Tag: Scones

New Forest Buttermilk Scones

Post author By Kevin
Post date May 25, 2024
16 Comments on New Forest Buttermilk Scones

Mmm….freshly baked buttermilk scones with butter and home made plum and apple jam. Yes!

This week I found myself with a tub of buttermilk to spare. The by-product of an exercise in making butter from Jersey cream, I was vaguely aware that it could be used in baking scones.

A little further research taught me that its acidity makes it react well with bicarbonate of soda to give a light texture to baking. It also brings a slightly sour, but pleasant taste to a scone mix.

I decided to give it a go, thinking that the scones would make a tasty picnic lunch the following day, when we had planned to go cycling in the New Forest. A remote national park that has changed very little over the decades, the Forest has an extensive network of tracks exclusively for non-vehicle traffic – just walkers, cyclists and horseriders.

And so it worked out! My photos show the plate of golden brown scones, as we prepared to devour them after a morning’s cycle in the peace and solitude of the Forest. Look carefully in the background and you can see some of those famous wild ponies that roam the New Forest.

Just make sure you eat the scones before those ponies do 🙂

Servings

This made 12 scones and, with a couple of re-rolls of the remaining scone mix, another 2 – 3 on top.

Timings

15 mins to make, 20 mins in the oven at 160C.

You Will Need

450g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp salt
100g butter or baking spread
85g caster sugar
300ml buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
a splash of milk for basting

Method

Switch on the oven to 160C. Sieve the flour into a large bowl with the salt. Add in the butter or spread in cubes or small pieces, and mix with an electric whisk until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs.
Tip in the sugar and whisk again to mix in.
Warm the buttermilk and vanilla in a saucepan on the hob for 2 – 3 mins. Then gradually add it in waves to the flour mix, turning over with a spatula after each addition to mix it in. Keep going until all the buttermilk has been incorporated, and a cohesive scone mix has formed in the bowl.
Tip the mix out on to a well-floured surface. If the mix is still a little too wet to work with, don’t be afraid to sprinkle over more self-raising flour until it has a consistency that can be pressed and moulded with the fingers, and rolled out to around 2cm thickness.
Press a scone or biscuit cutter into the mix to produce rounds – mine are around 7cm diameter, and this gave me enough for 12 scones. Re-roll the leftover mix and this should give you another 2 – 3.
Place on a metal tray lined with baking paper. Brush each with a little milk on a pastry brush and bake for 20mins at 160C.
Remove and place on a wire rack to cool.
Serve with butter or spread and jam. We had ours with home made plum and apple jam, as shown in my photo at the top of the post. The scones are best eaten within a day.

Customise it!

If you can’t get your hands on buttermilk, I have read that adding 1 tbsp of lemon juice to ordinary dairy milk can be a useful substitute.

The colour of the scones reminded me of this track, so I have been playing it this week. I don’t think The Stranglers intended the song to be about making scones, or cycling amongst the ponies in the New Forest, for that matter. Never mind – here they are with Golden Brown.

Tags Baking, Blogging, Countryside, Cycling, Food, New Forest, Photography, Recipes, Scones, Travel

Bakes Blog

Scone With The Wind

We have now reached the north coast on our motorhome tour of Scotland. The scenery here is wild and rugged, with sheer cliff faces where you peer down on powerful spraying waves crashing aggressively on to craggy, inaccessible rocky stacks.

The views are spectacular, looking directly across the foaming sea to the Orkney Isles – a barren and forbidding landscape dotted with abandoned crofters’ cottages. To the west is Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the British Isles mainland.

And yet, our coastal walk soon brought us to a gentle cove, with a sandy beach where the seabirds fed and the seals lolloped playfully in the shallows. Nature at its wildest and best.

A constant is the steady onshore wind. It is this which gives its name to a little tea shop we came across. Scone With The Wind is no more than a wooden summerhouse in a local garden, where those brave souls hiking the coast can help themselves to homemade scones, tea and jam.

They are baked by the owner who lives in the house nearby. All that is asked in return is that you put a cash donation in an honesty box.

If you wish, you can sit down at one of the tables and enjoy the coastal view while you eat. The table cloths, china and napkins I think are a very civilised touch.

On the day of our visit, the flavours were Plain (Well Fired) and Cheese & Herb. We took ours away (having made our donation) and ate them later, spread with butter alongside a cup of tea, on a picnic between motorhome stopovers.

The owner also makes available any leftover one-day-old scones without any request for a donation. Callers are merely asked to Pay It Forward i.e. carry out a similar act of kindness to someone else in turn.

Now there’s a concept that could potentially reshape the world economy: what if we just decided to replace money with random acts of kindness to others as payment in commercial transactions?

Makes you think – and it all starts with a Scottish homemade scone.

We’ve been playing a lot of Scottish artists and bands over Android Auto as we drive along in the motorhome, especially as DAB radio doesn’t seem to have reached the Highlands yet. Here’s a track that goes well with the rugged landscapes we’ve been travelling through, featuring Stuart Adamson’s unmistakable bagpipe-guitar sound. Big Country with In a Big Country.

Tags Baking, Blogging, Food, Nature, Photography, Scones, Scotland, Travel

Bakes Recipes

Coronation Scones

Today I’m featuring a recipe that is, quite literally, fit for a King!

Across the UK this weekend, people will be watching history in the making, as our new King and Queen are crowned at Westminster Abbey, in London.

On Saturday, the procession route will be lined with Union Jack waving wellwishers, and those that can’t be there are able to watch the whole proceedings live on free to air TV. With all the pageantry on show, events are guaranteed to be quite some spectacle.

Sunday is the day for street parties in local communities, finishing with a major concert at Windsor Castle, also live on TV.

On Monday, we are being given a day’s national holiday so that we can recover from all this partying and excitement. Hey, we haven’t had one of these for 70 years, when most of us (me included) weren’t even alive. Coronations only come around once every few generations, so there’s no surprise it’s getting this much special attention.

Here’s what I’m making for our own local street party – a Coronation take on a Brit classic – the scone with jam and clotted cream. Served with a pot of tea, of course.

Happy and Glorious!