I only recently started blogging and using Instagram and quickly came across the Sunday Afternoon Baking Club. It’s a group which is pretty self-explanatory from the name. Essentially a weekly theme is set and the idea is everyone bakes and shares their bakes with each other on a Sunday afternoon. What fun! I decided to join in and this week’s theme is Cream Tea. I always forget what the difference is between an Afternoon Tea and a Cream Tea but after a quick google it seems a Cream Tea is a stripped back Afternoon Tea, essentially just scones and tea. Afternoon Tea is the full shebang of tea with (dainty) sandwiches, cakes, scones and petit fours.

I’ve already written about my personal favourite scone recipe as far as a traditional scone goes which can go from being a mere assembly of ingredients to being devoured with clotted cream and jam in 20 minutes flat. Please do check that recipe out if you want something simple and fast yet still awesome!

For my first foray into this baking group though I decided something a little more creative would be in order. I felt such an occasion warranted a little extra effort to impress my new potential baking buddies.  And so I started thinking, what is the best thing about scones? Hmm….

A friend of mine once memorably told me that in his view the scone was simply a vessel for the clotted cream. This cracked me up, what a remark with such unapologetic gluttony! Yet anyone that knows me or my family knows that we love cream, and so I really can’t disagree.

So then, if cream is an essential component, what goes well with cream I thought. Cookies and cream? Not good for a scone. Chocolate? Yes possibly, but I like scones to be fruity. For me a fruit jam is an essential component too. So then, fruits that go with cream. Strawberry? Raspberry? Peaches! Peaches and cream, a classic combo!

I have basically regurgitated my thought process here, and it just so happens peaches are in season this time of year and I happened to have some in my fridge. In my mind when things like this align, then it’s a sign it’s meant to be. I decided to add raspberries too as raspberry jam is another one of my favourites. Also I thought peaches and raspberries are so beautiful together, the colours remind me of a tropical sunset or the fruit salad penny sweet I used to get as a kid (do you know the one?).  

So that is how I came to make these scones and they were absolutely yum! They are extra work compared to a normal plain scone or one with a scattering of raisins. But if you fancy a different flavour profile and dare I say, a scone that stands on it’s own without the need for cream and jam, then please give these a go.

(What irony that my initial brain storm centred around what flavours best go with cream yet I have come up with a scone that doesn’t really need it.)

By the way, don’t get me wrong, I still had mine with the works, cream, jam and more fresh fruit on top, but these scones are packed with fresh peaches and raspberries which bring flavour and moisture so they could easily be eaten plain or with butter. They’d be good for breakfast, a snack or a slightly less decadent treat if you don’t want to go the whole hog with the cream.

Makes about 15

Time: 1 hour 15

 Ingredients

1. 500g self raising flour

2. 50g caster sugar

3. 1 tsp baking powder

4. ¼ tsp salt

5. 110g unsalted butter, cubed (as cold as possible)

6. 300ml buttermilk

7. 1 egg for egg washing

8. 300g raspberries and peaches – choose the combination as your prefer.

I recommend approx. 200g peaches and 100g raspberries as peaches do not have as strong a flavour as raspberries. Also, if like me you would still like to top these scones with jam, then I’d recommend raspberry jam in which case extra peaches in the scone itself will help balance the flavours. I did try a peach jam as well but for me peach jam does not taste that much of peaches whereas a good raspberry jam is like fresh raspberries on steroids! Intense and sweet and just delicious.    

Method

Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Rinse the fruit and pat dry. Skin or peel the peaches and chop into small pieces, about 1cm square. Break the raspberries in to halves. Set aside.  

Put the flour, butter, caster sugar, baking powder and salt in to the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until it resembles crumbs and there are no big lumps of butter. (You can use a food processor if preferred, I like using the stand mixer as you can make the dough in just the one bowl). You can do this by hand too if preferred.

Add the buttermilk and combine until just mixed with clumps forming but it should not yet form a solid dough ball.

Add in the fruit and using your hands gently combine together so a dough forms. Try not to completely pulverise the fruit, this is a gentle combining and pressing together motion as opposed to a knead.

When the dough comes together, place it on to a well-floured surface and whilst you’re at it with the flour, it’s worth lightly flouring the baking tray with the baking parchment too. The more you mix the fruit in to the dough the wetter the dough will feel. You may feel it starts off on the dry crumbly side and before you know it, it’s starts to get sticky. Don’t fear just try and get it to the point where it stays together and you can roll it out. Keep the flour to hand and sprinkle some flour on top if it starts to feel too sticky.

Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough so it is about 4-5cm thick. This will seem quite thick, and you may be tempted to roll it out thinner but don’t. These scones aren’t like cakes, they will rise but not dramatically. If you roll too thin the scones will end up rather large and flat (see picture to the right, or on a mobile the photo may be above, of a previous batch I made).

Dip your scone cutter into the flour to help prevent sticking and cut out your scones placing them on the baking parchment. I used a 6cm cutter. In the photo to the right I had used a 7cm cutter which in addition to the extra spreading due to not chilling the scones before baking (see tip below), made them a bit too big. Where you have offcuts of dough you can reconstitute this by gently pressing these off cuts back together and rolling out to the desired thickness then cutting out more scones until all the dough is gone.    

Place the baking tray with all your scones into the fridge for about 20 minutes. This will harden up the butter which in turn will help to create steam when baking and therefore help the scones to rise giving a lighter texture. It will also prevent the scones from spreading out as much as they bake and hold their shape. These scones will still rise and spread a little when baking so make sure you space them out on the tray, at least a couple of centimetres between each one. On the right is a photo of another batch I made where I didn’t space them enough. This made them stick together and also they took longer to bake.

Whilst the scones are chilling this gives you the perfect amount of time to clear up and preheat the oven to 200c.

When the oven is heated and the scones have been chilling for about 20 minutes minutes or so, take them out the fridge and give them an egg wash on the tops and sides with a beaten egg.

Bake for 18 minutes until a lovely golden colour and baked through. The smell of the baking raspberries and peaches should be spread throughout the kitchen.

Leave the scones to cool slightly as initially they will be very soft. These are delicious still warm from the oven with a smothering of butter. Or once cooled a bit more, with a Cream Tea of course!   

Tips

How to remove peach skins

I usually use a peeler to remove the skins of a peach as it’s easiest and fastest but admittedly this is a bit more wasteful as you take with it a little more flesh than if you skinned them properly using this method. Firstly you cut a small cross in the bottom of each peach and prepare a large pot of boiling water.

Drop the peaches into the hot water for exactly a minute, then remove and run them under cold water (or drop them into a bowl of ice water). Use a knife or your fingers to pull the skins off of the peaches, you should find the skins come right off.

Chilling versus not chilling before baking

Below are a couple of photos which show the difference between baking the scones immediately versus chilling them in the fridge first. The scone on the right of each frame was the chilled one. As you can see it has risen more and it has also retained a neater circular shape and spreads out less. Despite this, if you are short on time, then you could skip this chilling step as the texture is not vastly different and the spread just adds to the rustic look! The scones will still be delicious.