Chocolate chip scones
A few months into Covid-19 lockdown I signed up to a subscription to get The Irish Times weekend edition delivered to our letterbox on a Saturday morning. It became a real luxury, something to look forward to after the week of work at home. Getting some pastries - choc au pain, croissants, danishes etc for our breakfast from the petrol station across the road progressed from this to make Saturday morning a nice lazy experience. We weren't going anywhere anyway. I would make a cafeteria of coffee and sit down for a good hour of reading, crossword, Sodoku.
After a few weeks we finally realised that the pastries had become a bit of a regular noticeable expense at close to 10euro a week, 40euro a month. Then they were individually wrapped in plastic because of Covid-19 which was a u-turn on the waste reducing efforts which we had made progress with in pre-Covid times. Sometimes I would get a scone. I absolutely love scones but the scones in the petrol station weren't the best and had too much baking soda as is often the case with mass produced scones. Leaves that dry sensation in your mouth. My daughter started to try these scones but she didn't like the sultanas in them. One week I decided to skip buying pastries and make my own scones with chocolate chips. I found a Mary Berry scone recipe and made some adjustments. The chocolate chips you can just chop up yourself from some cooking chocolate bars. We haven't looked back and bake a batch every Saturday morning now. They really don't take long to make at all once you get the hang of it.
God bless Mary Berry! I couldn't bake till I discovered her, her recipes are practically fool proof.
It you have the time make a loaf of this brown bread too since the oven is at the same temperature!
Ingredients
- 75g (21⁄2 oz) plant based margarine e.g. Flora
- 350g (12oz) self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
- 11⁄2 teaspoon baking powder
- 30g (1oz) caster sugar
- 75g (21⁄2 oz) chocolate chips
- 100ml (5fl oz) milk
- 2 large beaten eggs, beaten
Method
- Preheat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan/425°F/Gas Mark 7). Lightly grease a large baking tray or place non stick baking parchment on the baking tray).
- Using clean hands mix the flour, baking powder and butter, rubbing them together until the mixture resembles breakcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and chcolate chips.
- Make a well in this flour mixture and pour in the milk and all but 2 tablespoons of the beaten egg. Mix together with a round-bladed knife to a soft , but not too sticky dough, add a little more milk if needed to mop up any dry bits of mixture in the bottom of the bowl.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, very lightly kneed just to gather togther then press out to form a rectangle about 2cm (3/4 in) deep.
- Cut as many rounds as possible from this and lay them on the baking sheet. I don't have a plain scone cutter and just use a simple drinking glass. Remember dipping the edge of your cutter in flour means the rounds fall off easily onto the baking sheet. Gather remaining trimmings, lightly kneed and press and cut out more rounds. Repeat until you have about 10 scones.
- Brush the tops of the scones with the reserved egg. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until well risen and golden. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.