Saturday 9 June 2012

Recipe: Granny's blueberry scones with blueberry compote



My Granny is the Baking Queen: everything she bakes turns out perfectly, which makes me very jealous! Whenever she bakes scones, I have to force myself to not eat them all at once - plain, fruit, but especially blueberry flavoured, since blueberries are my favourite fruit of all! When I went home last week I had so many blueberry scones; last night I decided to bake some myself since I missed them so much, and whipped up some blueberry compote this morning to go with them at brunch. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
8 oz / 225g self-raising flour (or 8 oz / 225g plain flour and 3 level tsp baking powder)
2 oz / 60g butter, in pieces (I use Stork)
2 oz / 60g white sugar
handful or two of blueberries
milk



...and for the compote:
handful of blueberries
1 tbsp white sugar
dash of lemon juice



Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (fan oven).
2. In a mixing bowl, rub the butter and flour together until you get what looks a bit like breadcrumbs. I find this is easiest with butter straight out of the fridge and cut into small chunks.


3. Mix in the sugar and blueberries using your hands.
4. Add milk to the mixture a splash at a time, and mix together using your hands. Be careful not to add too much, you just want enough so that the mixture sticks together.


5. At this stage, my Granny rolls the mixture out and cuts out scone shapes with a cutter. Because I'm lazier, I just grab chunks of the mixture and form ball shapes in my hand, then flatten them out slightly and place them onto a piece of baking parchment, placed on a baking tray.



6. Pop them into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. I usually check after 15 minutes; if they look a bit pale on the top or feel too squidgy, I leave them for a couple more minutes.

7. While the scones are cooking, tip all the compote ingredients into a small saucepan, and cook over a low heat until the blueberries have popped and the mixture has a sort of runny jammy texture. Stir it occasionally in case the compote sticks to the pan.


8. When they're ready, take the scones out of the oven. They taste delicious cut in half straight away (be careful not to burn yourself!) with butter smeared on them, or with the compote poured on top!


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