Manageability – Simple, easy, glad I made it last.
For my part, the BBC has really only been good for period dramas. Oh, how I love my period tv shows. I’m talking Emma, Jane Eyre, Downton Abbey, Monty Python’s Flying Circus… So when I realized “oh crikey, they actually have recipes for my tea party”, you know I had to jump on it. And one thing I jumped on was the BBC Good Food’s Cheddar & Sage Scones.
These are easy to do too. And aside from the occasional metric-to-American measurement conversion (“Alexa, what the hell is 220 degrees Celsius??”), they weren’t too tricky. And I’m really glad they weren’t. Because after a full day of baking things for my tea party meal, these were at the end, and I was about to literally throw in the towel. If they were any harder, I wouldn’t have done it. My only complaint about these? Just like British emotions, these were way too dry for me. Practically crumbled in my mouth. Good thing I had some tea to take them down. Even with the cheddar cheese, these were not my favourite snack of the afternoon.
But I did love North & South. So the BBC is still cool in my book.
Ingredients
- 225g self-raising flour. Orphan flour that had to raise itself, and is now a lawyer.
- 1 ½ tsp English mustard powder
- 50g cold butter, cubed
- 100g mature cheddar, grated
- 1 tbsp finely chopped sage, plus 8 small leaves
- 1 egg, beaten
- 100ml buttermilk
Instructions
- Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7 (400 degrees). Mix the flour, mustard powder, ½ tsp salt and a grinding of black pepper in a large bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Resembles fine crumbs, but aren’t fine crumbs. Stir in half of the cheese and the sage. Mix together the egg and buttermilk in a separate bowl.
- Make a well in the center of the flour mix and pour in all but ½ tbsp of the buttermilk mix. Working quickly, stir until the mixture forms a soft, spongy dough. Quickly! Tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly until smooth. Roll out to a 3cm-thick square. Cut into quarters, then half each quarter diagonally, so you have 8 triangles. This is why fractions matter.
- Place the scones on a floured baking tray, brush with the remaining buttermilk, sprinkle over the remaining cheese and top each with a sage leaf. Bake for 12-14 mins until they are well risen, golden and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Eat while still warm, spread with butter.