Are You Made of Scone?
Chocolate and Fig Scones, and supermarket own brand wins
Hello! This week’s recipe comes to you from the baking talent behind Ester’s cafe in Stoke Newington, Ms Nia Burr! This recipe was a big deal for me because to tell you the truth, I have long been a scone sceptic. I’ve just never really understood what all the fuss is about - until now! Nia has shared with us a scone recipe so good that it has converted me to the pleasures of this ever-popular sweet treat… Further down, My Top 3 supermarket own brand picks.
Ester’s cafe is famous for Saturday queues around the block, for being voted home of London’s best mince pie, and for constantly delivering epic brunches to people of North London.
This Chocolate and Fig Scone recipe comes to you from their baked selection and it is jaw-droppingly delicious. These don’t take long to prepare, so if you find yourself with a spare hour and a hankering for something sweet in these chilly times, I highly recommend trying these out.
A few tips for before you start! Ensure you have enough time to chill the scones for at least 45 minutes before baking. If you don’t like the combination of chocolate and orange, maybe use a little less orange zest here. And promise me that if you bake these you’ll eat at least one when it’s still warm from the oven, for the greatest experience. I never thought I could be excited about a scone, and yet here I am.
P.S. In case you missed it I wrote an article for The Guardian last week about tinned fish having its TikTok moment. I’m a tinned fish enthusiast so it was great fun! Thank you to everyone who has been so nice about it!
Let’s get down to business…
Nia’s Chocolate and Fig Scones
65g dried figs, chopped
100ml hot brewed earl grey tea
150g plain flour
50g wholemeal flour of your choice* (spelt, rye or wholemeal would work well. Avoid gluten free eg. buckwheat flour) (OR just use more plain flour)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
55g caster sugar
110g butter, cold and cubed
Zest of 1 orange
1 egg
30ml milk, plus more to brush the scones
30g yoghurt
50g your favourite dark chocolate, chopped, plus more to top the scones
Demerara sugar, to sprinkle
Flaky sea salt, to sprinkle
1 hour before you want to make the scones, soak the figs in the earl grey tea for 20 minutes. Drain and allow to cool. Prepare a tray that will fit in your freezer with a sheet of greaseproof paper on it. Set aside.
Sift the flours, baking powder and salt into a large bowl (if using wholemeal flour, the bran might get stuck in the sieve. That’s fine, just add it back into the bowl once sifted). Whisk in the caster sugar.
Add the butter and orange zest. Using your fingertips, work the butter into the flour until the mixture looks sandy and the pieces of butter are no bigger than a pea. This might take longer than you think and your hands might start to hurt, keep going!
Toss in the soaked figs and chocolate until well combined. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk and yoghurt. Pour the mixture over the flour mix. Using your hands, gently toss the mixture until the wet ingredients are incorporated – the mixture will be very sticky! Spreading your fingers and treating them like chopsticks can help. Continue mixing in the bowl until the mixture comes together, making sure you incorporate the dry bits at the bottom of the bowl.
Form the mixture into a giant snowball in the bowl. Transfer to the tray you prepared earlier. Gently press down on the snowball to turn it into a disc about 1 inch tall, and 6 inches in diameter. Neaten up the edges with your hands as you go.
Freeze the disc for 45 minutes – 1 hour. Remove from the freezer. Cut the disc into 5 as if you were cutting slices of cake.
Brush the tops of the scones with milk, and sprinkle with the demerara sugar and flaky salt. Top with a piece of chocolate. Place on a large tray, spaced apart as the scones will spread a little as they cook.
Bake at 180°C or gas mark 6 for 25 – 27 minutes or until golden brown.
Nia’s own perfect specimens
When the own brand slaps…
Seeing as how food inflation seems to be here to stay, with even our bargain supermarkets putting prices up to never-before-seen levels, this week I’m sharing My Top 3 items where I think that the cheap versions are better than the branded.
Cheddar. I haven’t performed a taste test of every single brand of Cheddar so you can take my generalisation how you like. But having recently branched out to Cathedral City when it was on offer for the first time in years, I found myself wishing I’d stuck with my own brand Mature Cheddar all along. Like Ilchester Cheeses and Godminster, Cathedral City seems to now contain some kind of overly sweet starter culture or chemical (I don’t remember it tasting like this as a kid). I think the addition of such an ingredient is to make the Cheddar ‘break down’ and take on an almost creamy aspect, but call me old fashioned, I don’t think Cheddar should be creamy! It’s not a soft cheese, I don’t want to spread it. Supermarket own brands remain pliable and without any of the weirdly sweet, weirdly mushy quality and for these reasons, they are so much better for it.
Spaghetti. Spaghetti is one of those pasta shapes that shouldn’t outshine the sauce, which a more expensive kind sometimes tries to do. The cheap 28p Morrisons and ASDA versions are perfect to me, they are slurpable, delightfully comforting when soft (reminscent of spaghetti in a tin) and they don’t let off too much starch in the water. Disclaimer: I go wild for Rustichella d’Abruzzo when it comes to any other shape, but spaghetti truly is a broke man’s friend.
Tea. Don’t be a mug! Yorkshire Tea and PG tips are over £2 and yet neither tastes as good as Sainsbury’s Kenyan tea bags (£1.65). Malty and the perfect strength. It’s just one woman’s opinion.
What are your favourite supermarket own brand products? I’d love to know.