Phrase Writers Group

How my bonkers Scone recipes started.

SCONE TODAY

My recipes were born out of necessity. Too much month and mouth and too little money.

I first started working at Fisons Pharmaceuticals in Loughborough, a middle of England town. Loughborough is one of those towns whose spelling beggars belief. Students at its university abbreviate it to L-U-F-B-R-A. Residents welcomed communication by email, as it was a miracle how letters ever arrived given the variety of ingenious Loughborough spellings.

I was in the computer department, in the distant days before Information Technology or IT. Of course IT had existed for 50 years, but we didn’t know it.

Computing then was a different world. Software consisted of large stacks of punched cards, sometimes taller than the office junior. Each card containing 80 columns, and each column had a combination of little holes which meant something to the computer.

And a very unforgiving beast it was. Had its own large air-conditioned room, tended by a group of dedicated operators. And woe betide any mistakes in the punched cards. The computer would throw a wobbly and refuse to carry out its instructions. The programmer, usually me, would have to extract the wonky cards from the deck, create new ones, re-insert them in the correct places and send a little prayer to the computing god. Plus cups of tea to its staff.

In this high tech world came the start of my culinary career. We were paid at the end of the month. Except December when our bank accounts were topped up mid month. Helped with Christmas, being flush with funds.

Except. It meant we had to wait 6 weeks till next pay day. And my birthday is late in January but well before funds being available. On your birthday you bought cakes for your colleagues. There suddenly were quite a lot.

So I started baking my own cakes.

Fast forward 25 years and I’m at London’s Serpentine Running Club. Making scones.

That introduces its own problem. A serious one too. Pronunciation. Especially in a running club with at least 40 different nationalities at any one time.

Is it Scone like won, or Scone like own. It’s your typical tomato pickle; English toe-mar-toe or American toe-may-toe. There’s a simple solution. Like any jargon if we both know what we’re talking about, does it matter?

My scone recipes have evolved. Initially I used Stork margarine. Now it’s butter, slightly salted where possible.

The normal ratio is 1:4. That is 1 ounce of butter or margarine to 4 ounces of self-raising flour.

I go for a 1:3 ratio, using butter. The added ingredients are about 1:2 ratio. Used to add limited amount of fruit sugar, but cannot find it at present. Spices are added in quite large amounts. And I always add ground almonds in sweet scones.

For fellow Serpies at the Serpentine Running Club my scones became the stuff of legend. Lots of different flavours. Bacon & Egg scones. Fish & Chips, Black Forest Gateaux, Cheese & Onions, Crab, Tiger scones. Often with a surprise in the middle, like chocolate or baby pickled onions.

Here’s a recipe for Rhubarb & Blueberry Scones.

You’ll note a mix of ounces, grams and handfuls. Comes from my “Looks about right” school of cooking. And I don't measure out the ingredients any more, just do it by sight. So no two scone mixtures are the same! There are some interesting flavours and textures.

Rhubarb & Blueberry scones

INGREDIENTS
3 sticks of rhubarb
Apple juice; Copella's juice is delicious
Date syrup
Fresh ginger
Handful jumbo raisins
Vanilla essence

6 ounces wholemeal self-raising flour
2 ounces butter, preferably soft or frozen grated butter
50g ground almonds
50g blueberries
Cinnamon
Bar of cooking chocolate (optional)
Milk

PREPARATION
Wash 3 sticks of rhubarb, remove ends, chop into small pieces

Put rhubarb into pan, half cover with water or apple juice.
Cooked rhubarb releases a lot of water

Add one or two tablespoons of date syrup

Grate very small knob of ginger and add
Fresh ginger is somewhat strong!

Add handful of jumbo raisins

1 teaspoon Vanilla essence

Bring to boil, cook about five minutes till liquid is reduced

Let mixture cool

PREPARE SCONE MIXTURE
Rub 2 ounces of butter into 6 ounces of wholemeal self-raising flour. Helps if butter is soft.
An alternative method is to freeze the butter, then grate 2 ounces with a box grater. I haven’t tried this.
If you do, mix with a knife, don’t overwork the mixture with your hands otherwise the butter will melt.

Add 50g of ground almonds

Add generous amount of ground cinnamon. This will boost Blueberry flavour.
If you are using white flour, the amount of spice should colour the mixture brown!

Wash, dry & add about 50g / large handful of blueberries.
Check for stems

Then add (cool) rhubarb mixture to flour, few spoonfuls at a time, till the mixture is firm. Stir with a knife

If necessary add some milk to bind. The mixture should be firm, not soggy

COOKING
Heat oven to gas mark 4. A moderate oven, 180 Centigrade or 350 Fahrenheit

Line metal tray with greaseproof paper / baking parchment

If adding chocolate, break bar into small pieces

Coat your palms with self-raising flour

Make small balls of scone mixture, golf ball size, push piece of choc into middle, close up hole in scone.
Coat with same flour, and put on tray. Repeat for rest of mixture

Put in oven for about 20 minutes

Take out & put scones on cooling rack.

Note that molten chocolate is very hot!

Enjoy!

Happy cooking

Serpentine is central London's running, athletics and triathlon club. For more information see serpentine.org.uk