Wensleydale and Ginger Scones

What is up with the weather?  One minute, everyone is raving on about how autumnal it is; my fellow foodies are twittering about soups, stews and casseroles; and I'm desperately trying to find my gloves*. The next, it's roasting hot and I'm feeling like Pinchy probably did when he met his end a little while back.

When the weather turned earlier this week, I figured I'd make some soup this weekend and that it should be complimented by a plate of hot, buttered cheese scones.  My mind then wandered off at a tangent as I bought some Wensleydale to go with Bath Olivers - recommended to me by Lizzie (aka @Mrs_Gaffer).  Whilst perusing Ocado online, I came across Wensleydale with Ginger and thus, Wensleydale and Ginger scones were born.

Slightly singed scones with even more cheese

Wensleydale was one of my favourite cheeses long before Wallace and Gromit appeared on the scene.  For the uninitiated, it has a very delicate flavour and is very crumbly too.  It works well with sweet things such as proper apple pie (with a top and a bottom) or ginger cakes.  I have yet to try it with Bath Olivers as I used it all in my scones and will therefore have to buy more next week.


Because I already had a jar of stem ginger in the fridge, I decided to just buy regular Wensleydale and to combine the two into a scone.  That way, I could make some plain Wensleydale scones to see what they were like on their own - and to feed to my fussy toddler, just in case - and I could do some with ginger in as well.

So I made two sets of mixture, one with cheese, a touch of cayenne and a smidgen of mustard; the others with cheese and finely diced ginger.  I placed them in the oven to bake and couldn't work out why, after 12 minutes, the plain scones had barely risen, let alone browned.  Then I noticed I'd stupidly switched my oven on to grill mode in my sleep-befuddled haze (this was 7.30am**) and so consequently, the ginger ones were cooked and nearly singed on top***, whilst I had to rebake the plain Wensleydale ones again.

The resulting scones were both enjoyable, although the Wensleydale flavour is so subtle in the scones that you'd either need a lot more of that and barely any ginger to get both flavours; or as I would recommend, you should just make the ginger scones, omit the cheese from the recipe and eat it on the side in a big fat lump.

Just getting back to the weather - after barbecuing myself in the sunshine all day (and eating a dodgy looking ice lolly), I returned home to find I was shivering cold and so ended up also making this tomato soup from BBC Good Food.  This is the quickest soup ever and is great when a tin of rather foul Heinz tomato soup is the only thing in your store cupboard.

So here's the recipe for both sets of scones.

• 225g self raising flour
• 50g cold butter, cubed
• 145ml buttermilk (or 140ml milk and 5ml lemon juice), warmed
• pinch table salt

-then either-

• 150g Wensleydale, grated
• pinch cayenne pepper
• pinch English mustard powder

-or-

• 1 ball stem ginger, finely chopped
• 150g Wensleydale (optional if you want to try the Wensleydale and Ginger version)

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan/425f.  Place a baking tray in the oven to get hot.
2. In a large mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add your other chosen ingredients and give a quick mix to spread through the bowl evenly.  
4. Pour in the buttermilk and work to form a soft, dough using a round ended knife.  Don't over work the dough.
5. Tip out onto a floured work surface, pat to be about 2.5cm/1 inch thick and then cut using a pastry cutter.  I used an 7cm cutter for my ginger ones and got four from the mix (and one for the dog) and a 5cm cutter for the plain cheese ones and got eight (and one for the dog).
6. Remove the baking tray from the oven, place the scones on to the tray and bake for 10-12 minutes.  If you're baking larger scones, leave them for 14 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly before serving with lashings of butter.

*cold hands = warm heart
**at this point, I'd abandoned the soup plan in favour of a day out at the local-ish farm park with Miss A so the scones had been promoted to picnic fodder
***thankfully I didn't wake the husband with the smoke alarm for once

Dodgy ice lolly

Lil Ms Squirrel's Cheese, Chive and Chorizo Scones

Firstly, I'd like to clarify that this post has absolutely nothing to do with Sconegate.  No, really, it hasn't.  I am SO over it.  It's so last week.  Well okay, when I've finally had the chance to whine about it to my favourite whining buddy, then I'll get over it.  But he's recently had an earful of me whining about a wide variety of other subjects and so I'll save it up for a day when the whining potential over other annoyances is low.

