Thursday 30 October 2008

Thoughts of apples and scones

Two different things melded into a wonderful whole for my dessert tonight. Firstly, I have a large surfeit of apples, if that's not a tautology - like being 'a bit pregnant'. The Scientist's mum and his grandparents both gave me loads of their home grown apples and I love apples so much that I gleefully accepted them all. I've been eating as many as I can for midmorning snacks, but there are still a lot left, and I WILL NOT allow them to be wasted! We had apple pancakes for dessert last week and I have a few more recipes in mind to come, but was still pondering which to make when...


...I got an unexpected and very sweet email from one of The Scientist's gaming buddies asking if he could have the web link for my blog so that he could get some more baking ideas. I sent him the link to his very own birthday cake (which I think he hadn't known had potato in it until now :) ). He's been making scones and wants to move into new types of baked goods. I hope you find some good ideas, LGD!! His email set me to thinking of scones, and then I remembered a recipe I'd found ages ago for apple scones. The dessert quest ended right there. (Actually it didn't quite because I carelessly mentioned the words 'apple crumble' to The Scientist when he got home from work and so I had to make a little one of those as well a small batch of scones because he got fixated).


The recipe I'd found was from a website called RampantScotland.com which sounds like an invitation to visit if I ever I heard one. It was for one big circular scone which you divide into 8 wedges. I followed the recipe but made only a quarter quantity. I also used applesauce for about two thirds of the butter - both for more appleyness and to lighten it up a bit. And I went easy on the sugar and used fruit sugar as I prefer flavoured scones not to be too sweet. My batter was quite runny but I just added more flour and got two nice little triangle shaped scones out of it. They came out of the oven all soft and golden and fluffy and the butter melted onto them like a dream. I definitely need to set up some sort of backdrop lighting device so my pictures actually look half decent in this wintry gloom (it snowed this week. Ridiculous). I ate mine with some salsa flavoured vegan cheese and I liked the contrast of slightly sweet with savoury. Even two scones only used up half of one of The Scientist's mum's cooking apples, but another one and a half went into the mini crumbles, which The Scientist devoured with much vigour. Unfortunately I can't be sure why the recipe worked so well so I don't know if I can replicate it. At least he has a second mini one for his dinner tomorrow while I'm out at a conference meal, and I have another scone to get me through a day of non-semi-vegan conference food!

Apple scone (from Rampant Scotland)

(Can be made with vegan milk and butter substitutes)


Main Ingredients:
One medium cooking apple
8 oz (250g or two cups) self raising flour
½ teaspoon salt
Level teaspoon baking powder
2 oz (60g) butter
2 oz (60g or ¼ cup) castor sugar
Up to ¼ pint (150ml or half cup) milk

Ingredients for glaze:
A little milk
1oz demerara (light brown) sugar

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 200C (400F or Gas Mark 6).
Peel and core the apple and then finely chop. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Then rub in the butter followed by the sugar and chopped apple and mix. Add milk until you have a soft but not sticky dough.
Roll out on a floured surface to about ¼" thick and 8" round and mark into 8 wedges. Place on a greased baking sheet, brush the top with milk and sprinkle with the demerara (light brown) sugar. Bake in the pre-heated oven at 200C (400F or Gas Mark 6) for 20-25 minutes. Serve warm with butter.

2 comments:

Johanna GGG said...

I love the thought of apple scones and cheese and salsa - apples go so well in lots of savoury foods like salads, curries and soups but I have always wanted to have apple pie with cheese pastry! So many things to make - and always lovely to have the ingredients and find you can finally make a recipe that has sat around for a long time

Lysy said...

That's a combination I definitely agree with! I thought you might like the rampant Scotland connection, too :) These were sort of inspired by your pumpkin scones and I want to give them a go soon too.