Date Scones

Date scones

I hope everyone is having a good Anzac day! I haven't made (or even eaten!) any Anzac biscuits this year, but felt that these scones were appropriately Australian enough to share with you on this special day for our country. Enjoy!

Every time I make scones, I say it's an improvement on the time before (see the start of this post for Sarah's Scone Saga), and I'm pleased to say this time was no exception! I made these particular scones on a lazy weekend morning (Easter Monday actually), when I wanted a sweet, treat of a breakfast, without having to leave the house or change out of my PJs.

I based the recipe on Belinda Jeffrey's Fluffy Buttermilk Scones, from Mix & Bake, but scaled it down significantly, used all self raising flour (no wholemeal), and replaced her suggested buttermilk with a mixture of Greek yogurt and milk. I've tried this recipe before, two and a half years ago, and they were definitely better this time. Not only were they smoother thanks to the lack of wholemeal flour, but they also seemed less flat because I cut them nice and small (I used a 4.6cm scone cutter). I also added dates this time, and they were fantastic! Turns out I prefer fruit scones to plain ones! The little pops of sweetness are just so delicious! Who knew?

Dough

I patted out the dough onto a sheet of baking paper, rather than directly onto my kitchen bench. As much as I love being in the kitchen, my most loathed kitchen task is cleaning a bench after having rolled out dough or pastry on it. It's the worst!

Scone dough, patted out

Scone dough

Using the baking paper also makes it easier to lift the delicate scones, without tearing or ripping them.

Scone cutter

And see all those dough scraps on the baking paper? It's so much easier to just shake the paper over the bin, getting rid of them, rather than painstakingly scraping and scrubbing and wiping the kitchen bench. (You can also reuse the baking paper - bonus!)

I didn't glaze them this time, but you could definitely do the double-egg yolk glaze if you were so inclined.

Ready for baking

And ta-dah! Scones! Some recipes say to cover them with a tea towel after they're baked, to trap the steam and keep them soft, but I never do this because I love a crunchy-topped scone.

Baked scones

I was so pleased with these scones! See? So fluffy on the inside!

Fluffy!

Ordinarily I love scones with jam and cream, but sadly the cream I had in the fridge had gone off. So it was butter and blueberry jam. (I would have gone to the shops for cream, but you know, PJs).

Scones

Fluffy innards with dates

Scones

Scones

Date Scones 
Adapted from the Buttermilk Scones in Belinda Jeffery's Mix and Bake

Ingredients 
1 cup self-raising flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
40 grams cold butter, cut into small cubes
50 grams dried dates, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon plain or Greek yogurt
Approx. 110 ml milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the chopped dates and mix to distribute evenly through the flour mixture.
Place the yogurt into a measuring jug, and pour in enough milk to come up to the 125 ml (1/2 cup) mark. Mix with a fork or small whisk to combine. Pour the yogurt/milk mixture into the dry ingredients, and stir gently with a wooden spoon to combine.
Tip the mixture onto a sheet of baking paper, dust lightly with flour and pat into a rough rectangle of about 4 cm thickness. Cut out scones using a small cutter (mine was 4.6 cm in diameter), dusting it with flour each time. Cut straight up and down, not twisting the cutter. Place the scones close together on a lined baking tray.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked when tested with a skewer.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes or so before eating. Serve with butter, cream, jam, honey, or whatever you like. I had mine with butter and blueberry conserve and they were dee-licious.
Makes 12

Date scones

I hope everyone is having a good Anzac day! I haven't made (or even eaten!) any Anzac biscuits this year, but felt that these scones were appropriately Australian enough to share with you on this special day for our country. Enjoy!

Every time I make scones, I say it's an improvement on the time before (see the start of this post for Sarah's Scone Saga), and I'm pleased to say this time was no exception! I made these particular scones on a lazy weekend morning (Easter Monday actually), when I wanted a sweet, treat of a breakfast, without having to leave the house or change out of my PJs.

I based the recipe on Belinda Jeffrey's Fluffy Buttermilk Scones, from Mix & Bake, but scaled it down significantly, used all self raising flour (no wholemeal), and replaced her suggested buttermilk with a mixture of Greek yogurt and milk. I've tried this recipe before, two and a half years ago, and they were definitely better this time. Not only were they smoother thanks to the lack of wholemeal flour, but they also seemed less flat because I cut them nice and small (I used a 4.6cm scone cutter). I also added dates this time, and they were fantastic! Turns out I prefer fruit scones to plain ones! The little pops of sweetness are just so delicious! Who knew?