Pretty colours

Actually, the purpose of tonight's recipe was a test run for a little idea that's been bubbling away at the back of my brain for a few days so I decided to give this one element of it a whirl.  I'm not sure why, but I've become obsessed with the idea of adding chorizo to scones.  Given that it's the most commonly used meat-related product so far on this blog, I'm not surprised.  And the recipe encompasses baking and cheese which also feature at the top of the tag cloud, so what's not to like?

Of course me being me, I have this thing about sharing my own recipes in public. When it comes to food, I'm a follower.  I'm not very good on the ideation* front.  I'd much rather take a recipe and tweak it than invent something from scratch.  Then again, as I've said before, do any of us really make a completely new recipe from scratch?  There are certain rules of science in cooking that mean deviation from them just leads to disaster.  Many people try to tinker with cake, but most cakes are based on the pound cake principle.  Or very slight variations of that basic rule of thumb.  

Five and one for the dog as my Grandma would say

Take my scones.  You can't fiddle around too much with the basic recipe because either they don't bake properly or the end result isn't actually a scone.  So although I say it's my recipe, it's really someone else's cheese scone recipe which I found many moons ago that I've now tinkered with to get to this point.

But chorizo was a bit of a revelation for me.  I not only like the flavour in this recipe, I love the way the paprika leaches into the dough and gives you pretty orange streaks.  Thyme seems to be the classic herb to go with chorizo, but I decided to buck that trend, both for the contrast between the orange and green; and moreso because it gave a lovely alliteration to the title.  Cheese, Chive and Chorizo.  

In the tin, ready for later consumption (I ate the dog's one)

So here is a recipe from me to you.  Give it a go.  Tweak it if you like with different varieties of cheese or herbs.  They're great fresh from the oven and I think they're better warmed back up than eaten cold.  If you give it a go, let me know what you think.  All natural and home made.  With nary a jot of wallpaper paste in site.

Makes five large scones and one for the dog

• 225g self raising flour plus extra for dusting.
• 150g cheese, grated (I used 100g double Gloucester and 50g Parmesan)
• 55g butter
• 55g chorizo, diced
• 75ml milk
• pinch of Cayenne pepper
• handful of chives, finely snipped
• milk or a lightly beaten egg for brushing

1. Preheat the oven to 220c/200c fan/gas 5.  Place a baking sheet in the oven to warm.
2. Put the flour and butter into a bowl and rub together until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the cheese, chorizo, cayenne and chives and mix thoroughly.
4. Gradually pour in the milk to form a soft but not sticky dough.  You may need slightly more or less depending on how 'thirsty' your flour is
5. Place the dough onto a floured board and pat to about 2cm thick.  Cut into rounds using a 5cm cutter.  Use all the dough up by forming back gently into a mound and patting and cutting again.
6. Remove the baking tray from the oven and place the scones on the tray.  Brush the tops with egg or milk (I forgot this bit) and bake for 15-20 minutes until risen and golden.
7. Serve warm with lashings of butter.

*I recently had to take my mentor to task over his excessive use of management buzzwords.  He's got this nasty habit of slipping them into a meeting when we're trying to be deadly serious and distracting me from the very important task in hand because I have to stifle a giggle or several.  Take the word 'mandrolic'.  He said it once and suddenly the entire company seemed to be saying it.  It means a long-winded, tedious, manual task.   Just the use of it makes me cringe and the whining factor ramps right up whenever I hear it.  What's wrong with 'manual'?

He has now made it his mission to track down the most ridiculous and random use of words and emails me from whatever presentation he's in with his latest find.  'Ideation' is apparently short-hand for 'Idea Generation'.  Or just people getting sloppy with their speaking if you ask me.

Tea and Mincemeat Scones

I was going to start the blog today with a ranty bit about scones, but because this top-notch recipe has come from Turquoise Lemons, a lovely fellow blogger, I'd like you to go visit her blog first and then come back for me and my scone-based ranting...

You're back? Good.  Here we go.

The picture really doesn't do them justice...

I love afternoon tea.  And if anyone ever suggests an afternoon out, I cross my fingers and toes in the hope that it might involve a spot of tea and cake and, more importantly, freshly baked scones.  Crispy on the outside, light and fluffy in the middle.  Slathered with jam and clotted cream.  In that order.  No butter.  My mother is horrified by this.  The maternal side of the family (my grandma's side) hail from Devon.  Real Devonshire people put the cream on first and then the jam.  With butter underneath.  I'm an outcast for making my scones the Cornish way.

