Speedy Cheese Scones for a Savoury Tea

A Savoury Note at the Teatime Table

Afternoon tea is usually remembered for the sweet things: the jam, the cream, the little iced fancies. But anyone who has laid out a proper spread knows which plate empties first. It is the one with the cheese scones on it.

These are quick, unfussy and genuinely useful. Six ingredients, one bowl, no proving, no yeast, no waiting around. From the moment you decide to make them to the moment they come out of the oven is roughly half an hour, and fifteen of those minutes are the oven doing the work while you get on with the tea. The result is a scone with a short, tender crumb, a deeply savoury tang from mature Cheddar and a crisp golden top. Split one while it is still warm, add butter, and you will understand why they never last until the sweet course.

The Six Ingredients

There is nothing complicated here, which means the quality of what you put in shows up plainly in what comes out. Gather these:

• 350g self-raising flour, plus a little extra for dusting the worktop
• 1 tsp baking powder — an insurance policy for lift
• ½ tsp fine salt
• 75g cold butter, cubed, or frozen and grated
• 150g mature Cheddar, coarsely grated
• 180ml full-fat milk, plus a splash for glazing

On the cheese: buy mature or extra mature and grate it yourself. The pre-grated bags are coated in starch to stop the strands sticking together, and that starch dulls the flavour and dries the crumb. A sharp Cheddar, a crumbly Lancashire or a good double Gloucester all work beautifully.

On the milk: full-fat gives the best texture. If you have buttermilk going spare, use it in place of the milk — the acidity gives a slightly shorter crumb and a touch more rise. A squeeze of lemon juice in ordinary milk, left for ten minutes, does much the same job.

Mixing Without Overworking

Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan, gas mark 7) and line a baking tray with parchment before you start. Scones wait for no one.

Tip the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and give them a quick whisk to combine. Add the butter and rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs — or, easier still, grate frozen butter straight into the flour on the coarse side of a box grater. It stays cold, which is exactly what you want.

Stir through the cheese, holding back a small handful for the tops. Pour in the milk and bring everything together with a round-bladed knife, cutting and turning until you have a soft, claggy dough. If it seems dry, add milk a tablespoon at a time; if it is sticky, a light dusting of flour is enough.

Now finish with your hands, but only briefly. Gather the dough into a ball in ten to fifteen seconds. Do not knead it. Kneading develops gluten, and developed gluten makes scones tough and bready rather than short and crumbly.

Cutting, Topping and Baking

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat it into a round about 3cm thick — thicker than you think it should be. Cut out rounds with a 5cm or 6cm cutter, pressing straight down without twisting. Twisting seals the edges and stops them rising evenly. Push the scraps back together gently and cut once more; that second batch will be slightly less neat, and nobody will mind.

Space the scones a little apart on the tray. Brush the tops with milk, scatter over the reserved cheese, and grind on a little black pepper if you fancy it. A pinch of cayenne in the dough is a fine addition too, though it takes you past the six ingredients.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until well risen and a deep golden brown. Move them to a wire rack for five minutes, then eat them warm. They are at their best within an hour of leaving the oven.

Building a Savoury Tea

Cheese scones sit happily in the middle of a spread. Split and buttered, they need nothing more than a spoonful of tomato chutney or a smear of pickle. Add a slice of ham, some good Cheddar and a few cornichons and you have a proper savoury course between the sandwiches and the cake.

They also make a simple lunch or supper. A bowl of leek and potato soup, a mug of something hot and two of these alongside is a better meal than most restaurants manage. Other pairings that work well:

• Strong tea — Assam, English breakfast or a robust blend, with just a dash of milk
• Dry cider or a pale ale, if the occasion is a looser one
• Chutney or piccalilli, for sharpness against the richness of the cheese
• A handful of dressed rocket, if you want to call it a salad

Troubleshooting and Making Ahead

If your scones come out flat, the usual suspects are tired baking powder, dough that was worked too hard, or a round patted too thin. If they are dry and crumbly, you have probably added too much flour or left them in the oven a few minutes too long. If they spread sideways rather than upwards, the butter was too warm before baking.

To get ahead, cut the rounds and freeze them unbaked on a tray, then bag them once solid. Bake from frozen, adding three or four minutes to the timing. Baked scones freeze well too and refresh in a 180°C oven for five minutes — or split them and give them a quick toast, which is a very good use for yesterday's batch.

Make one tray this week and you will find they become a habit: the fastest, most reliable thing in your baking repertoire, and the first thing to disappear from the table.