Forget every scone recipe you’ve ever read. This is the only one you’ll need! (Makes 12 – 15 scones) Recipe by Rozanne.
When these came out of the oven I left my office and drove over to try them. It was worth every second in the traffic. They truly are fantastic, this is one of those recipes your children will be asking you to leave them in your will!
What you need
4 x 250ml cake flour
Pinch of salt
30ml baking powder
120g butter, at room temperature
100ml sugar
250ml buttermilk
1 egg
125ml water
1 egg, lightly beaten to glaze
The process
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius and make sure the oven tray is in the middle of the oven. Prepare two baking trays by lining them with baking paper.
Sift the flour, salt and baking powder twice into a large bowl
Cut the butter into blocks and rub into the flour mixture with your finger tips. The mixture should look just like bread crumbs. Make sure there are no lumps of butter at all.
Add the sugar and mix around with your hands
In a small bowl, lightly combine the buttermilk and 1 egg. Add this to the flour mixture and mix together with a round bladed knife. Add just enough water to make a soft dough. (Make sure the dough is not sticky and do not over-mix)
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead very gently until a ball is formed.
Pat the dough out with your fingers until it is about 3 cm thick. Cut out the scones using a round, metal cutter and place onto the baking trays (leave 2 to 3 cm between each scone).
With the remaining egg, whisk it up lightly and brush a bit on top of each scone.
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Always cut one open to check if they are completely cooked through, if not, immediately put them back in the oven for another 3 minutes.
Just a few hints
A lot of people tend to replace butter with margarine when baking because it’s a lot cheaper. NEVER do this when making scones. There is a huge difference between a delicious, light and fluffy butter scone and a horrible margarine scone.
Scones are not scones if they are not made with buttermilk. It is abominable to own such recipes. Tear them up. Now!!!!
Don’t ever forget to glaze your scones with egg before you bake them. The gloriously golden top is the best part.
Always serve your scones warm with butter, jam and a generous dollop of freshly whipped cream. Scrumptious!
When warming, NEVER put them in the microwave because they will go stodgy. Rather do it in the oven. It takes a bit longer, but definitely worth the wait!
Your scones are perfectly cooked when the sound hollow if you tap the bottom.
Nothing great about this recipe…I’ve tasted much better
Could you post the better recipe? That would be amazing
Must be your Grandma’s 🙂
Will surely try this out today, I have never baked anything apart from the already made muffin mix muffins and cupcakes, it does looks yummy hope it tastes as good as it looks.
Hi, I just want to confirm, 4 x 250ml flour i.e 4 cups or 1kg?
Hi Graham, I tried these and I became and instant celebrity. I added a sprinkle of desiccated coconut. Wow! All I can say is “Eish… Yummy!
Do you have any recipe that involves using mealimeal or pap?
All the best man.
Hi Graham, I tried these and I became and instant celebrity. I added a sprinkle of desiccated coconut. Wow! All I can say is “Eish… Yummy!
Do you have any recipe that involve using mealimeal or pap?
All the best man.
Hi Graham
You must be very bust sorting some new recipes for us. I know I am missing your emails.
Hi. Going to try this recipe. Have just made a batch of the Perfect Scones. Mix seemed very dry, scones were tasty but looked nothing like the picture. Comparing the recipes I see this one has much more butter, it also has buttermilk, water and an egg. Will give feedback once done
Hi Graham
Can this recipe be used for cheese scones as well?
Hi Graham, made these scones over the weekend, mine came out a little bit dense so I think I need to work on the kneading bit of the process but the taste was great. I will be trying these out again. ps What is the difference between cultured buttermilk and buttermilk? I used cultured buttermilk as this was all i could find in the local store.
Thank you for a great cooking website.