Mini Scones

These fluffy two-bite mini scones are a wonderful addition to your breakfast table. Serve them hot so that pat of butter will melt inside when you split them in two!

This recipe is based on one that a Scottish friend shared with me. She uses self-rising flour and cream to make hers a two-ingredient dough and didn’t have any measurements to offer! “Just add enough of each to make a proper scone dough,” said she. Challenge accepted! (In her defense, she went to culinary school so this stuff is second nature to her.)

Don’t panic though. I’m going to give you ingredient amounts so you can replicate these little mini scones. I used a 2 in or 5cm cookie cutter. You can use a bigger cookie cutter to make larger scones. You’ll just have to pat the dough out a little thicker so that they are proportional and bake them a little longer.

Gillian would appreciate this, she of no actual recipe: One time I didn’t have cream so I started making these with full fat Greek yogurt instead. I do love experimenting! It adds a lovely flavor and works fabulously. That is the recipe I'm sharing today.

Mini Scones

If you have self-rising flour you know is active, by all means, use it instead of the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, adding an extra 2 teaspoons of flour. I don’t often buy self-rising flour because I find it gets old if not used up in a timely manner. I keep the baking powder in the refrigerator so it’s always active well past its sell by date.

Ingredients 

1 cup or 245g full fat Greek yoghurt

1 3/4 cups or 218g flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

To brush on before baking: 2-3 tablespoons milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C. Line a large baking sheet with baking parchment or a silicone liner. 

In a mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

Fold the yoghurt and flour mixture together until fully incorporated. If the mixture is too dry or too wet, add more flour or more yogurt accordingly. You are looking for a soft dough that isn’t too sticky.

Press the scone mixture flat until it’s about 1/2 in or 1cm thick, then use a small cookie cutter to make circles. 

Patch together the leftover dough, trying not to knead it much and pat it out again. 

Cut out more scones. Place them on the lined baking tray, almost touching. Use a pastry brush to brush the tops with a little milk. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the scones are risen, golden, and cooked through. 

I like to split them in two right when they come out of the oven and add a pat of butter. 

Or serve with jam and butter or cream while still warm.

Enjoy!

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing recipes to celebrate National Hot Breakfast Month. We hope to inspire you to get in the kitchen and cook a hot breakfast for yourself or someone you love before February ends. Check out the links below: 

• An English Fry Up with a Kiss of California from Culinary Cam
• Chinese Steamed Eggs from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Corned Beef Hash from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Leftover Veg and Paneer Paratha from Cook with Renu
• Mini Scones from Food Lust People Love
• Sausage and Spinach Breakfast Casserole from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Soft & Spongy Dosa With Urad Dal Flour from Sneha's Recipe
• Sweet Italian Sausage Quiche with Ricotta from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones #BreadBakers

Grated butter and cheese add little pockets of flavor and flakiness to these Guinness Cheddar Scones. They are perfect for breakfast or snack time and go great with soup!

I’ve baked with stout quite a few times and love how much depth and flavor a dark brew adds to any batter or dough. For example, check out my mocha stout brownies, London Porter cake and oatmeal stout loaf, just to name a few. All lovely! 

If there is any product more iconically Irish then Guinness Stout, I don’t know what it would be. Anytime Irish teams are playing in a tournament, ubiquitous Guinness shows up as a sponsor. When our host for this month’s Bread Bakers chose Irish bread as our theme for March, I knew I wanted to use Guinness in the recipe. 

NOTE: Start this recipe far enough in advance of when you've like to serve them to leave plenty of time for freezing the scones before baking. Depending on your freezer, a couple of hours ought to do it. 

Flakey Guinness Cheddar Scones

This recipe is adapted from Coley Cooks. It’s been a while since I saved it so the author has updated the post name and the URL and these are now called biscuits, which I find very odd for an Irish recipe. Back when I found it, they were called, quite rightly, Irish scones with a URL to match.  Whatever you call them, bake these. They got four thumbs up from my family!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups or 312g flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 cup or 240ml Guinness, cold

1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, FROZEN, plus 2 tablespoons (28g), melted

7 oz or 200g mature cheddar or extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Method

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

Using a box grater, grate the frozen butter, then quickly transfer it to the flour mixture and use a fork to gently mix and coat all the butter pieces with flour. 

