british – Bake With Me!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had some kind of fear towards scones. It might sound a little strange but allow me to explain. When I was little, my Nan and Grandad would always smother baked treats such as scones and madeira cake with butter. Ever since, this has been something that I cannot get my head around and for the past fifteen years or so, I’ve refused to eat a scone! To me, having a scone with butter is just a no go. I know its still a popular choice among many but I am just not a fan! Anyway, I thought that it was time to get over this fear and I decided to bake my own, but this time with chocolate chips and a little jam and cream. Now that’s my idea of a scone!

INGREDIENTS
225 (8oz) self-raising flour, sieved
60g (2oz) butter
1tbsp caster sugar
50g (1 ¾oz) chocolate chips
roughly 150ml (5fl oz) milk

METHOD

1. Lightly grease a baking tray. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7, ensuring the shelving is centre.

2. Place the flour in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter in to small pieces and rub into the flour using your fingers until a the mixture forms fine breadcrumbs.

3. Stir in the caster sugar and chocolate chips.

4. Mix in enough milk to form a soft dough.

5. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a rectangle of 10 x 15cm or 4 x6 inches and about 2.5cm/ 1 inch thinck.

6. Cut the dough into 9 squares.

7. Place the scones on the baking tray ensuring they are well spaced apart.

8. Brush each with a little milk and bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.

9. Slice the scones in half and serve with butter (ew!) or jam and cream.

Enjoy!

– Charlotte x

| Original Recipe Simply Baking at M&S |

| Previous Post Diggers |

This weekend, I decided to make a dessert that can be had after a Sunday roast. Since a roast dinner is typically British, I decided to follow on with tradition and make an apple crumble, since this too, is another quintessentially British dish. I realised that when taking photographs for this post, that making an apple crumble look posh and fancy can be rather difficult but, I think that is what makes the apple crumble such a classic, as even though it doesn’t look particularly spectacular, its a good hearty and wholesome dessert. Instead of following one recipe, I followed a combination of two found both on the BBC website and by Mirror Columnist, Nadia Sawalha.

APPLE CRUMBLE

INGREDIENTS
Filling
1lb Apples
50g Caster Sugar
1 or 2 tsp. Cinnamon

Crumble
170g Cold Unsalted Butter
170g Caster Sugar
200g Plain Flour
70g Fine Oats
Pinch of Salt

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3.

2. Core and peel the apples, and cut them into chunks. Place the apples into a pie dish or oven-safe dish.

3. Sprinkle over the caster sugar and cinnamon and then cook in the oven for 10 minutes.

4. In a bowl combine together the cold butter, caster sugar, plain flour, oats and salt using your fingers, until they resemble a fine crumble mixture. Sprinkle the crumble over the top of the warmed fruit and cook in the oven for a further 50 to 60 minutes, until firm and a golden colour.

5. Best served warm with lashings of cream or ice-cream!