Blackberry and almond buttermilk scones

A lovely sunny Sunday morning baking session today, listening to good music and making some simple free-form scones.  The buttermilk in these makes the batter quite moist (hence deciding to dollop the mixture onto the baking trays rather than roll out and cut with a pastry cutter) and the fresh blackberries give them a fantastic juicy sweetness that means you don’t need to serve them with jam (unless you’re a sugar fiend like me and just can’t resist) – just stick to lashings of clotted cream!  (The healthy eating is clearly going great guns…)

Coffee-glazed Chantilly choux buns

I've never made choux pastry before and have always been a bit scared of it. But Lu loves coffee choux buns and I've been promising for ages to try making them for her. I finally took the plunge today, fully expecting the whole thing to go horribly wrong... but it turns out there is nothing to fear!  It's actually incredibly quick and easy, uses a tiny amount of store-cupboard ingredients, and according to Delia (who I trust on all baking matters), it is best NOT to use a piping bag but spoon the dough onto a baking sheet for a crisper choux.  She also recommends using strong white bread flour rather than plain flour (as it has a higher gluten content and makes them even crisper), something I'll try next time. Because I'm definitely making these again! Delicious, light, airy, crispy, creamy, sweet delights. I want to try them with caramel on top, or an Earl Grey pastry cream, or fresh raspberries folded into whipped cream. I've fallen in love with Choux!

Cranberry, clementine and ginger Welsh cakes

I've started working part-time and I have to say I'm absolutely loving it!  Today has been a beautiful sunny day, just beginning to melt the snow we've had this week. After a lovely walk around Cosmeston lakes with our dog, I came home and rustled up another batch of Welsh cakes (they are proving to be very addictive - to make and eat!).  This time, I soaked dried cranberries in a pan with a little clementine juice, so the fruit plumps up (inspired by the juicy blueberry Welsh cake fritters I made the other day, but wanting to make them quickly out of what was in the house).  I added ginger instead of cinnamon, which went very well with a pot of fragrantly spiced chai tea.

Blueberry Welsh cake fritters

It's been snowing for the last couple of days and today I decided we needed some hot cakes to warm us up after a nice walk in the snow.  I spotted a great big punnet of blueberries in the grocer's when I popped out to buy vegetables to make soup later, and thought I'd see how they worked in a Welsh Cake batter.  These are far more loaded with fruit than Welsh cakes are, which is why I've called them blueberry fritters - but they were absolutely delicious hot out of the pan, and good later once they'd cooled as we sat in front of the fire watching a movie.  Perfect fuel for a snow day!

Lemonade scones

Yesterday my cousin Sarah contacted me via my blog and told me about a recipe she'd tried for scones made with just flour, cream and lemonade. She said that although she'd tried her friend's version which were lovely and light, her attempt hadn't turned out so well. I was so curious about this intriguing recipe I explored the internet and found lots of blogs and websites raving about them. I don't really understand the science behind this recipe (something to do with the cream replacing the fat of butter in normal scones, and the aeration of the bubbles in the lemonade replacing baking powder?) - but science has never been my strong suit and I've always loved the magic of baking - something gooey going into the oven and coming out as a well-risen cake! Anyway, I had to try these lemonade scones for myself. 

Wary of Sarah's difficulties, I also found some really good tips on the Internet Chef's website about how to make sure these scones turned out perfectly. Here are ten top tips - I followed them and mine turned out really well. Thank you Sarah!

1. Pre-heat the oven before you start mixing – the dough doesn’t like to sit around once it’s made, so this way you can pop the scones straight into the hot oven.
2. Pre-heat the baking tray in the pre-heated oven – this will kick-start the raising process.
3. Place the oven shelf in the top quarter of the oven – scones like to be in the hottest part of the oven.
4. Use fresh self-raising flour that has not passed its use by date – old self-raising flour will have lost some the potency of its raising agents.
5. Use the lemonade at room temperature – this will make the dough easier to work with and produce a better dough as it will require less handling.
6. Use a palette knife to mix the wet ingredients into the dry – this means you can quickly and gently cut through the ingredients to combine them into a light dough in just 30 seconds, and the less handling the better.  Scones like a light gentle touch - overworking the scones when mixing the dough will result in dense, flat scones.
7. Use the rolling-pin lightly so as not to knock the delicate dough about too much - using a very gentle touch to roll the dough out lightly will result in a smooth looking attractive scone.
8. Roll the dough more thickly than you think - ideally about a thickness of just over an inch - rolling out too thinly will just create thin, flat scones.
9. Dust the cutter in flour each time you cut a scone and push don’t twist the cutter – otherwise you just push down on the dough edges causing the scones to rise unevenly.  
10. Place the scones snuggly touching each other on a small baking tray – this gives them support as they rise.

Cranberry beetroot heart-shaped scones

My lovely wife Lu is very sad at the moment after her nan died this week.  I've been making lots of comfort food like stews and casseroles, and for my Saturday morning baking session today I made her some heart-shaped scones for breakfast in bed.  These are coloured pink with beetroot powder - I bought some in the farmer's market a while ago and haven't known quite what to do with it, but discovered using it in these scones that it's a brilliant natural food colourant.  The beetroot powder has very little taste, just a slightly sweet earthiness to the overall flavour which goes beautifully with the traditional nature of scones.  I also added dried cranberries which have a lovely sweet tartness and bright red colour.  Finally, I added a little of the beetroot powder to whipped double cream, which gave it a lovely pale pink colour and a slight sweetness.

Cherry scones

It must be the Royal Jubilee in the air or something, but I seem to be drawn to making some classic British cakes at the moment - last week it was mini Victoria sponge cakes, and today my Saturday morning baking session was to whip up some classic scones.  Except that instead of raisins I decided to use some delicious natural glacé cherries that I bought recently in the local farmers' market.  Eaten warm out of the oven, the joke is true: what do you call a cake that disappears super fast?  Scone! 

Blueberry, pecan and cinnamon sticky buns

I've seen lots of American recipes for cinnamon rolls, which all use yeast to make a proper dough. I'm too inpatient to wait for dough to rise and so decided to try making sticky buns using just a mixture with self-raising flour - no need to leave it to rise in a warm place for hours, this can be used straight out of the mixing bowl. I added fresh blueberries and ground pecans to the traditional cinnamon filling. It was really quick and fun to make, and they turned out beautifully. Delicious with a cup of strong black coffee!

Blueberry citrus scones

These are my adaptation of a traditional scone recipe, using blueberries instead of raisins, a little lemon and orange zest, and a mixture of greek yoghurt and milk instead of buttermilk - the result is beautifully light, fresh and moreish!  Best when split open and buttered while still warm, these are really lovely served with a dollop of greek yoghurt and a drizzle of honey - but you could of course also serve them the traditional way with jam and clotted cream.

Welsh cakes

I made Welsh cakes for the first time ever yesterday, with my niece and nephew Casey and James.  I've always thought they wouldn't work without a proper iron griddle or hot stone, but I tried it in a heavy-based frying pan and it worked fine!  The trick is just to keep it on a medium heat as the Welsh cakes burn on the outsides quite quickly if the pan is too hot.  Now that I've realised how easy this is, I can't wait to try it with other variations - dried cranberries, cherries or apricots, vanilla sugar, ginger, white chocolate chips... Fantastic served warm straight from the pan with a big pot of tea on a chilly winter Sunday.