Juliet Sear’s scone masterclass
Queen of bakes Juliet Sear shares her top tips for getting golden, soft scones every time.
Whether you like yours strong and cheesy, spiced and fruity or good old fashioned plain and traditional, there’s something here for everyone!
Cheese and spring onion scones
Serves 4
Ingredients
325g self-raising flour plus extra for dusting
1 tsp baking powder
1-2 tsp mustard powder to taste
½ tsp fine sea salt
85g cold cubed butter
225g extra mature cheddar, grated (or a mix of any strong hard cheese) plus a little extra for sprinkling the tops
100g spring onion greens, save a few ends of leaves for decorating the tops
1 medium egg plus another beaten for the egg wash
150ml whole milk
Serve as they are or with pickles, cheeses or chutneys, or slathered in a little butter when warm with flaky salt.
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees fan.
2. Add the flour, baking powder, mustard powder and salt into the food processor and pulse a few times to distribute the powders together.
3. Add the cold butter cubes into the food processor and blitz until the mixture looks like fine bread crumbs and there are no chunks of butter visible. Alternatively rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips.
4. Add the cheese and spring onion greens and pulse a couple of times to distribute.
5. Beat the egg and milk together and add to the dry mix and blitz briefly so you have a soft, but not sticky dough. Tip out onto a lightly flour dusted surface
6. Flour your hands a little, then knead the dough lightly for a few moments, then use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick.
7. Leave the scone whole, like a big giant round single scone but make cuts into it (8- 10 sections is good) and bake whole, add lots of cheese to the top and make sure it goes all lovely
8. Egg wash and add either some extra grated cheese, or a few spring onion greens to the top of each scone.
9. Bake for around 30 mins until nicely golden brown, risen and springy.
10. Best served warm.