Recipe for amazing perfect sourdough scones with sultanas and cranberries. Tasty, fluffy and bloomin lovely with a thick smear of salty butter and a good old English brew!
I’ve been lovingly caring for the sourdough starter I made a month or so ago. I mastered the art of general bread making – with a little help from Mr Hollywood – about a year ago (it was a happy day for me when my dough addicted husband declared my bread delicious. I’d had far too many ‘hmmm it’s okaaaay’ comments!).
So I thought I’d up my game and try some artisan bread.
After baking a delicious looking loaf (that took around 19 hours from start to finish), I had to shamefacedly admit that I don’t like sourdough bread (blush).
How disappointing! I’d had it a few times when we were on holiday in California, and I don’t think I really liked it then, but I wanted to think I was a bit of a foodie, and therefore it was the law that I liked sourdough bread. Oh well.  As with olives, I’ll keep trying in the vain hope that I can eventually look sophisticated like the rest of you sourdough/olive eating folk.
After a second failed attempt with Mr Hollywood’s almond and honey sourdough, I admitted defeat with the breads and decided to give my starter one last chance in a cake (can you call a scone a cake?) before bringing an end to it’s wasted life.
And guess what? Success! Tasty, fluffy and bloomin lovely sourdough scopes with a thick smear of salty butter and a good old English brew!
The Sourdough Scones Recipe:
Sourdough Scones
Ingredients
- 400 g self raising flour
- 100 g cold butter cut into small cubes
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 100 g golden caster sugar
- 75 g sultanas
- 40 g dried cranberries you can swap the sultanas and cranberries for other dried fruit like raisins/cherries etc if you like
- 250 g sourdough starter
- 70 ml whole milk, warm, but not hot semi skimmed will do if you haven't got whole
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200c and line a baking tray with baking parchment. Place the flour, salt and butter in a large bowl and rub together with your fingertips until most of the butter lumps have gone. Add the sugar and dried fruit and give it a quick mix.
- In a separate bowl, mix the starter, milk and vanilla extract. Pour 3/4 of the starter mixture into the flour mixture and use a round ended knife to work the mixture together. Add more of the starter mixture and work in gently until you have a soft, slightly sticky dough. Don't overwork, or you'll get tough scones.
- Tip out the dough onto a floured surface and flatten it out with your hands so that it's about 3cm thick. Use a round cutter dipped in flour (to prevent it sticking) and cut out your scones. Make sure you just press the cutter down rather than twist it - otherwise you'll get scones that rise a bit wonky. Gather the leftover dough, gently rework and cut out the rest of the scones until all the dough is used.
- Place on the prepared baking tray, brush with a little milk and place in the oven for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.
- Remove from the oven, leave to cool and serve sliced in half with butter.
