Cherry Scones!

After a good workout this morning what did I decide to do? I decided to actually make scones instead of buying them from the shop, since I love them so much.

Since I'm a beginner in the baking department, I searched for an easy recipe and found an australian website (link here) with a video turorial and everything, that took my fancy. There is just something about the aussies' accent - I simply love it! The recipe is for basic scones but I wanted to make cherry ones so I just added that bit on myself.

I was thinking of making a step by step tutorial with pictures but :

a) Camera battery running low,

b) Recipe is so bloody easy anyway, you really don't need it!

All you need to do is pre-heat oven to 200º C, lightly dust a oven tray with flour, throw 3 cups of self-raising flour in a large bowl and chop up 80g of cold butter into cubes.

Then, using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the centre, add 1 cup of milk(I used skimmed, but whatever you have is fine), and at this point I added my glacé cherry halves. 

Mix with a flat bladed knife in a criss-cross action until the mixtures forms a soft dough. You'll probably have to add a bit more milk in the process, you want a sticky but quite firm dough so don't overdo it.

Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly, aka hardly at all! We really just want to gently knead the dough until it's smooth, otherwise the scones will turn out tough.

Pat dough into a 2cm-thick round shape. Using a 5cm (diameter) round cutter, or in my case, un upside down glass, cut out as many round shapes you can out of the dough, it should give you about 12 to 16 scones. 

Place scones onto prepared baking tray, 1cm apart. Sprinkle tops with a little plain flour and lightly brush on some milk on the tops. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden and well risen. 

I wrapped them in a clean tea towel to keep them warm and served them almost straight away.

I did manage to take a couple of pics of the final results - cue drumrolls...

They were a success!

I swear I did not put any illicit secret ingredients in them, but somehow everyone was acting a tad over excited while eating these scones!

My gorgeous mother, by the way!

Who knew scones were such fun?!