Add the grated cheese and mix to combine, being sure to coat all pieces with flour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the Dijon mustard and Guinness.

Make a well in the center and pour in the beer mixture.

Carefully mix until it forms a shaggy dough.  Do not overmix. 

Dump the mixture out onto a lightly floured surface, then roll out into a long strip about 7x14 in or 18x36cm.

Fold one side half way up, adding in any loose bits.

Then fold the other side over top, like a letter.

 

Rotate the dough 90 degrees, roll out and repeat the two letter folds again. Rotate again and fold for the final two times.

Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 in or 1 cm thick. Cut the scones out with a cutter and place them on a pan lined with baking parchment.  

Roll the dough out again and cut scones until you run out of dough. As you can see, I got 14 scones out of my dough.

Place the baking pan in the freezer. Freeze till solid or overnight. Once frozen, transfer the scones to a sealed bag. For maximum rising and flakiness, the dough needs to be kept very cold. The beauty of this recipe is that once the scones are frozen, you can bake as many or as few as you’d like. 

Preheat your oven to 400° F or 200°C.

When the oven is preheated, remove the number of scones you’d like to bake from the freezer, and put them on a parchment or silicone-lined pan then put it into the oven immediately.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the scones has risen well and are golden brown, rotating the pan halfway through so they brown evenly.

Brush the tops with the melted butter.

Serve warm with extra butter, if desired. I'll be honest. I only buttered the one you see below. They really don't need it. 

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned above, it’s time for Bread Bakers, always the second Tuesday of the month, and Irish bread is our theme. Check out all the great recipes we are sharing ahead of St. Patrick’s Day below! Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. 

• Barmbrack by Magical Ingredients
• Boxty by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Belfast Baps by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Flakey Cheddar Guinness Scones by Food Lust People Love
• Irish Bread Rolls by Sneha’s Recipe
• Irish Soda Farls by Palatable Pastime
• Waterford Blaas by A Messy Kitchen
• Irish Oat Flapjacks by Cook with Renu
• Sourdough Irish Soda Bread by What Smells So Good?

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Overnight Yeasted Cheese Scones

These overnight yeasted cheese scones have cheese inside and on top. They make a delightful breakfast or snack or use them as sandwich bread. 

A couple of months ago in this very group, you might recall that we posted recipes from Poland. I made a very tasty potato pie called baba kartoflana in Polish. While I was researching for that recipe, I somehow came across these overnight, yeasted cheese scones from Hungary and made a note for later. 

According to the original author, these are called pogácsa in Hungarian and they are a popular bite-size snack served at the beginning of parties or get-togethers. Makes sense because they would be wonderful accompaniments to cocktails. Pogácsa are always made with a yeast dough. 

Since we aren’t really doing parties these days, I made mine normal scone/biscuit size. They are perfect on their own, especially warm. After eating one scone for breakfast plain, my husband also made sandwiches with a couple for lunch. He highly recommends salami and mustard on these. I think smoked ham would also be delightful. 

Overnight Yeasted Cheese Scones

In the original recipe, as mentioned above, a much smaller cookie cutter is used so that the scones are bite-sized. They also have half the cheese. In our house more cheese is always a good thing so I’ve doubled the cheese and put some in the dough and on top. 

Ingredients
2 tablespoons lukewarm milk
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 113g butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, separated into yolk and white
1/3 cup or 75g sour cream
3 1/2 oz or 100g extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated and divided

Method
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm milk. Set aside. 

Whisk the flour and salt together into a large bowl. Add the cubed butter and use a pastry blender to cut it into the flour. 

Add in half of the grated cheese and mix well. 

Make a hollow in the flour and pour in milk/yeast mixture, followed by the egg yolk and sour cream. 

Use a wooden spoon (then a clean hand) to mix the ingredients together. At first it looks too dry but just keep at it and shortly, it comes together into a stiff dough. Knead until smooth. 

Press the dough into a fat disk and cover it with cling film. Chill overnight in the refrigerator. 

The next day, when you are ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator so it can warm up slightly.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone liner and preheat your oven to 428°F or 220°C. Beat the egg white to loosen it, adding a 1/2 teaspoon of water.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about 3/4 in or 2 cm thick. Use a 3 in or 7.5cm cm cookie cutter to cut out the scones.

