HI there, To make successful scones try lemonade .

4 cups s.r. flour, 300 mls cream, 1 can of lemonade, make and bake as usual, in very hot oven, lovely fluffy scones, think I'll go and make a batch.

Fay

fay.11@hotmail.com

Yummm! Reminds me of the old-fashioned Devonshire Teas....with real jam and real cream.

I've still got my Mum's Commonsense Cookery Book, but she was born in 1899 - don't know when she got the book, but it uses 1/4lb flour 1 tspn baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon of butter, 3/4 gill milk. Sift all the dry ingredients together, rub in butter - lightly with tips of fingers. Pour in enough milk all at once, mix quickly into a soft dough., but keep a little back for glazing. knead lightly - I think that kneading lightly is the key. Apart from the 1/4 pound, the 3/4 gill of milk, sounds simple enough. But, I too, have never had success. Maybe I didn't watch closely enough.

Bev, I was giving an old recipe to my sister...from a 1914 cookbook...and the old measurements were used. I found a site which helps to convert from "gill" etc to modern day measurements. Very helpful.



http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_volume.htm

Thanks for that Koko - maybe now I'll be able to use some more of the recipes. Was always guessing before. I do remember that she said that you had to use a light hand, don't turn the dough too often. She made the lightest, fluffiest scones.

The lemonade recipe really does work, and makes perfect light scones. Scones are an interesting cookery phenomenon - I knew a woman who made wonderful cheese scones. She cut them quite large, and rolled them in more grated cheese before squaring them off and baking them. Her advice was to have a fairly wet mixture.

Another friend who also made great plain scones, said the trick was to have a dry mixture!

Yet another said to add an extra teaspoon of baking powder to whatever was stipulated in the recipe.

And another pearl of scone-making advice was to treat the dough rather like puff pastry - stretch it out lengthways then fold into 3, and do this 2 or 3 times to layer it which helps it rise.

And finally, more advice says not to handle the dough too much or it makes it tough.



Go figure! I feel it has a lot to do with one's oven.



Adele

Scones.

The secret with scones is to not knead/rub or mess about with them after the wettish dough is formed.

You will only toughen them.



Basic plain scones.

Prepare.

Self Raising flour/ add a pinch of salt and a little bit of extra baking powder.



In your mixing bowl add a knob of butter and a little caster sugar.Cream this well until white.

Add your flour mix and rub through.

Add your milk and cream and stir through with a spoon until you have wet dough.



Flour your bench or table top WELL.

Turn out your scone mix and sprinkle flour on top. Roll lighly until about 3-4 Cms thick.

Cut with a round scone tool or simply cut into squares and place on greased baking tray.

Paint eggwash or milk or the top for a nice finish.

Cook in hottish oven for 15 ---20 mins approx.



For more tasty scones you may add to the flour before wetting the mix.

Cheese grated

Herbs

Sultanas

Dates chopped well

Pumpkin...... cooked and mashed



This is copied from my answer to Cuddle's request.