I've made these scones for decades. I made them for three different coffee houses. I've made them for my children and friends. I promised the recipe to quite a few lovely people recently and finally decided that this was the perfect place to share it. I hope you and your family love these as much as we have.
The recipe is adapted from a basic scone recipe I found in the joy of cooking. Here it is with all of our particular tweaks and changes.
Ingredients:
2 and 2/3 cups of all purpose flour
4 tsps of magic baking powder
2 tbsp of sugar
1/2 cup of cold butter cut into 1 cm cubes
3 large eggs
1 cup of whole milk or cream (you may need more or less depending on the weather)
1 large granny smith apple cored and peeled, cut into 1 cm cubes
about 5 oz or 1 cup of 1 cm cubed cheddar (get the good sharp stuff)
Toss all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and blend together
Add the cubed butter and with a pastry blender or two butter knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the butter is the size of small peas.
Add in the cheese and apple cubes and stir gently to mix.
Mix together your eggs and milk in a separate bowl until light and well blended. Reserve 3 tbsps of this mix to coat the buns before baking.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry with as few stirs as possible. I use a fork to mix things. The mixture should be fairly wet and kind of sticky. If you need to add a bit more milk, do that.
Dump the dough onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet and dust it with flour. Form the dough lump roughly into a 5 cm thick disc and cut that disc into six equal wedges. The dough should be sticky and will be hard to work with. Try not to handle it too much or the scones will be tough.
Separate the wedges and brush with reserved milk mix.
Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 15 - 20 minutes or until golden brown.
A toothpick when inserted should come out clean.
We serve them with a cup of tea.
You'll all be fighting over the toasty brown crunchy cheese puddles left around the edges too!
Happy Tea Time!