Cake'n'Bake Club: Cheese Scones

I decided last weekend that I'd start posting recipes on a Sunday instead. No real reason, other than I felt like it. Sundays were made for baking, right? I'm still playing catch-up with typing recipes from my Cake'n'Bake meetings, so thought I'd continue in a completely non-chronoligical way with these cheese scones from our Fairytale Tea Party in July 2013. I had used the "Sword in the Scone" pun previously when I was doing the Disney Movie Challenge, but it went down well so I figured it would be a good way to get some savoury bakes into our fairytale offering. I accidentally made these vegan, since I try to avoid dairy and used sunflower spread, soy milk and soy cheese. I don't particularly like the taste of soy cheese normally, but it tasted fine in these scones. The scones can be served warm or allowed to cool before serving, and are best eaten on the day of baking.

Prep time: 5-10 mins        

Cook time: 10-12 mins       

Makes 6 large scones (or 12 mini ones, as pictured!)

Ingredients:

135ml milk
1 tsp lemon juice

275g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
tsp baking powder
65g margarine
1tbsp caster sugar

100g grated cheese

To glaze:

2tbsp milk
Salt and cracked black pepper

1. Heat the oven to gas mark 7 and place the baking tray you plan to use into the oven to heat up.
2. Heat the milk in the microwave for around 30 seconds until warm, but not hot. Add the lemon juice to the milk and set this to one side for a few minutes whilst you prepare the dry ingredients.
3. Tip the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl, and then tip in the margarine. Rub the ingredients together with your fingers until they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and grated cheese to the crumb-like mixture, and mix in with your hands.
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the cooled milk. Mix these together using a cutlery knife until they combine to make a wet dough, being careful not to overwork.
5. Scatter flour over the work surface and tip the dough out onto it. Sprinkle a little more flour on top of the dough. Fold the dough over itself 2-3 times until it becomes smooth, again being careful not to overwork. Pat the dough out (it's better to pat than to use a rolling pin) to around 3cm thick.
6. Using a cutter of your choice, cut scones out of the dough. Tip - do not twist your cutter as this seals the sides of the dough and may prevent your scones from rising.
7. Brush the scones with a little milk, and then sprinkle on some salt and black pepper before popping them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.
8. Enjoy!

Happy Baking!

Happy Thoughts
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Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Honey and Apricot Scones

Our theme for September 2012 was "Five-a-Day", or fruit and veg. The rule this month was simple - anything you baked had to contain at least one item from the fruit or vegetable family.

I had previously entered my Champagne Victoria Sponge recipe into a competition run by Natural Selection Foods and won a whole bunch of their dried fruits, so I wanted to use some in my baking for fruit and veg month. I chose the apricots as they were lovely and sweet, and really complemented the honey in this recipe.

225g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

50g butter or margarine

50g chopped apricots

2tbsp clear “runny” honey

100ml buttermilk

Beaten egg, to glaze

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 15-20 minutes

Makes 12 small scones

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Tip the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and mix together by hand. Add the butter and rub this into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the chopped apricot, honey and buttermilk to the mixture and stir with a spoon until the mixture comes together to form a dough. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for a few minutes, until the dough is soft and smooth.
4. Roll the dough out to around an inch thick, cut out small scones using a round cutter, then place these on the prepared baking tray, leaving a space between each. Brush with the beaten egg to glaze, then bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.
5. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack to cool – although scones are always best eaten slightly warm!
6. Eat as they are, or serve with jam and cream.

Happy Thoughts
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A Cake?

Disney Pixar # 13 - Brave

For the final instalment of the Disney Pixar collection, we decided to take a family outing to the local cinema to watch Brave (after gathering at Angel's house first to scoff down our cakes!) - however, this meant I had no idea what kind of cupcakes to make for this movie. Originally, as the film is set in Scotland and has a whole lot of bright orange hair flying around, I was planning to make some Irn Bru cupcakes. But that felt like a bit of a safe option, especially as I'd made Inca Kola cake for The Emperor's New Groove (which tastes JUST like Irn Bru, might I add), and then Dandelion and Burdock cupcakes for A Bug's Life. So I did a google image search for "Pixar Brave" to see if I could get any inspiration from the images, and there was one that kept popping up which really caught my eye:

There seem to be various images of that little plate of baked goodies - most of which feature the Triplets naughtily sneaking away with them - so I figured they MUST be important, and decided to use those as my inspiration. I don't want to give any spoilers, but it turns out that cake is a pretty big deal in this film!

Anyway, the cakes looked to me to be either an iced bun, or a scone, and in the end I went with scones as they feature prominently in Scottish High Tea. So that was my next dilemma - this is a Pixar movie, and that means I should be making cupcakes, not scones. Unless, that is, I could make cupcake scones. So I decided to bake my little scones in cupcake cases! Yes, this is bending the rules more than a little, but I think it still counts. ^_^

Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes
Makes 12 cupcake scones (or 6 normal sized scones)


Ingredients:

225g plain flour
baking powder
pinch of salt
50g butter
25g sugar
50g white chocolate chunks
25g dried cranberries
Up to 100ml milk (you might not need to use it all!)
Beaten egg, to glaze

To decorate:
25g white chocolate
12 dried cranberries

1.  Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases
2. Tip the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and mix together by hand. Add the butter and rub this into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the sugar, white chocolate chunks and cranberries to the mixture, and stir in my hand until evenly distributed. 
4. Stir in the milk a little at a time until the mixture comes together to form a soft, smooth dough. Fill each cupcake case with around 2tsp of the mixture then brush each cupcake scone with the beaten egg to glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.
5. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Meanwhile, melt the remaining white chocolate and drizzle this over the top of each cupcake scone. Place a dried cranberry on top of each cupcake scone and leave to cool before serving.
   

