Scones

I have been craving a cream scone since Christmas Eve when I went for a walk with my Mum and her friend - but the usual cafe wasn't open! So with mother's day on the approach we planned to go for a nice country side walk and take a picnic of tea and scones with us for at the end. The weather forecast soon changed those plans but we still had scones as part of a nice indoor picnic at my brother's house.

To appeal to all, I made three different types of scone for mother's day - a plain scone, a cherry scone and a vegan sultana scone. This basic recipe can be adapted to make any flavour you like. I have tried a few different scone recipes including Paul Hollywood's which uses bread flour (wasn't keen on that recipe). This is the best one I've found so far and they turned out really light and fluffy.

To make eight scones you will need:

• 250g self raising flour
• A pinch of salt
• 50g caster sugar
• 50g unsalted butter
• 1 medium egg
• 100ml milk / buttermilk
• 75g of your chosen fillings

The recipe suggests using butter milk however I just used whole milk and felt the result was just as good. If you want to make a vegan version simply swap the butter for a vegan margarine, omit the egg and use soya milk instead.

Start by heating your oven to 220c fan.

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add the sugar, salt and rub in the butter until it resembles bread crumbs. At this point you need to add any chosen fillings. If you are using cherries, cut them, since the and then pat them dry with kitchen towel before adding to your mix. This stops them from sticking together and will make sure they are evenly dispersed throughout your scones.

Beat the egg and milk together and mix into the flour mixture using a palette knife or something similar. If you are making the vegan version add soya milk a little at a time until the dough comes together.

Top your dough onto a floured surface and gently work it until it comes together. pat the dough out until its about 3cm thick, use cutter to cut 8-9 rounds out of your dough. If you are making these as part of a tea party spread you could make mini scones instead. You don't need to roll you this dough - the less you work it the lighter your scones will be. If you have any spare dough combine if back together and pat it out once more.

Put your scones on a baking tray and cook for around 12 minutes until golden brown.

To stop ourselves from over eating scones we put around half of the batch in a sandwich bag and froze them as soon as they were cool. They will keep for around 2 months once frozen. Just remove the scones from the freezer the night before you want them and just before serving pop them in the oven to warm them slightly.

I love my scones with cream and jam - these were a perfect little mother's day treat. The vegan version went down well too. I left the spare ones with my brother to freeze although he informed my they didn't quite make it to the freezer!

Cherry Scones

Scones are a perfect afternoon treat if you have visitors and take no time at all time make, and require very few ingredients.

Let me know how you get on - happy baking!

Rach x