Briefly knead together any leftover dough and roll it out again to cut more scones. 

Transfer all of the scones to the prepared baking sheet.

Brush the tops with the beaten egg white. 

Then top them with the other half of the grated cheese. 

Bake the scones in your preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown. Cool them on a wire rack for a few minutes before serving. 

Enjoy! 

Today's Baking Bloggers theme is yeast breads. Check out all the lovely recipes my blogger friends are sharing. Many thanks to our host, Sue of Palatable Pastime. 

• Bagels from Sneha's Recipe
• Connie's Swedish Rye from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Crunchy Herbed Whole Wheat Breadsticks from Cook with Renu
• Crusty No-Knead Oatmeal Bread from Making Miracles
• Hearty Slow Fermented Rustic Bread from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Hveteboller (Norwegian Cardamom Buns) from Tara's Multicultural Table
• Overnight Yeasted Cheese Scones from Food Lust People Love
• Pizza Focaccia from Palatable Pastime
• Sourdough Rolls from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interested in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

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Cheddar Herb Scones #BreadBakers

These fluffy cheddar herb scones have the most wonderful flavor, not just from the cheese and herbs but also from the yeast used as the rising agent.

Most scones, at least in my experience, are raised with baking powder and/or baking soda but this month our Bread Bakers host, Sue of Palatable Pastime challenged us to bake them (or their American counterpart, biscuits) with yeast instead.

I’m here to tell you that yeast can make a lovely light scone as well and almost as quickly, with just one 30-minute rise of the dough before baking. The cheese and herbs are subtle in these scones but that just makes them more versatile.

Cheddar Herb Scones

My recipe is adapted from one on Kitchen Stories. My family ate a few for breakfast but I also served them with pork and bacon patties as a sort of alternative burger for dinner. Delicious!

Ingredients
2 teaspoons dry active yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup or 240ml warm water
2 cups or 250g bread flour
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
Black pepper
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a little extra for the bowl
3 1/2 oz or 100g extra sharp cheddar cheese, plus extra for topping, if desired
1 egg, lightly beaten

Method
Grate your cheese and set aside.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix the yeast and sugar into the warm water. It should get nice and bubbly if your yeast is healthy.

Sift the flours and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add in a few generous grinds of black pepper, the grated cheddar, and herbs and mix well.

Add the olive oil to the yeast mixture then add the wet mixture to the dry ingredient bowl.

Stir with a wooden spoon until it’s too stiff to stir. Tip the shaggy dough out onto a clean surface and knead until all the ingredients come together in a tidy ball.

Put a little olive oil in the bowl and turn the dough ball over to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it proof for 30 minutes, in a warm dark place.

When your dough is almost through proofing, preheat the oven to 400°F or 200°C and prepare your baking pan by lining it with baking parchment or a silicone liner.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly dusted work surface lightly knead. Pat it into a disc that is about 1 in or 2.5 cm thick. Use a floured cookie or biscuit cutter to cut the dough into 3 inch or 7.6cm circles. Depending on the thickness of your dough, you should get seven or eight scones.

Transfer the dough circles to your lined baking pan. Brush with the beaten egg.

Sprinkle on a little cheddar, if desired.

Bake for 15-20 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden brown and well risen. Remove from the oven and serve with butter while still warm.

Enjoy!

If you are a fan of scones or biscuits, this is the Bread Baker recipe list for you! Many thanks to Sue from Palatable Pastime for hosting this month!

• Angel Biscuits from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Buttery Jeera Biscuits from Sneha's Recipe
• Cheddar Herb Scones from Food Lust People Love
• Cheddar and Chive Blossom Scones from Palatable Pastime
• Cheese and Herbs Scones from Ambrosia
• Chocolate Scones from Passion Kneaded
• Freeze and Bake Yeasted Mini Ginger Scones from A Messy Kitchen
• Laminated Biscuits from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Herbed Angel Biscuits from The Schizo Chef
• Sourdough Orange Biscuits from Zesty South Indian
• Sourdough Sandwich Biscuits from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Yeast-Raised Angel Biscuits from Making Miracles

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Savory Mediterranean Scones #BakingBloggers

These savory Mediterranean scones are tender and fluffy, full of flavor with feta cheese, soft sun-dried tomatoes and a mixture of salty olives. They are a great breakfast or snack. I highly recommend using one for a fried egg sandwich!

