Savoury Herb & Cheese Scones

For those of you who were wondering about the scones I used in my Warming Chicken & Ham Stew, this is the recipe.

After a very successful round of plain buttermilk scones the other day, I decided to make a savoury version to serve along with my stew. I like scones … A LOT! … and everytime I pass a bakery I have to duck inside to see if they sell any. No such luck here in the Netherlands (understandably), so I have had to teach myself how. Many past failures and mishaps in the scone making department, but I recently found a recipe I am comfortable with. This recipe seems to work well with me and I have used it twice now, and both times it produced beautiful scones. So here it is.

 

 

Savoury Herb & Cheese Scones.

 

• 500 g plain flour
• 110 g unsalted butter, room temp
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp dried herb of choice
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 250 – 300 mls buttermilk, cold
• 1 egg yolk + splash of cream (eggwash)
• 10 g aged Gouda or any sharp cheese, finely grated

 

Place all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and toss to distribute each ingredient evenly.

Now add the butter and rub it into the flour until it resembles sandy grains.

Once that’s done you can add the first 250 mls of liquid into the bowl and mix everything with a wooden spoon. You may not even need the last 50 mls of buttermilk, but you can decide according to the state of your dough. Once it all comes together, turn out everything onto a floured surface and knead gently … maybe 5 – 6 times … being careful not to knock all the air out. If the dough sticks then it is too wet, so dust with more flour until it is able to come away from the bench top nicely.

Roll out gently to the desired thickness, and then cut out rounds using a sharp pastry cutter. In this instance I intentionally made them thinner than I normally would because I did not want to fill up on scones, seeing as which the scones were to be served as an accompaniment to the stew. If I was simply serving these for afternoon tea then I’d definitely make ’em taller.

Arrange each cut scone onto a baking tray and brush eggwash over the tops of each. Be sure to dust off any excess flour first before painting the tops. After the eggwash comes a delicious grating of sharp cheese … here, I am using a flavoured aged Gouda (leftovers from a recent tea + cake session over the weekend). We are indeed blessed with good quality cheese here in the Netherlands, and the little cheese shop at our local shopping centre always stocks a large variety.

Anyway, shove the tray into a very hot oven and bake these scones at 210°C for about 15 minutes. If you had floured your pastry cutter and cut them out properly, they will bake with nice tall straight sides. After 15 mins remove them from the oven and place them on a wire rack and cover with a clean tea towel until read for use. Because scones are so gosh-darn easy to make, you can make these 30 mins before dinner is served and you can take them straight out of the oven and directly to the dinner table along with dinner.

These came out beautiful and oh so fragrant. The herbs within gave off a very earthy aroma and they complimented my chicken stew perfectly. The choice of what herb to add is up to you. I like to add a blend of dry herbs, and today I used a Provençale mix consisting of oregano, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, basil and tarragon.

I would not recommend keeping leftover scones coz they go hard and stale very quickly. This recipe makes about a dozen scones and for me this is a manageable batch. The boyfriend is not too crazy about savoury scones (can’t eat it with cream + jam) so I think twelve scones is already too many in my house. Perhaps if I made a chili cheese and bacon version he’d scoff them down? This will have to be put to the test at some point in the future … but for now I leave you with this recipe and I do hope you will try it out.

~ Enjoy! ~