Here’s how to make fruit scones in the best possible way by Andrew Gravett, The Executive Pastry at The Langham London. The Langham London was the first hotel to serve afternoon tea, so they know a thing or two about perfecting the art of the scone!
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00:00Hello, my name is Andrew Gravett. I'm the pastry chef at the Langham Hotel, and we're going to make our fruit scones.
00:13The first thing to do is to mix the flour with butter.
00:20We make sure that the butter is very, very cold, so straight from the fridge, and even sometimes it can be directly from the freezer.
00:26The baking powder, sugar and salt.
00:30So we mix everything in the bowl together.
00:33I'm going to put it onto the machine.
00:35So we're going to leave this to mix for about 10 to 15 minutes until we get a very fine, sandy texture.
00:44So as you can see, we've got a very fine, sandy texture.
00:48So the butter and the flour are well mixed together.
00:51We're just going to add, on a slow speed, the egg and the milk to the texture that we want.
01:00So you might find that at times you don't add all the egg in.
01:03It really depends on how much moisture that type of flour will absorb.
01:09It's just a plain flour, but different flours will absorb different quantities of liquid.
01:16And we're just going to remove it from the machine, and we're going to finish to work it.
01:21So now we're just going to sprinkle a little bit of flour onto the top.
01:25Not too much.
01:27Dough onto there.
01:30Make sure we get everything out.
01:34And we're just going to work this dough.
01:36You can see at the moment there's not really any texture to it.
01:39It's a soft dough, no resistance.
01:42And the more that we work it, we're going to start making the dough slightly elastic.
01:47The more elastic it is, it means we're working the gluten.
01:50As the baking powder pushes up the scone, the gluten will hold the scone in the shape we want it.
01:56If we don't work the scone enough, the texture and the flavour of the actual scone eating it should be nice.
02:00But we won't have such a straight-sided scone.
02:03It will be slightly flat on the bottom.
02:05By doing this working, it will enable us to have, presentation-wise, something that's straighter.
02:10So it's very much like kneading a dough for bread.
02:14By the end of this kneading, the dough should become smoother.
02:19And it's very tempting to add flour all the time to stop it from sticking.
02:24Ideally, you want to add the least amount possible.
02:27So it's only when it's really sticking to the table that you need to add more flour.
02:34So now we're just going to add the fruit into the dough.
02:37If we were just making a plain scone, obviously, we wouldn't be doing this stage.
02:41We'll just work them in.
02:48To try and make sure that there's fruit in all of the scone.
02:55We're just going to roll the dough out.
02:57A little bit more flour.
02:59A little bit on the top.
03:04And we're going to roll it out.
03:08To around, just under two centimetres.
03:12Just smooth it over.
03:14Make sure it's not sticking to the table.
03:22And then that's ready to cut.
03:24So we're just using a normal stainless cutter.
03:27It's very thin and quite sharp.
03:30So that it will give us, hopefully, a good clean cut.
03:33We flour the ring each time.
03:36And we press down, not closing the cutter.
03:39But just pressing down, leaving it open.
03:41Otherwise, it creates a vacuum and squashes the scone down.
03:44And just a quick burst.
03:50So flouring each time.
03:52Just to stop the scone from sticking.
03:56We're trying to touch the scone the least amount possible.
03:59So that we keep its round shape.
04:04And not to mark the top.
04:07So now the scones are cut.
04:09We've just got a mix of egg yolk.
04:11A little bit of sugar and some salt.
04:13In this egg wash.
04:16And we're just going to brush each scone with a layer of wash.
04:19And this will give us a nice golden colour on top.
04:22When they're baked.
04:24Just a little tip.
04:25You can make these scones the day before.
04:27Keep them in the fridge.
04:29Take them out of the fridge.
04:30Leave them for about 10-15 minutes to come to temperature.
04:33And then bake them.
04:41So the scones are baked.
04:43And just out of the oven.
04:44So we're just going to finish off the scones.
04:47As I would like to eat them.
04:48So we're just going to slice the scones.
05:01We're going to put a good scoop of jam onto each scone.
05:14Then a nice spoon of clotted cream.
05:17A little icing sugar on the lids of the scone.
05:43And there are our fruit scones with apricot jam and clotted cream.
05:47Enjoy!