River Cottage Scones Recipe | Food

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Date Published:: 22/06/2009

Summer wouldn't be summer without a crumbly scone served with lashings of jam and cream. Hugh's baker's appentice made these specially for River Cottage 2009

Watch the video of Sarah making scones

Makes 8 scones

Ingredients

300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
75g unsalted butter (at cool room temperature), cubed
50g caster sugar (Hugh used 100g to create a sweeter scone)
1 egg
120ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
Milk, for glazing

Method: How to make scones

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas 6 and lightly grease a baking sheet.

Tip:

The standard River Cottage recipe uses 50g of sugar but if you'd prefer a sweeter scone use between 75g - 100g. Either way, they'll taste delicious.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub in with your fingers until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs. Alternatively, do this in a food processor before transferring the mixture to a bowl. Either way, then stir in the sugar.

3. Beat the egg and cream together, with the vanilla extract too, if you’re using it. Pour into the flour mixture and bring together lightly with your hands into a dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured surface and knead very briefly to form a fairly smooth ball.

4. Pat or gently roll the dough out to a thickness of about 4cm. Use a 6-7cm diameter cutter to stamp out scones from the dough. Put them on the prepared baking sheet, brush the tops with a little milk, and bake for about 15 minutes until risen and golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for a few minutes, then serve slightly warm. Scones do not keep well so eat them up quickly!

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Comments

the above recipe makes a sickly sweet scone that is crumbly in texture. I would skip on adding any sugar, replace the cream with milk, and possibly replace the butter with marg. The tiniest touch of white pepper does wonders to scones and will help your taste buds more than the vanilla. This would then produce a scone that can be made sweet by adding fruit (currants) or savoury by adding cheese - or simply make the plain scone and what you do with it makes it sweet or savoury (if eaten with jam or if eaten with soup). The present recipe makes a sickly cream tea scone by the time you add the whipped or clotted cream and jam the scone is a bit difficult to eat - of course if you just want to eat the scone on its own then Hugh's recipe is spot on but I would not go with 100g sugar.

Posted by The Witch on 26/09/2009 15:57:32

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love rc even though i am a vegetarian, have tried most of the recipes and love the handbooks ( bread being my fav )but some items hard to get like fresh yeast.keep going rc.

Posted by cheryl on 13/08/2009 21:42:30

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This is the 1st recipe in years that has pushed me past the (intense!) pain of my hand arthritis to consider baking again. Sadly I forgot the sugar 1st time, missed out the egg 2nd time, but am utterly determined to get this recipe right as I've also got Sjogren's syndrome which leaves me normally unable to eat bread easily (very dry mouth), and these looked lighter than any others I've ever tried. Can but hope!

Posted by Romayne on 18/07/2009 16:27:07

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I really enjoy RC and get some great reipes and ideas from it. It's been an inspiration to converting my garden into something useful and saved me cash too! I hope RC is around for years to come. Ta!

Posted by Howie on 08/07/2009 17:55:28

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On the show they were making a double batch - so they are both "right"; just follow the recipe and all should turn out fine.

Posted by chefgregory on 08/07/2009 02:25:10

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we tried your scone recipe the other day scones where very nice but they spread and were very crumbly regards andy

Posted by andy rogers on 07/07/2009 12:16:09

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Tried the scone recipe last weekend and one complaint from family "not enough". Entering some in our local village fete today so lets see how they do.

Posted by billy smart on 04/07/2009 10:23:06

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How important is it to use unsalted butter in this recipe - would other butters / cooking fats work too?

Posted by Tricia on 03/07/2009 20:45:12

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These are delicious! I made them this weekend using 50g of caster sugar. They are best just out of the oven but also delicious the next day.

Posted by Kiki1 on 29/06/2009 14:26:05

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Lovely scones. Had a wondeful cream tea with my mum. Thank you for the recipie

Posted by Maddy on 28/06/2009 15:56:16

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Recipes are good but could you put if they are freezable. Making cakes for a summer fair, and although the scones are delicious I don't think I could freeze them with cream in them

Posted by Ann Johnston on 28/06/2009 09:35:16

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Thanks for the landshare project - as well as being great for people it is also good for the planet, which is another benefit to people. I am dismayed by the amount of meat in nearly all cooking programes as meat has a huge carbon footprint. Please see the Food and Climate Research Network http://www.fcrn.org.uk/ I'd love to see River Cottage taking the lead in helping people become more aware and help reduce their carbon foot print from food. It'd be great to help inspire people with fantastic recipes with low carbon count. Trhanks so much and I look forward to your reply. PS please pass it on to Jamie... PPS, please come to our website to see our 1 minute film with our message on climate change from small children: www.singfortheearth.org x Emily x

Posted by Emily Lewis-Brown on 27/06/2009 17:41:13

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Yes - I would also like to know if it is 50g or 100g.

Posted by Fred F on 27/06/2009 13:43:23

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They taste great! But I just can't get them to rise like we saw on the TV :(

Posted by Robster on 26/06/2009 22:52:34

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Well jo i think it depends on if you want it sweet or normal.

Posted by Dane on 26/06/2009 17:56:04

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Have you tried printing this page ???? Either the text is too small or the adverts are place over the text .....

Posted by Anonymous on 26/06/2009 17:46:29

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regarding your recipes, could you please design for printer friendly version. thanks Yan

Posted by Yan Chan on 26/06/2009 14:23:39

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When they made them on TV they said 100g caster sugar, so which is correct ?

Posted by Jo on 25/06/2009 19:44:33

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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipes Scones recipe

Makes 8 scones

Ingredients

Method: How to make scones

Tip:

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