Mama's apple scone
If there's one thing in life that nothing will ever compare too, it's your Mama's cooking and I for one never need an excuse popping home to enjoy Mama's dinners. Admitedlly I'm not the greatest of cooks (it's a good job I'm dating a chef - I'm a girl who loves my food!) and apart from my childhood memory of using Cream Of Chicken Soup as a pasta sauce, I haven't exactly paid much attention to her recipes. So when McCarthy & Stone asked me to share my favourite recipe passed down from Mama it's fair to say that Mama Mcfred certainly laughed exclaiming my attention span couldn't handle this challenge. She was right. But Wednesday night I tried..
Mama makes a pretty mean Apple Scone in seconds (not quite literally, but it always feels like that!) and with her blooming apple tree in the garden, there's always plenty on the grounds waiting to be baked. So we picked out the recipe book that's nearly as old as me and with our ingredients out, we set about messing up the ever so tidy kitchen (hands up it was mostly me!). Oh and if you fancy making this Winter warmer (or Summer taster?), here's what you will need..
1 Medium Apple 1 Teaspoon Salt
8oz Self Raising Flour 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
2oz Butter 2oz Castor Sugar
1/4 Pint of Milk Glaze: Little Milk & 1oz Brown Sugar
Mama first set one of her many ovens to 200degrees and after much hesitation about being photographed, calmly asked if we needed a snap of her turning on the oven. I assured her that most people knew how to do this, but she was officially a blogger for the evening! Then she sifted together the flour, salt and baking powder where I looked on trying with all my might to remember this (and not get distracted..). - next I was nominated to rub in the butter but after smearing more all down my dress, Mama had to step in (she's good at things like that!). We added in the castor sugar next where I then took charge of being chief stirrer. This task I could manage.
Next we needed to cut the apples up which we'd left till the last minute to prevent from sudden browning. I intially started off on this, however my cutting skills would have meant that the apples would be chopped by the weekend (I'm a little slow at these simple challenges - I'm not a child I promise). And with mama being super speedy peeling and 'dicing' the apple, my distraction had somewhat led to the other apple... Once she'd completed this, I popped the diced apples into the mixture, along with a teaspoon of cinnamon - I'm going to pretend this is her secret ingredient, because every mama has one and it sounds much more interesting like this!
Once I'd mixed in the apples and cinamon, I watched in fascination as Mama worked her magic by mixing it to a soft dough and adding in the milk gradually (the dated recipe book states 'to make it soft, not sticky!). As the mixture formed into dough we rolled it onto the worktop (floured by yours truly of course!) and created a scone shape - also known, as the circle. The next stage that happened completely took me by surprise because for many moons I've always wondered how it was already semi cut straight from the oven - and if Wednesday taught me anything, it's that she does it after she's rolled it. To make cutting it easier. Absolutely brilliant if you ask me!After I'd overcome this incredible information we placed the scone onto a greased baking tray and finished it up by brush topping it with milk and sprinkling (or in Mama's words - dribbling?!) brown sugar to make it nice and glazed. Then it went in the oven, to bake for 20-25 minutes. Guess who was on clean up duty..
As soon as it was ready, I was pretty eager to enjoy a slice (because that's the most important part of baking right?) with huge portions of squirty cream and an apple decoration (thanks Little B!). And actually, it tasted just as good as always - so maybe my short-attention-span-self isn't so bad at baking, even if I did forget the recipe twenty minutes later. But it's fair to say, even if I bake this alone, chances are it'll never taste quite as good as Mama's!