As I prepped my ingredients to make these scones, my husband wandered by. It was a Sunday morning and no one at our house moves very fast on one of those. “Whatcha making?” he asked. “Mediterranean scones,” I replied. “No such thing!” was his response. And I suppose that he has a point. Scones are a particularly British thing, not unlike his good self, and they don’t usually contain feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and olives.

But as soon as Sue, the host of Baking Bloggers, announced the theme for this month’s event - biscuits and scones - I knew I wanted to bake something savory. I’ve already shared my freeze-and-bake buttermilk biscuits, my slightly sweet bacon honey mustard biscuits and, of course, the ubiquitous fall favorite, sweet pumpkin scones so it was time to jump over to the savory side.

“When in doubt, add cheese” is one of my mottos so a Mediterranean-inspired scone with feta cheese seemed ideal.

Savory Mediterranean Scones

This recipe is adapted from one on BBC Good Food from way back in 2004, with just a few little tweaks. The original created such a wet dough that I decided to make drop biscuits/scones instead of rolling and cutting. My way is easier and the results are lovely and fluffy.

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups or 345g all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup or 56g butter, cut in pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 halves soft Italian sundried tomatoes
3 1/2 oz or 100g feta cheese
10 or 55g mixed Greek olives, plus extra for decoration, if desired
1 1/4 cups or 295ml full fat milk

Optional to serve: butter

Method
Heat the oven to 375°F or 190°C. Line a large baking pan with baking parchment or a silicone liner.

Pit your olives by mashing them with the side of a big knife on a cutting board. Remove the pits and chop the olives roughly.

Stack your sun-dried tomatoes and use a sharp knife to cut them into small pieces. Alternatively, if you have sharp kitchen scissors, I find they are very effective at cutting through a small stack of dried tomatoes.

Use a fork or knife to crumble the feta cheese, keeping some pieces bigger than others. This insures that you still have some chunks of cheese left visible after you fold the milk into the dry ingredients.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Use a pastry blender to blend in the butter and the oil, until the mixture resembles rough sand.

Add in the sun-dried tomatoes, feta and olives and stir well so they are coated with the flour.

Make a well in the center and pour in the milk. Use a rubber spatula (so you can scrape the sides of the bowl effectively) to gently fold the milk into the flour, rotating the bowl as you fold, until all of the milk is incorporated. Do not over mix. This is going to be an extremely thick batter.

Use an ice cream scoop or two serving spoons to drop the dough onto your prepared baking pan. My ice cream scoop holds about 1/4 cup by volume, which translated to 12 drop scones.

This is the time to take the stones out of a three extra olives and quarter them if you want to decorate the scones with a spare piece of olive.

Bake for 30-35 minutes in your preheated oven until the scones are risen and lightly browned.

Check out the lovely bottoms! Golden, crunchy and divine!

Transfer to a wire rack. These are wonderful warm and, if you like, well-embuttered. That said, we ate them plain as well and they were great!

An aside: Blogger seems to think that embuttered is a misspelling, which surprised me. So I looked it up. It is indeed a real word (OF COURSE, IT IS!) but embuttered is rarely used. We should totally change that. Who's with me? EMBUTTER all the things.

Enjoy!

This month my Baking Blogger friends are all sharing biscuit and scone recipes, both sweet and savory. Many thanks to our founder and host Sue of Palatable Pastime. Check out the recipes on the list below:

• Baileys Irish Cream Almond Scones from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Basic Tea Time Scones from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Coconut Mango Scones from Caroline's Cooking
• Cran-Cherry Orange Scones from Making Miracles
• Irish Cream Scones from Tara's Multicultural Table
• Lemonade Scones from Sneha's Recipe
• Oatmeal Currant Scones from Palatable Pastime
• Orange and Cranberry Scones from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Savory Cheesy Chive Scones from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Savory Mediterranean Scones from Food Lust People Love
• Sourdough Mango Scones from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interested in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

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