Thursday 3 February 2011

Afternooon Tea with an American Twist

I have had some cranberries hanging around in my fridge - bought by the other half, no idea what to do with them - and i was inspired by Bake Lady's Blog to use them in scones. So here i am taking part in the Scone Recipe Challenge!

As cranberries are the American berry I looked to the first lady of American cooking, Martha Stewart, for recipe advice. After some conversion dilemmas (hate the cup system) and a few tweaks I ended up with this;

Makes 12 small scones

  • 450g Plain Flour
  • 60g Caster Sugar
  • 1 tbsp Baking Powder
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 85g Chilled Butter
  • 180ml Semi-Skimmed Milk (a bit more than Martha suggests as the mixture was  dry)
  • 110g fresh cranberries halved (you could use frozen as well)
I had never eaten these gorgeous jewel berries fresh before, only in juice or as craisins and they tasted like tiny tart apples, with the same type of texture and sound as when you slice an apple. I was a bit nervous that the sugar in the recipe wasn't enough to balance out the tang so i made sure to do a nice dusting afterwards!

Tiny Tarty Berries
Method;


  1. Mix together all of the dry ingredients
  2. Add the chilled butter in small cubes and use your hands to rub it together and create a crumb like texture
  3. Toss in your halved cranberries if using frozen dry them on kitchen paper first.
  4. Add the milk and knead the mixture together
  5. Dust your surface and rolling pin with flour and roll your dough to 1" thick and use a cutter of your choice

6. Finish your scones by brushing with milk and dusting with caster sugar
        7. Bake at 180c for around 20minutes

Here's what i ended up with...



Could be mistaken for my favourite cherry scone

Lovely with salted butter!




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