Simple Scones

We have scone wars in our house. I like them plain, Mr Gingerbread likes them with currents. I often end up doing a batch half and half - splitting it by weight before the milk is added to the dry ingredients.

The nicest thing about scones is they are quick. You can knock them up from store cupboard ingredients and they can make guests feel spoiled and go romping back to their childhood. This makes a nice small batch of 6 - 8, dependent on the size of your cutter - just perfect for afternoon tea

To my mind they are best with clotted cream and jam, that said jam and butter are scrumptious as well, and more likely to be in my fridge than clotted cream. You can't really give this recipe a source as its pretty universal.

One thing to remember for making scones - handle them as little as possible - you only need to barely combine the ingredients. Fine by me - makes them even less hassle to make.

Ingredients
225g Self Raising Flour
1 level teaspoon of Baking Powder
55g Butter
Pinch of salt
150 ml of water

Optional - beaten egg to brush onto the top (I don't bother)
50g of currents, cheese or other ingredients


Method
Preheat the oven to 180 °C 200°C if not fan assisted.
Pop the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl, lightly mix together.
Chop the butter into the dry ingredients - smaller pieces makes for less handling at the next step. Some recipes say 'cube' the butter which is essentially the same things, just done first in a bowl.
Use your hands to rub the butter into the flour until you have a fairly even crumbly mixture.
Add the currents or other flavoring at this point and stir in.
Make a dimple or 'well' in the center of the bowl and add some milk.
Use a knife with a round end - a butter knife works fine - and sort of cut though the mix and it starts to pull it together into a dough. Using the knife stop the butter melting any further which seems to help the structure of the scone.
Use your hands to pull the mixture together into a ball.
Lightly flour a board or worktop and put your scone dough on it.
Use your flat hand to press the dough into a disc about 2cm tall and use a cutter to make your scones. You can use a glass or cutter - 3" / 7.4 cm. I like my scones wider and flatter so use a slightly bigger one. Don't forget to dip it in flour so it doesn't stick when cutting the scones out.

Put them on a baking tray and cook for 15 minutes.

If you try and eat them hot they crumble - wait till they have cooled!