Click here to download a PDF of the recipe
Moonbird’s Awesome Scones
“Mise en place”
I believe wholeheartedly in the French cooking idea of “Mise en place,” which is to setup or put in place all of your ingredients ahead of time to make cooking / baking a much faster and more pleasurable experience. It really helps. So pre-measure all of your ingredients and have everything chopped, poured and ready to go before you start baking!
Awesome Scone Ingredients:
225g self-raising flour *
20g golden caster or baker’s sugar
20g light brown sugar
64g rolled oats
75g cold or frozen butter
200 to 300g mixed dried fruit * *
1 large egg, beaten
3 to 4 tablespoons buttermilk
A little extra flour set aside
A pinch of salt
Recommended Tools and Toys:
Mixing bowl
Butter knife
Spatula
Grater
Pastry cutter (5 cm or your choice of size)
Parchment paper
Baking sheet
Awesome Scone Directions:
- Pre-heat the oven to 425°F (220°C) and place the parchment paper covered baking sheet aside.
- Sift the flour into a bowl. Add the sugars and oats and mix lightly to combine. Using a grater, finely grate the butter into the dry ingredients. Using your hands, gently rub the butter into the flour mixture. This will take a few minutes. Be gentle and roll the mixture over and through your fingers until it looks crumbly.
- Add the dried fruit, beaten egg, and 3 tablespoons of buttermilk. Using a butter knife, start to mix the dough slowly until the moist ingredients have combined a bit, then use your hands to bring the mixture together. Make sure you get all the bits off the side and bottom of the bowl. It should be a soft dough, not a sticky dough. If the dough is too dry, add a little buttermilk. If it’s too wet, add a little flour.
- Form the dough into a ball.
- Sprinkle some flour on large flat surface and place the dough ball onto it.
- With a floured rolling pin, roll it out very lightly to a thickness of about 1 inch / 3 cm. (This thickness is important. Scones won’t rise enough if they’re rolled too thin, so when in doubt, make them a little higher than an inch). Use a pastry cutter and push it straight through the dough. Place the cut scone onto your baking sheet. Repeat until you’ve cut out as many as you can. Knead the remaining dough together and repeat until you’ve cut all of the dough into scones.
- Lightly brush each scone with buttermilk and then dust each one with flour and a very light sprinkle of sugar.
- Bake them on the middle rack for 10 to 15 minutes. They’re done when they have risen and turned a golden brown. Remove them to a rack to cool and serve fresh with butter, jam, and/or cream. 🙂
Awesome Scone Notes and Photos:
* British self-raising flour is all-purpose flour with baking powder added. The American version, called “self-rising flour” adds salt, which is not necessary for this recipe.
To make your own, all you have to do is combine:
1 cup of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
* * The dried fruit you use, and the amount, is a personal preference. I make two versions of these. The fruit that you have to chop should be cut into small pieces the size of a raisin:
A) Mixed fruit. A combination of chopped up dried strawberries, chopped up dried mango, chopped up fig, currants, and golden raisins.
B) Raisin. An equal combination of regular raisins and golden raisins.
