At the official opening of the newly refurbed Cavendish Pavilion, the Duke of Devonshire told us they were going ‘big on scones’ with cheese, lemon, ginger, even chocolate. So I bravely ventured through the swing doors to chef Jareg Markowski’s kitchen where he told me he makes a hundred of them every day and happily sang out the recipe: ‘4kg of SR flour…..’ Chefs, bless ’em.
I’ve recalculated the recipe to give you just a dozen little beauties. If you want 100, multiply by 8.
Preheat the oven to 220ºC
Ingredients:
500g self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
100g butter cut into small pieces
100g sultanas
100g sugar
250ml milk
To glaze:
1 egg beaten with a tbsp of milk
For chocolate scones:
Omit the sultanas and replace with
75g of chocolate buttons and 25g of cocoa powder
Method:
Mix the flour and the baking powder together. Add the butter by hand or in a mixer running slowly, combine the butter and flour until it looks like breadcrumbs.
Add the sultanas and the sugar and combine.
Make a hole in the centre and pour in the milk and cover with flour and mix gently until just combined into a soft dough.
Try not to over-mix the dough or you will not get Jareg’s light, fluffy scones.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll the dough gently to 2cm high.
Dip a cutter into a little flour and stamp out the scones. Put the scones on a tray lined with greaseproof paper.
Brush the top of the scones with the egg and milk mixture.
Place the scones in a hot oven for 15 minutes until golden.
