Sautéed Blueberry Scones and a Sudden Tomato Tart

~  Menu  ~

Tomato & Boursin Tart with Fresh Thyme

Glass of Secret Red

Sautéed Blueberry Scones and Clotted Cream

I perused the contents of the fridge today and found some pastry scraps, 7 cherry tomatoes, about a quarter of a pack of Boursin a bit dried up round the edges and some blueberries that I remember shoving to the back in disgust because they were too sharp.  Lunch!

I rolled out the pastry scraps (which I had had the forethought to store correctly (see here for how to store pastry scraps, although it is by no means complicated, together with lots of ideas for pastry leftovers) into a rough rectangle, trimmed the edges and scored a 1cm edge round it.  The plan is to leave the border empty so that being puff pastry it will rise around the filling when baked and form a crust.   I spread the Boursin on the base, topped with sliced tomatoes, a little bit of finely chopped red onion and a few sprigs of fresh thyme, glazed the edges with egg, sprinkled with sea salt and baked in a hot oven 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6 till risen and golden – et wulla, as the Americans say!  

As behoves a sudden luncher I had no idea this was what I was going to eat today but it all came together rather well.

The blueberries gave me pause for thought for a moment; obviously they needing cooking with some sugar but equally obviously there weren't enough to make much once cooked.  I decided to sauté them (!) in a little butter and sugar till they started to burst and then have another think.  What I thunk was that when my real man got home from work he may well appreciate some scones for his tea so I made some using the squishy blueberry goo to replace most of the liquid in the recipe.  The resulting scones were a great colour with a light fruity taste and, as it happens, he was quite pleased to see them.

Basic Scone Recipe

This makes about six normal scones or four embarrassingly large ones.

225g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

a pinch or two of salt

 50g cold butter or margarine

80ml milk or other wet thing such as sautéed blueberries!

~   Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.

~   Stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. 

~   Add the butter or margarine and “rub in” with your fingers until a breadcrumb texture is achieved

~   Stir in the sugar.

~   Add the milk and/or other liquid and mix in, by hand is easiest, till you have a soft dough. 

~   Add a little more milk if too dry or a little more flour if too wet – you need a soft but not sticky dough. 

~   Lightly knead just a few times to bring the dough together.

~   On a floured surface press or roll the dough out to about 2 cm thick and using a cookie cutter cut into rounds.  Or you could cut into squares or wedges which are easier and more economical on time: no re-rolling.  Rounds are traditional in the UK, wedges seem to be the norm in the US. 

~   Transfer the scones to a greased baking sheet, brush their tops with a little milk and bake in the oven till risen and golden – about 20 minutes.

~   Transfer to a cooling rack for a few minutes.

Serve slightly warm with clotted cream and jam for a traditional cream tea or, of course, with whatever you fancy.  They’re your scones.

Great Preview Here!

This is one of what I have come to call my "genius" recipes, i.e. recipes that can be varied considerably to create all sorts of delicious things. This one is so flexible I wrote a book about it; The Secret Life of Scones.

The same recipe can be used to make lots of different scones both sweet and savoury plus griddle cakes, dumplings, doughnuts, crisp biscuits, cheese straws, pie crusts and quite a lot more, for instance ...