RAS - CWA Scones

This one isn't really a "random" act of sweetness, as I knew well in advance that my friend the Globe Trotter would be coming over for Sunday afternoon tea. With winter upon us, and indulgence being justified by cold days and freezing toes, I decided to embark upon some scone making. Scones are not really that hard, although there does seem to be a bit of mystery about them. There are as many myths, rules and recipes for scones as there are for chocolate cakes - strange for an item which usually has less than 5 ingredients and only 1 or 2 steps. Some months ago, epicure had an article about scones. With that as my inspiration I decided to make the CWA scones for GT's arrival. After all, several thousand women in Australia's bushland can't be wrong...and as you can see from these photos, their recipe is pretty damn good.


It should be noted that I am a total sifting rebel in so far as I almost never do it. Of course, it can and does improve the texture of the final product, but the reality is I can't be farked doing it, so I don't. In this case I made the effort (having not seen GT in a while, I figure I had to impress her). So I sifted it once, even though the packet clearly said it had already been sifted three times. That's some serious siftage.



This is what they looked like unbaked. I thought this was going to be a disaster as the dough seemed quite wet, I had a bugger of a time cutting them, and in general they just didn't look all that appetizing. I was secretly glad that there were other things I could serve for afternoon tea if these went terribly, terribly wrong.


They didn't They were seriously, seriously good. We topped them with some French raspberry jam (no added sugar, basically just squashed fruit) and oceanloads of pure cream (whipped with some sugar and pure vanilla to taste.) Fresh from the oven they had a nice crust on the top and bottom, and the inside was warm and pillowy. Sheer bliss! (and GT was most impressed, having made the scones with lemonade version the day previous and not had quite as much success.)

CWA Show Scones

INGREDIENTS
3 cups SR flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cream
1-1 1/2 cups of milk

METHOD

Sift dry ingredients. Cut in cream and milk with a knife.
Work quickly into a dough on a floured bench.
Flatten into about a 1.5cm-high rectangle on a lightly floured or greased scone tray.
Cut into squares with knife or pizza cutter and place on top shelf of very hot oven (220-230C) for about 10-12 minutes.*

*Times and temperatures may vary according to your oven.