Scottish Scones For Tea

It's been a grey couple of days here in Edinburgh but Les Frenchies headed for Gullane Beach just outside Edinburgh in East Lothian anyway, for a bracing walk on the beach (rather than a summer sunbathe and swim kind of beach day) even if it is July! It's now raining and we're settling in for the evening with a chicken roasting in the oven. When they arrived home they were starving - after all that fresh sea air and an unfortunately disappointing lunch....

I had prepared a batch of scones ready for them straight out of the oven when they came through the door. On a trip to the Highlands the other day they came back describing a horrible stone like cake thing that they had eaten, and which had been dry and tasteless. After some interrogation I discovered they were talking about a scone! Now, the thing about scones is they are often too big, too dry and just not right. Especially when bought in shops. They can be claggy to eat and hard to swallow.

I make my scones small and light, as they should be melt in the mouth softness inside with a gentle crust on the outside. They are at their perfection when eaten with just a good quality jam and thick cream, washed down with a cup of tea. Thankfully, I managed to restore Les Frenchie's opinion of the humble scone.

The recipe I used was a Delia Smith one from her original Complete Cookery Course, first published in 1978. Still one of the best cookery books out there. I found mine in a charity shop in great condition. The original owner had clearly not been a keen cook.

Here's the recipe

8oz (225g) self-raising flour

1 1/2 oz (40g) butter at room temperature
1 1/2 tablespoons caster sugar
a pinch of salt
5 fl oz milk (150ml)
a little extra flour

Oven 220C, 425F or Gas Mark 7.
Grease or flour a heavy baking tray.

Rub the flour in with the butter to make a light sand and then add in the sugar and salt. Slowly add the milk bit by bit to form a soft consistency. The key to all scone making is to be LIGHT with your hands. The dough must be treated delicately. You want a soft, moist dough, not dry. Add a little more milk it necessary but not enough to make it so sticky it falls through your hands - it needs to remain a dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured board or work surface, using the extra flour and sprinkle some on the dough to stop it sticking, and roll gently with a rolling pin (or suitable glass bottle). You want the dough to be just less than an inch thick, not too thin as they need to rise into nice little mountains of fluffiness but not so thick that they end up drying your mouth out with one bite.

Cut small circles using a pastry cutter - I, in fact, don't have any pastry cutters at the moment and so I used a champagne flute. It made just the right size for small delicate scones!

Place the scones onto the baking tray and  brush the tops gently with either milk or egg and then bake in the hot oven for about 10 to 12 minutes - take then out when they are golden brown and the crust is formed. Eat straight away with jam and cream! Or butter!

If you don't have time to rustle up a batch of scones at any time, these freeze very well and can be warmed up in the oven and come out as if they've just been made fresh and not frozen before. They are a great wee treat for afternoon tea, or even for breakfast!

You know your scones have been enjoyed when there's not much left on the plate after five minutes....

Weekend Pancakes

We have a weekend ritual that every morning we have pancakes made fresh at home and kept warm inside a linen cloth on a plate on the breakfast table. On these mornings I am invariably woken up by our little one asking if we can make pancakes. It's now something that we all look forward to as breakfasts just wouldn't be the same without making pancakes.


Now these pancakes are the traditional Scottish 'drop scones', not french pancakes or 'crepes', but they are similar to the American pancakes which are often eaten with blueberries, maple syrup or even bacon. The recipe is like most pancake recipes, basic with few ingredients. The difficulty in these pancakes is in the cooking - in some ways it should be straight forward and just a case of 'dropping' the batter in the pan and then flipping them over to cook on the other side. However, getting the lovely glossy chestnut coloured smooth top can take a few goes. It's not as straight forward as it should be!

 Scottish 'Drop Scones' or pancakes are chestnut coloured with a smooth top and a fluffy interior.

The Recipe

9oz Self Raising flour
3oz Caster Sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup (not thick black treacle!)
3 eggs

Milk to mix

Put the flour and sugar in a mixing bowl and add the eggs to a hollow in the middle, then plop in the syrup and add a dash of milk to make a soft cake batter mix. Add more milk to the consistency you need.

 

The trick at this stage is getting the right consistency - you need it runny enough to come off the spoon easily but not too runny that you end up with a thin pancake that only rises a little. We're aiming for a thick fluffy interior so it's a balance of not too thick and not too thin. In the picture above you can see that the batter is running of the spoon but forming a soft pile in the bowl, not sinking and disappearing into liquid once more.

Once you've perfected this stage (!) you can get to the cooking part. 

 

You need a thick bottomed pan like a frying pan. (You can get traditional griddles or girdles here in Scotland for the purpose but they are rare now, usually only found in traditional hardware shops, which I love mooching about in. These are the kind of places you can buy all sorts of cooking paraphernalia.) You'll see above that I've dropped two spoonfuls into the pan together. they are about 3 inches in diameter. Now the key point at this stage is that the pan needs to be medium hot and LIGHTLY oiled with butter. If it too oily you will get a patchwork blotchy top to your pancake and you are looking for a glossy chestnut smoothness instead. I drop a tiny spot of butter in the pan, let it melt, then wipe the bottom of the pan over with a kitchen towl to spread the butter and soak up the excess. 

Each pancake will take a couple of minutes to cook on either side but the important bit here is to wait to see the bubbles appearing on the top. When there are quite a lot of bubbles then the pancake is ready to turn over using a fish slice. This is when you learn whether the pan is too cool or too hot or just right! You should have a nice smooth pancake with a rich colouring, anything from golden brown to a rich chestnut. But you don't want it to be too dark or it will taste bitter (although this is how my father likes then *sigh*)

  

Once they are cooked on both sides then pass them to a warm plate covered in a cotton or linen cloth to keep them warm. We eat ours with Nutella or jam, or just with butter. Actually, pancakes are traditionally eaten for afternoon tea in Scotland, we are a little unusual eating them for breakfast but they are really delicious with your morning cup of tea!

Enjoy your Scottish pancakes!

  

  

A Scottish Farm

It's well into August now and I haven't written a thing about..............The Edinburgh Festival!! Shocking! But as is often the case when you live somewhere special you take the special things for granted. It has been known for some Edinburghans to actually avoid all the fuss of the festival. Well, I didn't go that far, it just so happened that we'd planned a break away at my parents farm for the first week or so of August. It's a beautiful place, a little bit magical, and unchanged in a way that makes you feel history hasn't left, but is still lingering around. You can feel it in the old stone buildings and in the fields and the trees. The stone walls (dry stane dykes) make pretty green parcels across the land. But perhaps only pictures can tell its story.......
 
The farm house is a traditional Scottish but n ben. Small and cosy with the thickest walls and smallest attic bedrooms. There is nearly always a fire burning inside the house, even in summer, because the walls keep the rooms so cool. Only on the hottest days is it not lit.

The farm land is pretty and pastural in summer, but it's a harsh place in winter.

  My Dad has an old tractor that he'll never change. It does whatever he asks of it.

We picked raspberries to make raspberry jam

Someone we know had a ball running wild in the fields

 We went to the local and famous Alternative Games in New Galloway

and enjoyed the vintage cars

and the Sheep Throwing Competition

  And after a busy day there are nice places back at the farm for a cosy snooze

It truly is a magical place.