Buttermilk Scones for a Cream Tea!

Boy and I enjoy making scones.  This next week sees our annual women's conference Cherish 2011.  The theme this year is based on flowers and garden parties and so this got me thinking about having a cream tea activity at home.  This is a lovely recipe which I have slightly adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe in one of my mother's books.  It is the easiest and quickest scone recipe I have come across and has the best results in my opinion.  It also gives you another use for the cream of tartar you bought to make play dough!

Ingredients; 500g plain flour, 2 tsp bicarb of soda, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 tsp caster sugar, 75g unsalted butter, 1 284ml carton buttermilk, 3 tbsp milk.  First put the flour, bicarb, cream of tartar and sugar together in a large bowl.  Then cut the butter into small pieces.  You can use a fairly blunt knife so this is a good one for little hands to learn knife skills safely.

 Then add the butter to the flour.

Then rub the butter into the flour until all the lumps have disappeared.

Boy is VERY good at this.  It is a great sensory experience for him too.  Feeling and smelling the ingredients as he works.  After this, add the whole carton of buttermilk and the milk.

Then mix everything together until a sticky dough is formed.  It seems very sticky but you mix in more flour as you knead it so don't worry.

Dust a clean board or surface with flour and turn the dough onto it.  Knead until the dough is smooth.

Then pat the dough down until it is about 2cm thick and cut the scones out.

Then put them on a baking sheet (either greased or lined with baking paper) and bake for about 10-12mins at 220 degrees.

Once cooked then will be golden brown and nicely risen.

The mixture makes 12-15 scones depending on how big you want them.  I usually have to bake in two batches because the tray isn't big enough for all of them at once.  Once cooled you can enjoy them with jam and whipped or clotted cream and a nice cup of tea!