Introducing, AteThat: Scones

Hello,

I’m new here. Actually this will be the first time I’ve ever posted to a blog, so wish me luck that I do it right.

I’m an American living in the UK (and yes I guess I am a bit in love with Jamie Oliver, how could I not be?). I’m going to try to make sure I always have all of the necessary conversions and funny names for things, so they could be used in either place. I have a very different style of cooking then cookbad does, I think mostly because it’s so much colder where I am. Right now I am way big into comfort foods.

So here goes…

I made these this morning. Scones are really important over here, they are everywhere and I figured it was about time I learned how to make them. This recipe comes from Nigella Lawson. A little note about her, I recommend that you weigh your flour if at all possible. For some reason I’ve noticed that when I use cup measurements with her recipes they tend to be wildly off, it will still work, but will probably require some adjusting.

Scones
500g/ 1lb 2oz plain flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
4&1/2 tsp cream of tartar
50g/2oz cold unsalted butter, diced
25g/1oz TREX*, in teaspooned lumps (or use another 25g butter)
300ml/10.5floz milk
1 large egg, beaten, for egg wash
75g/3oz of raisins

*TREX is like Crisco from what I understand. It has no hydrogenated oil by the way cookbad, does that make it trans or non-trans?

preheat to 220c/425f
sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar, and rub in the fats till it’s like damp sand. Add the raisins and the milk all at once, mix briefly (briefly), turn out onto a floured surface and knead into a dough. Roll out to a 3cm thickness (but I recommend much thicker then that, you can see in the picture that some of them are much thicker then others), and use a 6&1/2cm round cutter to cut out about 12 scones. You may have to re-roll for the last two or so. Place on a baking try (cookie sheet), brush tops with egg wash and bake for 10 min (a couple of minutes longer if you make them thicker).

Serve with butter and jelly if you are in the states, clotted cream and jam if you are in the UK.

They were so good that I might make them again tomorrow. I think my three year old had four of them, and I have blocked from my memory how many I had.