52 Recipe Challenge – Week 8

When I started this blog I looked in my recipe books at recipes I had not tried and made a plan of which recipe to do when and that went well, up until about week five and after that the plan changed a little. I decided against doing the recipe I had planned on week 6 because it required buying too many ingredients and last week I changed my mind partly for that reason and partly because I had a craving for sweet things. Unfortunately that craving hasn’t yet subsided and this week I have succumbed to baking once again when I should be making salads...

Because I succumbed to my sweet tooth once more this week’s recipe was a Scone Bread Recipe I had seen in Sam Stern’s: Real Food, Real Fast,  when making more tried and tested recipes.

To make this recipe you need:

375g Self Raising Flour

1 ½ Teaspoons of Salt

90g Butter

125ml Milk

125ml Water

1 Tablespoon of Caster Sugar

1 Handful of dried fruit.

I started making this by pre-heating the oven to Gas Mark 7/220c and getting my ingredients together. Next I measured out the flour and sifted it into my mixing bowl with the salt and sugar.

Then I made a small indent in the middle of the mix and melted the butter, after it was melted I added the butter, dried fruit, water and milk to the flour mix and stirred it with a fork.

When it started to come together and seemed doughy I transferred it to my kitchen side which I had floured before kneading (well more like punching it a bit) until it seemed mixed together enough. After that I let it rest for a minute as I greased up a baking tray then I transferred it on to a tray and made a few shallow cuts in the top as directed in my recipe. The recipe I followed said make six half inch cuts as if dividing up a pizza so I ran my pizza cutter over it in a rough star shaped pattern.

After I did that I gave the dough a quick brush with some milk and sprinkled some flour over it and then bunged it in the oven. I left it in my oven on gas mark 7/220c for 10 mintues and then turned it down to gas mark 4/180c for another 20 minutes. It seemed to cook ok fine on the bottom but I was concerned it wasn’t cooking on the top so I flipped it over for the last 10 minutes.

When I took it out the top seemed a little flattened but it seemed to have cooked ok but you know what they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating.... well let’s just say it went well with a cup of tea, butter, jam and clotted cream.

A good reward for a hard day’s decorating!