There I was, looking for a good ol’ country-style scone recipe on the net, and I came across a close relative of this piece of comedy.Yes, I know it sounds stupid. Just stop laughing derisively and try it.
Pre-heat the oven to about 210 degrees and put a piece of baking paper on your oven tray.
Toss a cup of self-raising flour in a bowl and add a third of a cup of sour cream and a third of a cup of lemonade.Yeah, yeah, open a can, it’s gotta be fizzy.I use Schweppes myself (anything made by Coca Cola Amatil is a dirty word in my dictionary- more of that later).Light sour cream works.So does ordinary cream, but the scones don’t seem to rise as well.(I haven’t tried diet lemonade but I’d be deeply suspicious of the aspartame under heat.)
Stir well with a wooden spoon, then flour your hands well and knead the dough lightly.If it’s still too sticky to knead, just add a bit more flour.
Form into a squarish shape about 4cm thick (that’s an inch and a half in dinosaur measurement), flour a sharp knife and cut into four pieces.Flour the sides of the pieces and push them into a sort of roundish shape.Place on the baking tray and pop in the oven for about 10-11 minutes.
Serve with butter, blackberry jam, whipped cream and dark enough sunglasses to ensure that you can’t see your hips in the mirror.
You can freeze these if you like; just wrap each scone in plastic wrap and zap for about 30 seconds in the microwave to reheat.A zap will also freshen up day-old scones nicely.
If you want to make a dozen instead of four, you can triple the recipe (that’s 3 cups of flour and one each of sour cream and lemonade)- but that seems to affect the rising too.Maybe it’s the heat in my hands when I knead the dough that’s different for a larger quantity?I don’t know.Anyway, I find doing 4 at a time works best.(Besides, it limits the collateral damage to the waistline.)
Okay, have you stopped guffawing yet? This beats the cream-of-tartar-bicarb-soda circus any day, I promise. Try it.