Easy Scones
Big, fluffy scones made with plain flour, milk, butter & eggs. Delicious served with strawberry jam and clotted cream.
Ingredients
- 360 g (3 cups) plain flour * (all-purpose flour)
- 50 g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
- 3 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp fine table salt
- 100 g (7 tbsp) unsalted butter, cold, cubed
- 2 medium eggs
- 100 ml (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) cold milk*
Glaze (optional):
- 1 egg , beaten OR 2 tbsp milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C fan (400°F fan) / 220°C non-fan (430°F non-fan). Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Stir together. Add the cubed butter and used your fingertips to rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks kind of sandy and shaggy with some pea-sized lumps of butter remaining.360 g (3 cups) plain flour *, 50 g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar, 3 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp fine table salt, 100 g (7 tbsp) unsalted butter, cold, cubed
- Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture. Crack the eggs into the centre and pour in the milk. Stir together very briefly to form a messy, sticky dough with some floury patches remaining.2 medium eggs, 100 ml (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) cold milk*
- Tip the contents of the bowl out onto a work surface dusted lightly with flour. Pat the shaggy dough out into a rough rectangle about 1.5cm (1/2-inch) thick. Fold the dough in half and rotate 90 degrees. Pat out again and fold in half then rotate 90 degrees. Do this a couple more times until there are no floury patches remaining. You want to work quickly & lightly here - don't overwork the dough or the scones will be tough.
- Now dust your dough rectangle with flour on top and underneath. Roll out gently until it's around 3cm thick - it'll look super thick but this is key to getting tall scones!
- Dust a 5 or 6cm (2 or 2.5-inch) round cutter (or water glass) with flour and use to cut out rounds of dough. Make sure you're using a simple down-up movement with the cutter (i.e. DON'T twist the cutter as this will seal the cut edge and prevent the scones rising).
- Pop the rounds out onto the lined tray. Gently gather the scraps and re-roll, cutting out more rounds from the dough until it's all used up. You should get 8 or 9 scones total.
- Brush the tops of the scones with a thin layer of beaten egg (or milk) - try to make sure the glaze doesn't drip down the sides of the scone as this can prevent them rising.1 egg
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating the tray 180-degrees when they're halfway through their cooking time. They should be well-risen and golden all over.
- Serve warm with clotted cream, or butter, and jam.
Video
Notes
*Using self-raising flour: If you don't have baking powder to hand, just replace the plain flour & baking powder with 360g (3 cups) of self-raising flour.
*Using yoghurt in place of milk: I sometimes use a mixture of water and natural yoghurt (50ml of each) in place of milk. It depends on what I have in the fridge and what flavour I'm going for (yoghurt adds a bit more of a tangy flavour to the scones).
Dairy-Free Scones - use a dairy free block butter (like Stork or Naturli) instead of the butter. Use a dairy-free milk (I like oat milk).
Freezing scones before baking - you can freeze the rounds of scone dough before baking on a tray. Once frozen, slide them off the tray into a sandwich bag and pop back into the freezer for up to 3 months. They can be baked from frozen at the same temperature as usual for 20-25 minutes.
Freezing baked scones - cool scones to room temperature then pop into a sandwich bag and freeze for up to 1 month.