Recipe: Smoked paprika cheese scones

Smoked paprika cheese scones

Comfort to me is a cheese scone. Tea scones with jam and clotted cream (jam first, cream on top, always) are a glorious thing, but a savoury scone, warm from the oven with a lick of salted butter sinking into the crumb is a taste of my childhood, of home.

Cheese scones were one of the first things my mother taught me to bake as a small child. She often made them for me when I was poorly, and sulking under a blanket watching episodes of Campion and Lovejoy.

When I moved to London after university I was given an empty spiral-bound notebook covered with an old subway map of New York by a dear friend. I decided to fill the blank pages with recipes from family and friends. My mother grabbed the book and began filling it with my favourite childhood dishes. The second entry in the book (after Mum's Legendary Microwave Chocolate Cake, inscribed with the gleeful caption: 'cake in minutes!') is for her cheese scones.

To this day, my mother will make a batch of cheese scones for my father at least once a week. She also makes him a daily cake. My father is a lucky man, and annoyingly un-fat. She makes them with the classic combination of mustard powder and mature Cheddar. I've just tweaked her recipe a little, to add one of my favourite ingredients: musky, sweet smoked paprika. I also used a mature Double Gloucester as there was a block in the fridge at the time, but any strong hard cheese will work. That's another great thing about cheese scones - peek in your fridge and larder right now. I bet you have all the essential ingredients already...

Smoked paprika cheese scones

Smoked paprika cheese scones

Makes 10-12

225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
75ml semi-skimmed milk, plus extra for glazing
100g mature Cheddar, Double Gloucester, Red Leicester or Manchego, grated
50g butter, cut into cubes
2 heaped tsp smoked paprika
Few sprigs of lemon thyme (optional)
Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6 and line a large baking tray with baking parchment.

Sift the flour and combine with the baking powder, smoked paprika and pinch of salt. Stir in the cheese and lemon thyme (if using) with a wooden spoon without over-mixing.

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands until you get crumbs. Start pouring in the milk just until the mixture comes together to form a dough. Work the dough into a ball with your hands.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about 2cm thick. Use a medium-sized circle cutter with serrated edges (a drinking glass or small jar will also work) to cut out the scones.

Brush the tops of the scones with a little milk to glaze them. Place on the baking sheet and bake in the oven for 5 minutes or until golden.

Enjoy with a generous lick of salted butter and a cup of tea. Repeats of Campion or Lovejoy optional.


What do you like to add to your scones? And do you agree: jam first, butter second?