Stilton Cheese Scones

BBC1: Sorry we haven’t posted for a while but bad weather, power cuts, and life the universe and everything have conspired against us!

BBC 2: The weather has been atrocious here in Cornwall. I took Max out for his walk the other day and put all my wet gear and wellingtons on, and off we went. When we got to the beach it was not raining at all but the wind was so strong, it was blowing the sand up into my face and it was painful. Talk about being sandblasted!

So, we walked along the downs and at that point I’d had enough and decided to come home. When we got in the car the heavens opened and it rained heavily, it seemed like I had made the right choice at just the right time and sometimes you can do that, sometimes you just get it wrong.

Which brings me to the Stilton Cheese Scones. Our friend Liz was coming over for lunch the other week and I had a wedge of Stilton that BBC1 had bought for me, he’s not keen on blue cheese, and I wanted to bake something using it. I decided to make BBC1’s Easy Peasy Tomato Soup and bake some cheese scones to go with it, using the stilton. As it worked out it was a good tasty choice.

I have also have been playing with the Old Fashioned Baked Rice Pudding recipe we posted a while back, by adding banana’s to it and making one or two other changes, this was a bad choice! It was far too sweet for everyone. BBC1 took one taste and said he didn’t like it; Liz tried a little more and said it was too sweet; and I must admit it was far too sweet!

Some choices we make are good (Stilton Cheese Scones) and some are not so good (Baked Rice Pudding and Bananas)

Ingredients:
225g/9 oz self raising flour
50g/2 oz cold unsalted butter cut into small cubes
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon English mustard powder
½ teaspoon salt
150ml/¼ pint milk plus extra for glazing
50g/2 oz stilton cheese grated
Enough grated mature cheddar cheese for sprinkling on the top of each scone (approx’ half an ounce or a quarter of a cup)

Makes 6 to 8 scones depending on the size of your cutter.

Method:
Preheat the oven 200c/190c fan
Grease, with butter, a large baking sheet then dust with a little flour.
Sieve the flour, mustard powder and salt in a large bowl and mix together. Now, working quickly, add the cubed butter rubbing it into the flour using your finger tips until you have a mixture that resembles fine breadcrumbs, the reason you need to work quickly is because your fingers will start to warm the butter. Once the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs using a dinner knife mix in the stilton cheese cutting any large lumps of cheese up as stilton is a soft cheese that doesn’t grate well. Now make a well in the centre and add nearly all the milk and stir it with the knife to get a soft pliable dough, add a little more milk if the dough is too dry, or a little more flour if it’s too sticky – this does come with experience, but think of a very light playdough!

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, very lightly, until it is smooth. Don’t over work it, all you need to do is bring the dough together.

Next, rollout the dough to a thickness of 2cm/¾ inch, and using a 7.5cm/3 inch cutter, dusted with some flour to stop it sticking, cut out the scones. Don’t twist the cutter, as this will stop the scone from rising, but just lift the cutter out and place the scone on the prepared baking sheet.

Brush the tops, but not the sides, with milk and sprinkle on some grated cheddar cheese. Place in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown and cooked.

I hope you give these a try they are quick and easy to make and they are very tasty, I look forward to your comments and any and all feedback.

BBC1: I am not a great lover of Stilton but these were delicious and went so well with the soup. They were very light and the cheese flavour was perfect. So much so that I have asked BBC1 to make several batches since!

Also I think the rice pudding with bananas should be seen as a work in progress. The one BBC2 talks about here is the second attempt, but the first was great – except the banana slices floated and became brown and caramelised. The flavour was great, but the aesthetics left something to be to be desired…

Hopefully “Normal Service” will be resumed shortly! 😉😊😉