These scones are quick and easy to prepare.
Serve it with jam and cream, or jam and cheese, or even grated biltong.
(In “higher scone circles”, much debate surrounds the “correct” way to eat a scone. Some believe the jam is added first to allow it to sink into the warm scone and then clotted cream is added on top. Others believe the opposite: first spread the clotted cream to create a barrier between the runny jam and the scone).
Ingredients:
500 ml flour
15 ml baking powder
2 ml salt
60 ml castor sugar
65 g butter (soft, room temperature)
1 egg
125 ml Amasi
Milk to glaze
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200 ºC.
2. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.
3. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until they look like bread crumbs.
4. Beat the egg into the Amasi and add to the flour mixture.
5. Mix together with a knife and use your hands to form a dough.
6. Turn out onto a floured surface and pat flat, about 2 cm high.
7. Using a scone cutter, or just a glass, cut scones from the dough.
8. Place scones onto a greased baking sheet and brush with a little milk.
9. Bake in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes.
10. Allow to cool before serving with jam and cheese, or with cream and jam.
- On buttermilk or Amasi, award-winning TV chef, master baker and cookbook author Grace Stevens gives the following advice:
When it comes to celebrating South African ingredients, you will be hard-pressed to find an ingredient more versatile and traditional than Amasi.
Amasi is essentially soured milk and is widely available in South African supermarkets, right next to buttermilk.
Apart from its unique flavour, it makes an amazing substitute for buttermilk in all sorts of recipes from pancakes to scones. Not to mention being cheaper than buttermilk – especially if you are big batch baking.
Authentic buttermilk is the leftover whey after making butter from clotted cream. However, in South Africa, most of the time the “buttermilk” we have access to, is cultured buttermilk.
This is made by adding a culture to milk that is heated and then allowed to ferment – a process that is almost identical to the natural fermentation used to make Amasi.
In baking, the enzymes and acidity of the buttermilk or Amasi soften the proteins in the flour.
When it comes to testing if your Amasi or buttermilk is of good quality, remember there is a fine line between spoilt milk and good Amasi. Good Amasi or buttermilk should be a slightly thicker viscosity than milk and if it smells sour it has gone off.
Source: gracestevens.co.za