Dough

I patted out the dough onto a sheet of baking paper, rather than directly onto my kitchen bench. As much as I love being in the kitchen, my most loathed kitchen task is cleaning a bench after having rolled out dough or pastry on it. It's the worst!

Scone dough, patted out

Scone dough

Using the baking paper also makes it easier to lift the delicate scones, without tearing or ripping them.

Scone cutter

And see all those dough scraps on the baking paper? It's so much easier to just shake the paper over the bin, getting rid of them, rather than painstakingly scraping and scrubbing and wiping the kitchen bench. (You can also reuse the baking paper - bonus!)

I didn't glaze them this time, but you could definitely do the double-egg yolk glaze if you were so inclined.

Ready for baking

And ta-dah! Scones! Some recipes say to cover them with a tea towel after they're baked, to trap the steam and keep them soft, but I never do this because I love a crunchy-topped scone.

Baked scones

I was so pleased with these scones! See? So fluffy on the inside!

Fluffy!

Ordinarily I love scones with jam and cream, but sadly the cream I had in the fridge had gone off. So it was butter and blueberry jam. (I would have gone to the shops for cream, but you know, PJs).

Scones

Fluffy innards with dates

Scones

Scones

Date Scones 
Adapted from the Buttermilk Scones in Belinda Jeffery's Mix and Bake

Ingredients 
1 cup self-raising flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
40 grams cold butter, cut into small cubes
50 grams dried dates, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon plain or Greek yogurt
Approx. 110 ml milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the chopped dates and mix to distribute evenly through the flour mixture.
Place the yogurt into a measuring jug, and pour in enough milk to come up to the 125 ml (1/2 cup) mark. Mix with a fork or small whisk to combine. Pour the yogurt/milk mixture into the dry ingredients, and stir gently with a wooden spoon to combine.
Tip the mixture onto a sheet of baking paper, dust lightly with flour and pat into a rough rectangle of about 4 cm thickness. Cut out scones using a small cutter (mine was 4.6 cm in diameter), dusting it with flour each time. Cut straight up and down, not twisting the cutter. Place the scones close together on a lined baking tray.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked when tested with a skewer.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes or so before eating. Serve with butter, cream, jam, honey, or whatever you like. I had mine with butter and blueberry conserve and they were dee-licious.
Makes 12

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Belinda Jeffrey's most fabulous banana cake and David Lebovitz' crunchy nuts

A little while ago I bought some bananas from someone in the office raising money for their kid's school.  However, I happened to be away on a conference when the bananas arrived, so by the time I came back, they were overripe and not nice to eat any more. D'oh!

Bananas! Excuse the dodgy picture on the box, hehe.

But, all keen bakers know what overripe bananas mean - banana cake!  I wanted a good, old-fashioned banana cake, topped with cream cheese icing - yum! - and after searching through my cookbooks, I settled on Belinda Jeffrey's "Most Fabulous Banana Cake", from her Mix and Bake book.  (This particular recipe only used 3 bananas, so I peeled and froze the rest.  More baking to come!)

The recipe calls for a large round tin, but I made it in an oblong, as I thought this might make it easier to share at work.  I used this fabulous extendable baking tray thingo that I bought on my most recent trip to Germany - love it!

Raw dough, cooked cake.

So, once cooked, I sliced the rectangle in half lengthways...

One layer

... and layered on the icing!  I totally, totally love cream cheese icing!

Layering the icing

Layered up!

To fancify things a little, I topped the cake with some salted candied macadamias (recipe from David Lebovitz' Ready for Dessert, and available here on his blog!).  They were easy to make, even though I always find hot sugar a bit daunting.  All you gotta do for these is to put some sugar, nuts and water into a pan, whack it on high heat, and stir, stir stir until the sugar melts, gets crystally, and then re-melts again into a medium brown caramel.  Then you add cinnamon and some salt.

Cooking the caramel nuts

These were incredibly addictive.  Crunchy and sweet and salty and faaabulous!  Word of warning: Wait for them to cool before you try picking one up!  Hot sugar BURNS.  (Don't learn this the hard way).

