Mouthwatering Cheese Scones

Hot out of the oven, with a knob of homemade butter

A Savoury Delight...

I am not going to go into the history of scones here as I would normally. This is because I already have gone into a fair amount of detail on my sweet scone recipe here.

This deliciously moreish recipe is based heavily on my sweet scone recipe and really just swaps out a few ingredients.

These always magically vanish within minutes, especially when taken round when you see family, or in the office.

• Makes around 15 scones

• Prep - 10 mins

• Cooking -15 mins

Let's Get The Ingredients...

• 700g Self-Raising Flour (Plus extra for dusting)
• 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder (Powder not soda)
• 250g Salted Butter (cut into small fingers or cubes and at room temp)
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 365ml Milk or Buttermilk (you can make fresh buttermilk as a byproduct from my butter guide)
• 250g Grated Extra Mature Cheddar
• 100g Grated Parmesan

Now To Cook...

Preheat your oven to 220°C (200°C fan)

Put the flour and baking powder in a large bowl and mix together. Toss in the room temp butter and, using your hands (really important), rub the dry flour and bicarb mix into the butter. You need to keep doing this until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs or soil.

Put in the salt and grated cheeses then run through the mix with your hands to get the salt and cheese all the way through without rubbing it into the crumb too much.

Now make a well in the middle of this mix and add 350ml (leaving 15ml aside for later) of the milk/buttermilk into this well you have made. Start to mix it together using the handle of a spoon or a butter knife until you are left with a lumpy glue-like mess. Remember, you aren't making a dough just yet you really just want the milk to be soaked into the flour so that you can turn it out onto a surface.

Take some of that extra flour you have for dusting and flour a large surface. Turn the sticky mess out of the bowl and use your hands to scrape it all out onto the surface. Cover the top of the mess with some more flour now and start to squash the mix so its flatter, maybe 3-cm deep.

Now, although you will now have hands covered in gloop and honestly be wondering how on earth this is going to work out, you need to have some faith. Take that squashed mess and fold in half, squashing it down until its about 3cm deep. Keep repeating this step until it looks like its pretty much combined. 

It is super important that you don't combine and work the dough too much else you ruin the texture of the finished product. Having visible streaks of butter and some odd lumps in the dough is absolutely perfect!

Use your sharpest, straightest cookie cutter to then cut out as many as you can and place them on a lined and floured oven tray making sure to leave plenty of space between them to grow. Don't forget you can refold the trimmed bits and squash back down to cut more out. Depending on your cutter size, you should get between 10 and 15 scones. 

Now brush the tops with that extra leftover 15ml of milk, then sprinkle with a little grated cheddar and pop in the oven for around 15 minutes. keep a close eye on them without opening the oven door. they should be lovely and golden on top and puffed up vertically with that signature horizontal tear across their middles.

If you are unsure if they are fully cooked when you take them out, pick one up and tap the bottom of it with your finger. If it is cooked, it should sound like a deep soft hollow sound. If it sounds like a heavy thud, then pop it back in for a few more minutes, keeping a close eye on them.

Serve them however you want, but I recommend serving warm and buttered. They also go amazingly well with a nice homemade soup as a substitute for bread.