For years now, I have been making scones, they were always tasty but I felt I could do better. So I set myself the mission of improving my scones. I pretty much bake everything out of the Edmonds Cookery Book – it’s my bible. I’ve often been a fairly cavalier baker when it comes to following instructions and exact measuring. It usually all comes out pretty good though. But now I want to take things to the next level and be better than ‘pretty good’.

And so I have started with the humble scone. I was kind of frustrated that mine were not big and fluffy like a lot of other people’s (well the commercial ones you’d buy at a cafe at least). I’ve been watching New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker for the last 8 weeks and it has certainly inspired me to be more creative, inventive and less afraid of failure. I also need to work on presentation (kind of ironic considering I am a web designer in my day job).

So today, I made some date scones, but decided to throw in some Chocolate Chips in there too. They tasted fantastic, and were pretty light and fluffy. I used the Edmonds recipe from the 1989 edition of the cookery book but used self raising flour instead.

Here’s a few other things I did differently:

1. Used self-raising flour instead of flour + baking powder (have heard of this tip before)
2. After putting the milk in I was very quick with my mixing and used a knife to do it (I usually just get in there with my hands)
3. Didn’t knead the dough much at all
4. Kept the dough pretty thick (probably at least 2 inches thick)
5. Baked them on fan bake

The only thing I was not so happy about was the amount of flour left on the scones. Next time, I’ll glaze them.

But overall, for me, I think they were a definite 8 out of 10. And the chocolate chips really worked well with the dates.

As as side-note, here are some heart-shaped cheese scones I made a while back for the man in my life.