Salted candied macadamias

I only needed a small amount to top the cake, so popped them into a snap-lock bag, and whacked them with a rolling pin the crush them a bit.  The remainder got eaten, very quickly.

Crush those nuts!

And here we have the finished cake...

Finished cake

And from the top...  As you can see, I had to slice some off so it would fit in the container.  (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

Cake in container

I quite liked the cake, but I don't think I'd describe it as the "most fabulous".  Texturally it was good, but I found it to be very sweet.  I know this is partly my fault, what with the crazy-thick icing and the candied nuts, but the cake itself was really sweet too.  And this was after I reduced the quantity of sugar quite significantly from the recipe.  You can't really reduce sugar in the icing, as this would affect the texture.  Perhaps the cake would work best in a single flat slab, with just a thin layer of icing on the top.

I think for the remainder of the bananas I'll stick to some tried-and-tested recipes, like Nigella Lawson's banana bread (my dad loves it!), or my favourite, Bill Granger's choc-chip banana bread.  Although having said that, Nigella does have some tempting banana recipes in Kitchen: banoffee cheesecake, coconut and cherry banana bread, and banana chocolate muffins!  And I remember drooling over the insanely decadent banana, chocolate and peanut butter muffins that Panda & Cakes made.  Too many options!  Hehe, maybe I should just use them in smoothies and stop obsessing over all these recipes!

A little while ago I bought some bananas from someone in the office raising money for their kid's school.  However, I happened to be away on a conference when the bananas arrived, so by the time I came back, they were overripe and not nice to eat any more. D'oh!

Bananas! Excuse the dodgy picture on the box, hehe.

But, all keen bakers know what overripe bananas mean - banana cake!  I wanted a good, old-fashioned banana cake, topped with cream cheese icing - yum! - and after searching through my cookbooks, I settled on Belinda Jeffrey's "Most Fabulous Banana Cake", from her Mix and Bake book.  (This particular recipe only used 3 bananas, so I peeled and froze the rest.  More baking to come!)

The recipe calls for a large round tin, but I made it in an oblong, as I thought this might make it easier to share at work.  I used this fabulous extendable baking tray thingo that I bought on my most recent trip to Germany - love it!

Raw dough, cooked cake.

So, once cooked, I sliced the rectangle in half lengthways...

One layer

... and layered on the icing!  I totally, totally love cream cheese icing!

Layering the icing

Layered up!

To fancify things a little, I topped the cake with some salted candied macadamias (recipe from David Lebovitz' Ready for Dessert, and available here on his blog!).  They were easy to make, even though I always find hot sugar a bit daunting.  All you gotta do for these is to put some sugar, nuts and water into a pan, whack it on high heat, and stir, stir stir until the sugar melts, gets crystally, and then re-melts again into a medium brown caramel.  Then you add cinnamon and some salt.

Cooking the caramel nuts

These were incredibly addictive.  Crunchy and sweet and salty and faaabulous!  Word of warning: Wait for them to cool before you try picking one up!  Hot sugar BURNS.  (Don't learn this the hard way).

Salted candied macadamias

I only needed a small amount to top the cake, so popped them into a snap-lock bag, and whacked them with a rolling pin the crush them a bit.  The remainder got eaten, very quickly.

Crush those nuts!

And here we have the finished cake...

Finished cake

And from the top...  As you can see, I had to slice some off so it would fit in the container.  (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

Cake in container

I quite liked the cake, but I don't think I'd describe it as the "most fabulous".  Texturally it was good, but I found it to be very sweet.  I know this is partly my fault, what with the crazy-thick icing and the candied nuts, but the cake itself was really sweet too.  And this was after I reduced the quantity of sugar quite significantly from the recipe.  You can't really reduce sugar in the icing, as this would affect the texture.  Perhaps the cake would work best in a single flat slab, with just a thin layer of icing on the top.

I think for the remainder of the bananas I'll stick to some tried-and-tested recipes, like Nigella Lawson's banana bread (my dad loves it!), or my favourite, Bill Granger's choc-chip banana bread.  Although having said that, Nigella does have some tempting banana recipes in Kitchen: banoffee cheesecake, coconut and cherry banana bread, and banana chocolate muffins!  And I remember drooling over the insanely decadent banana, chocolate and peanut butter muffins that Panda & Cakes made.  Too many options!  Hehe, maybe I should just use them in smoothies and stop obsessing over all these recipes!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad