Saturday 24 March 2012

Crystallised Stem Ginger and Treacle Scones


As regular readers will know, I do love a good scone - light or substantial, fruited or plain, served with butter, jam, clotted cream, or all of these, or even on their own!

So when Karen of Lavender and Lovage (who co-hosts with Kate of What Kate Baked) announced that this month's Tea Time Treats theme was scones, I was very pleased. Why then, has it taken me until almost the deadline to find a treat that I want to share with you? I kept imagining more and more delicious flavour combinations that I could add to tempt you to make my scones, something different, something unusual, mango and cardamom perhaps? or maybe chilli and chocolate? but then I realised that when I want scones I want something old fashioned, but with a little twist. A teatime treat, but not one you'd be able to buy in a tea shop or the supermarket.


One of my favourite flavours is ginger. And black treacle and ginger are a combination made in heaven so it is with great pleasure that I give you my Crystallised Stem Ginger and Treacle Scones.

Crystallised Stem Ginger and Treacle Scones
Ingredients
225g self raising flour
1/2tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
50g butter
90ml milk
1 rounded tbsp black treacle (about 35g)
40g crystallised stem ginger, chopped small
A little flour to sift over

Method
- Preheat the oven to Gas 6 1/2/210C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Place the flour, baking powder and ginger into a bowl, mixing to distribute the ingredients. Add the butter and rub in until it looks like breadcrumbs.
- Measure the milk into a jug, add the treacle and warm gently in the microwave. I did this to help the treacle distribute evenly through the mixture. Mix well until the treacle has dissolved in the milk.
- Add the crystallised stem ginger to the dry ingredients and mix in.
- Add the milk/treacle mixture and stir, bringing together the dough. Add a touch more milk if the dough seems too dry and crumbly.
- Tip onto a smooth surface. If necessary, bring together all the crumbs, but I don't knead my scone dough. Pat out the dough to not less than about 1 1/2" or 4cm thick.
- Cut out rounds (I used a 2"/5cm cutter) and place on baking tray. Dust lightly with flour - or you could brush with milk.
- Bake for 16-18 minutes until risen and golden (slightly tricky to tell as they start out darker than normal!)
- Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Best eaten the day of making, but I often freeze leftovers to warm in the microwave - yum!



Perhaps not my favourite scone recipe, a touch crumbly but nice and light, with the treacle adding more perhaps in the way of colour than flavour, but still adding its own sweetness to an otherwise unsweetened scone. The ground ginger adds the background ginger flavour and the crystallised stem ginger gives the real punch of ginger flavour for the ginger lover. Great with butter but even better with some ginger conserve.

13 comments:

Alicia Foodycat said...

These look gorgeous! They'd be good with the ginger and golden syrup whipped butter I made not long ago. Hmmm, that might sort out tomorrow's breakfast!

Karen S Booth said...

LOL! YOu are JUST like me, I always think I can design a BETTER scone and think so much about it that I don't bake them! These are SUPER, they really tick all my boxes as I LOVE treacle and stem ginger, so a culinary triumph!
THANKS for a brilliant TTT entry!
Karen

MissCakeBaker said...

Ummm treacle and ginger - delicious combination!

Kate@whatkatebaked said...

What an absolutely delicious and inspired flavour combination! I too love ginger in my baking, a truly great recipe, thank you for entering it into TTT!

Suelle said...

These sound delicious, and look good too!

Katie said...

These look delicious. You can't beat a good scone. Love the idea of adding a bit of treacle, not tried that. Love the chunky bits of ginger in there too.

Dipika @ The Very Hungry Baker said...

These looked so amazing I had to make them myself! Here are my results: http://theveryhungrybaker.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/first-bake-ginger-and-treacle-scones/

Thanks very much for the recipe!

Johanna GGG said...

Those look nice and fluffy - I have two treacle scone recipes and neither specify how much milk so I am interested in this one (because I am constantly being asked for them) - I have started putting about 1/2 cup or 125g in the mixture for the same amount of flour!

I think E would love the addition of Stem Ginger but not so Sylvia so I may need to wait until I can try this.

Johanna GGG said...

And I forgot to ask - about how many scones did you make (another of my issues with my recipe)?

celia said...

Yum! I could eat just the name alone - sounds like a wonderful combination of flavours!

Caroline said...

Foodycat - what a great idea to have them for breakfast and that whipped butter sounds divine - the perfect partner!

Karen - Glad I'm not the only one to fail to get started due to too many ideas! Glad you like them too - thanks for the challenge :-)

MissCakeBaker - indeed it is!

Kate - Thank you! Thanks for setting the challenges too - all good fun.

Suelle - thanks!

Katie - I'm a real scone lover! The treacle is good, but the ginger is the real star here.

Dipika - Wow, so glad you liked them!

Johanna - I think next time I would add another tbsp or two tbsp of milk - the dough was a touch dry. So that would make it 105-120ml milk. My usual scone recipe uses 142ml (1/4 pint) of milk for 225g flour. I think it made 10 scones, but they were fairly small (the cutter is 5cm/2"). You could make fewer, larger ones and cook for a little longer, or double the recipe.

Celia - it's a good combination of flavours, especially for a ginger lover!

Maggie said...

The scones look and sound delicious. The double ginger for flavour and texture are a great combination.

Choclette said...

I had so forgotten about treacle scones. My mother used to make these when I was a child. How wonderful, will have to make some now. Really like your addition of ginger - great combination and they look very tasty too.

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