the mixture into four equal pieces. With your hands, gently form each piece of dough into a scone shape. It’s really up to you how much you flatten the pieces of dough, the more you flatten them the bigger/wider your scones will be. I personally like the smaller taller scones, so I generally shape my scones in between my hands while rotating them. The scones I make are usually about 5~6cm in diameter and about 7~8cm tall.
l If you make the traditional shaped Victoria scones then you will flatten each piece of dough out to about 3 cm (which will give you a diameter of about 12/13cm) and then you cut a cross on the top of each scone with a sharp knife and place ¼ glacé cherry in each quarter.
l Brush the tops of the scones with the reserved egg and milk mixture and place them into the baking tray on top of the parchment paper.
l Put then into the preheated oven and bake for 15~20 minutes or until brown on top.
l Serve straight from the oven with either just butter melting on top or put on some homemade compote/jam or some shop bought jam. Whatever you do, don’t forget to serve your scones with a cup of tea because scones without tea is like marriage without love – unthinkable!
Ø This recipe will yield 4 scones, which will divide into 4 portions each.