The white chocolate and cranberry make these scones very sweet, so they can be eaten without jam and cream. They can also be eaten with jam and cream, if you have a super sweet tooth like I do!

So that's the entire Pixar collection to date! I've had a great time doing this again, and hope that you've also enjoyed reading the recipes! Even though we're now out of Disney movies, the Princess will still continue to bake - all will be revealed in the next post! Until then, my friends,

Happy Thoughts
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The Sword in the Scone

Disney Classic # 18 - The Sword in the Stone

OK, I have to confess that I'm cheating a little bit with this one. Originally I was going to try to make a cake in the shape of an anvil sitting on a rock, and I was going to make a cookie sword and stick it in. Then I would have asked the One True King to remove the cookie sword so we could eat the cake, it would have been amazing. However, back in August (yes... I plan these cakes far too far in advance! Actually, I keep a list of my ideas, if and when they pop into my head. Sometimes I'll have a cake planned for months, sometimes I don't come up with anything until the day before. It's just how it goes!) Anyways, back in August I was watching The Great British Bake Off and one of the challenges was to make Paul Hollywood's scones, and I thought "I haven't made scones for years! I'd really like to make some scones." So I set about trying to think of which Disney film I could bake scones for. And that's when it hit me - the sword in the scone!! (Hahah)

You see, my reasoning is that scones do look a little bit like rocks, so if I could figure out how to stick a sword into each one then people would (hopefully) recognise the image from the movie. Also - in case you need further convincing - The Sword in the Stone is based on the legend of King Arthur. Whilst many of the tales of King Arthur vary, his castle Camelot is thought by many to have been located in Cornwall. Not only that, but Arthur's mother was the Duchess of Cornwall. Anyone who's ever been to Cornwall knows that you can't take 5 steps without coming across somewhere that sells cream tea (aka scones and cream).

In the end, my rational for choosing scones actually linked into the film pretty well (much better than some of my other ideas where I've really had to clutch at straws!) - I guess I just did it a bit backwards this time, choosing the film to match the dessert rather than the dessert to match the film. Oops. I still think it counts though...

Afternoon tea, anyone?

Anyway, I decided not to use Paul Hollywood's recipe, because it has eggs in it, and I've never made scones with egg before and I think that's a little weird, especially as most other recipes don't use egg either. Not that I'm questioning Paul Hollywood, I just don't fancy eggy scones. So I made a variation (or three) of the recipe I found here. (Good old BBC Good Food!) I ended up making three batches of scones: some plain scones; some raisin scones (at the request of my Mr.) and some chocolate chip scones (because these are my favourite and they're not sold ANYWHERE - serve with a little butter, yum yum yum!)

The recipe posted below can be used for all 3 types of scones (just add raisins/chocolate chips/anything else you fancy putting in where applicable,) and produces a batch of 6.

Prep time: 5-10 mins         Cook time: 10-12 mins       Serves: 6

Ingredients:

275g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
tsp baking powder
65g margarine
3tbsp caster sugar (plus extra for sugar crusting)
135ml milk
1 tsp lemon juice
1 egg to glaze
Optional - 60g raisins, sultanas, cherries, dried apricot, chocolate chips or anything else you fancy putting inside the scones!

Whipped cream and jam to serve

1. Heat the oven to gas mark 7 and place the baking tray you plan to use into the oven to heat up.
2. Tip the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl, and then tip in the margarine. Rub the ingredients together with your fingers until they resemble fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the sugar to the crumb-like mixture, and mix in with you hands. Add any dried fruits or chocolates to the mixtures at this stage.
4. Heat the milk in the microwave for around 30 seconds until warm, but not hot. Add the lemon juice to the milk and set this to one side for a few minutes.
5. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk. Mix these together using a cutlery knife until they combine to make a wet dough, being careful not to overwork.
6. Scatter flour over the work surface and tip the dough out onto it. Sprinkle a little more flour on top of the dough. Fold the dough over itself 2-3 times until it becomes smooth, again being careful not to overwork. Pat the dough out (it's better to pat than to use a rolling pin) to around 3cm thick.
7. Using a cutter of your choice, cut scones out of the dough. Tip - do not twist your cutter as this seals the sides of the dough and may prevent your scones from rising.
8. In a small bowl, beat the egg for glazing. In another small bowl, place some caster sugar. Dip each scone firstly into the egg, and secondly into the caster sugar, before placing carefully onto the warm baking tray. Tip - try to keep the egg only on the top of the scone, if it runs down the sides it may prevent the scones from rising.
9. Bake the scones in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.
10. The scones can be served warm or allowed to cool before serving, and are best eaten on the day of baking. Will keep for 1-2days in an airtight container, but they won't be as melt-in-your-mouth-soft as the day of baking!

Next week we're watching the Jungle Book, and I'll be making (and serving) a juicy jungle fruits cake!

Happy Thoughts
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