Granny's Scones
‘An English Tea’ nearly always includes scones and cream, as well as thin cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and iced fairy cakes. These are the lightest little scones you will ever come across. You can use buttermilk instead of milk if you can find it — that makes them even lighter. Granny used to make them often for our tea — and we would eat them still warm from the oven, spread with thick clotted cream and homemade raspberry or strawberry jam. The perfect treat for chilly November afternoons.
Heat oven to 400°F (200°C). Sift flour and salt into bowl, quickly work in diced
butter with fingertips. Once well crumbed, stir in sugar. Slowly add the milk
combining it with the dry ingredients with a knife until you have a sticky dough.
Do not overwork as scones will not rise. Place dough on a lightly floured surface
and roll out to 1 inch thick. Use a cutter and place on a greased baking tray or
Teflon sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, until risen and golden. Cool on wire rack. Serve
warm with clotted cream and jam.
Theo Hodges
Theo Hodges was born in Kent. After a degree in Graphic Design she joined J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency as an Art Director working on accounts such as Rowntrees, Kraft and The Butter Council. While she was at University in Perugia, Italy she started collecting recipes from friends and family. In 1980 she set up her own design agency: Theo Hodges Design Consultants. For many years when they were young Theo, her sister and six cousins used to spend vacations at her Grandmother’s Victorian vicarage in Kent. ‘The thing about remembering childhood’ she says, is ‘there’s a whole lot of oblivion, and then out of it something floats up, quite sharp and clear. Many of the meals I can still see vividly and various recipes of mine were originally from Granny’s kitchen. ‘The kitchen garden was stuffed with raspberries, huge red dessert gooseberries, strawberries, runner beans, peas and much more with the hens in a shed at the back. But Granny only ate chicken breast and runner beans, followed by raspberries and Jersey cream - and therefore so did we. When raspberries were out of season, and in those days the season was much shorter, Granny made Victoria sponge cakes sandwiched with cream and home-made raspberry jam. On this limited but delicious diet we all thrived’. Theo’s mother was an excellent cook as well, and had been taught by the house- keeper at their house in Mougins, South of France. And once rationing was withdrawn in England in 1952 and good, fresh ingredients became available again, she amassed an enormous number of recipes which has formed the basis for Theo’s collection of family desserts.