Seriously, the only time she gets more agitated is if she happens to meet a Pompey supporter.  Not that that will be a frequent occurrence for much longer with any luck!*

Anyway, the rant.  Who on earth thinks it's acceptable to eat fruit scones with butter, cream and jam on the top?  I'm sorry, but it's just wrong.  John Lewis do a very nice cheese scone, but if you want a pseudo-cream tea then the scone comes with sultanas in it.  No thank you, very much.  But it's not just John Lewis.  M&S are at it, every single tea-serving place in the whole of Northumberland was at it (I had a scone craving during a holiday there a few years ago and ended up baking my own before we'd even unpacked the car when we finally got home).

Flickr-filtered picture from my phone

The husband took me for afternoon tea at the Ritz to celebrate my first twenty-ninth birthday.  And even they were at it!  Although they did very kindly take back the offending scones and give me plain ones.  I'm sure that's only because the husband has "Lord..." on his Amex.

Fruit scones should be buttered and eaten as is.  That is the point of a fruit scone.  That you can taste the fruit.  The flavour of plump, juicy sultanas should not be sullied with more sticky-sweet fruit piled on the top.  Do you put jam on malt loaf?  Or a hot cross bun?  Or maybe you do and I'm the odd one out here with my fruity-scone-butter-but-no-jam pecadillo?

Anyway, I will not be eating these scones with anything other than a smear of butter.  Mostly because you would lose the delicate scenting of tea and the complex fruit-and-spice flavour from the mincemeat.

Homemade mincemeat from an earlier post

I loved the idea of this recipe so much when I first read it last night that I had to try it out today.  Every time I've opened the cupboard since Christmas, the first thing that's greeted me is a near-empty jar of homemade mincemeat, staring at me in the most accusatory manner for not finding something to do with the last few tasty spoonfuls.  Well now I have!

I adapted the recipe slightly as I had 200g of mincemeat left and so reduced the liquid by 50ml and it worked brilliantly.  The mincemeat contained slivers of almonds which gave a lovely little crunch here and there and was packed with a variety of cherries, apricots and other mixed fruit, giving it a great flavour.   I used my biggest cutter and got five and 'one for the dog' as my Grandma would have said. Baked for 20 minutes and they look, smell and taste amazing.  Thank you so much Turquoise Lemons for sharing!

Recipe - adapted from Turquoise Lemons


Makes 6 large scones

• 150 ml of strong tea
• 200g of mincemeat
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 400g self raising flour
• 50g unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp table salt

If you don't have leftover mincemeat just substitute with dried fruit and a teaspoon of mixed spice.

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (fan).  Place a baking tray in the oven whilst it heats up.**
2. Put the butter, sugar and flour into a large bowl and rub together until the butter is fully combined.
3. Add the mincemeat and tea. Start to bring the mixture together into a dough. If the mixture is too dry, add a tablespoon or two of milk.
4. Place on a floured surface, pat into a round approx 3cm thick and cut out your scones.  Squash any cuttings back together and continue patting and cutting until all the dough is used.
5. Remove the hot baking tray from the oven and place the scones onto it.
6. Brush each scone with milk or a little beaten egg.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and they sound hollow when tapped.

*If you don't get the reference, we're a family of Southampton supporters (my great grandma moved to Hampshire before my grandma was born).  There is nothing that would please a Saints fan more than Pompey getting relegated...  Now wondering how many Twitter friends I'll lose over this comment!
**Placing the scones on a hot baking tray gives their rise a kick start.

Cheese Scones

Just a quick blog tonight as I'm feeling a little under the weather (story of my life these days).  Anyhow, catching a few minutes of Masterchef this afternoon, I started lusting after cheese scones - they'd been served with roasted pepper and tomato soup in this case, bring on the cold weather - so I thought I'd knock up a quick batch for Miss Abigail's tea so I could have a sneaky one.

I make amazing plain scones - don't get me started on the subject of sultana ones - but I haven't made cheese scones since school.  A quick search of BBC Good Food and I found a fab recipe that is simplicity in itself.

Only downside that a tantrumming toddler meant that I left them in a few minutes longer than I should have and if I was really living the Great British Bake Off dream, I'd've fallen foul of the Silver Fox for over baking.  Nevertheless, the slight crunch to the outside only served to enhance the lovely fluffy middles IMHO.

This is a recipe that could be used time and again and improved on by other flavourings - chorizo and thyme; bacon; onion; chives; rosemary - the list is endless.  Perfect accompaniment to soup and a recipe learned just in time for the snow that's apparently been predicted for next week.

Picture of the scones to follow as the phone is flat - again!  Recipe can be found here.