A scone crown is a novel centrepiece for an elegant high tea. Add some mocha nut tarlets for a heavenly table.
This scone crown was the main event at an afternoon tea, many years ago when my husband and I had just moved into our first little flat in London. It was 1989 and we had just got engaged.
We had no washing machine, dishwasher, television, hifi, hoover or telephone and could not afford to buy any of these things, but we had some wonderful friends and were living in a fantastic culinary part of London, Seven Sisters, where there were many wonderful local shops selling foods from all around the world. We had four bakers - British, Turkish, Greek and Italian; three fish shops – British, Mauritian and Caribbean; a variety of grocers – Indian, Turkish, Greek, Caribbean among them – and a delicatessen.
I first served this for our dear friends, Robert and Beth, after we had eaten a spread of Turkish flatbreads with mezes. It was enjoyed alongside insanely good baklava, and rather a lot of Early Grey Tea. A perfect afternoon on a warm Summer's day.
As we had just moved in together, we had not yet acquired the full compliment of kitchen kit, and so I had no scone cutter at the time. I simply served the entire thing as a single round, cut into wedges. The informality of this appealed to me, and it went down well with our friends.
The main thing with this recipe is that instead of incorporating raisins or fruit into the dough directly, you place the dough onto a silicone sheet, or lay it into a greased spring form so that it stays contained, then pile the fruit into the centre and the edges are gathered around, to present it as a treasure. It is easily unmoulded and transferred to a cake plate or platter, and if it looks like it will crumble, and you can always decorate it with organza or flowers or tie a wide ribbon around it to hold it together.
It makes a romantic centre-piece and as it is mostly not how people serve scone dough, it has a certain novelty value. This particular combination of ingredients produced the best scone dough we've ever tasted and so it will no doubt be used for plain scones, as well as cheese ones soon too!
The importance of layering flavours to enhance a dish
It always disappoints me when I am given a lemon cupcake and the only flavour is the lemon topping. I might as well be eating papermache. I've had the same experience with red velvet cake. My first taste of it was horrible. The baker had not even put vanilla into the cake, so it just tasted like soft sand - no flavour at all. What a wasted opportunity! If you wish to wow your guests, the golden rule is 'Never leave an opportunity to layer your flavours' - but do it with discretion because you can overdo it!
Pairing flavours to create a taste sensation
The flavour of fruit can be beautifully enhanced if it is scented with flower buds, herbs or spices, or alcohol, and much the same applies to dough. The scone dough for this crown ring was flavoured with Chinese five spice, which loves dark fruit, and it created a wonderful perfume in the nose, which was excellent with tea or coffee, and especially good with a liqueur or aperitif.
Good combinations are: pears and ginger; apples with orange, ginger, cinnamon or cloves; pineapple with lemon and a green herb like oregano, basil or lemon-scented geranium; strawberries married with lychees, rose, black pepper and cardamom; apricots with orange rind and cinnamon; prunes with cloves, nutmeg and mace; apricots with almond, orange or nutmeg. You could put any of these fresh or dried fruits in a scone crown and created a minor sensation at your table.
Flavour notes in the end result
Clearly the end result will vary, depending on the ingredients you have used, but this baked scone crown should taste warm, sweet, mellow and gloriously perfumed. Serve dusted with icing sugar and any accompaniment you like: cream, sour cream, ice cream or custard.
Prep time: 30mins Cook time: 25mins
Ingredients for the fruit filling
2 large cups of blueberries
1/2 to 1 cup water or blueberry cordial
1/2 to 1 cup of sugar
5 fresh lavender buds
Ingredients for the crust
1.5 cups of flour - I've used wholemeal here because it has more body and flavour
1 cup of sugar
2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt
1 cup of frozen butter, grated
2/3 cup of buttermilk
2 eggs
Chinese five spice
A 20cm spring form
Soft butter or oil and ground rice to coat the tin.
Method
1-Place fruit, sugar, water and spices in a non-stick pan, and warm, stirring gently on a moderate heat. Allow the liquid to reduce, guarding it carefully to ensure it does not boil, because then the fruit will lose its colour and turn to mush. Gently does it! Once the flavours have developed (taste test), remove it from the heat, strain and allow the berries to cool and dry out a little.
2-Pre-heat the oven to 205C (400F), and brush the tin with oil or use your fingers to spread the butter around the interior. Then coat it with ground rice and shake out the excess.
This will give a delicious crunch to your bake and makes removing it super easy.
3-Mix the dry ingredients for the crust together, then add the butter and work this in, with your fingertips. See my hot tip (below) for making beautiful pastry.
4-Add the wet ingredients and knead gently to form a soft dough. See hot tip below, as before.
5-Turn the dough onto a work surface and roll out to a round of about 1cm, which should be about 4 cm bigger than the spring form you are using.
6-Carefully place the strained, cooled fruit inside the pastry, and gather the edges up to embrace the fruit.
7-Place in the oven and bake for 22-25 minutes or until lightly browned. I found I had to remove the springform during the final minutes of baking to ensure the centre and outsides were baked. You can also place parchment ontop to stop it from burning.
8-Serve with hot tea or coffee and liqueurs, or cordials. A glass of pineau with basil ice is perfection, see recipe below the picture.
Pineau with basil ice makes a wonderfully refreshing aperitif to serve with afternoon tea. Simply plunge basil leaves into your ice trays and freeze.
Notes
1-Your palms are the warmest part of your hands, so try to do any kneading using only your fingertips and avoid getting flour on your palms as much as possible. This will keep the butter in the dough nice and cold. I also keep my butter in the freezer and grate it into the baking bowl. This is the perfect way to keep your dough cold!
2-Blueberries also go well with cloves, nutmeg, mace and Cuban black pepper.
2-After straining the fruit you may have some syrup left, and it is really worth saving. It can be drizzled onto cream or it can be used to flavour ice cream or a cocktail, such as my Blueberry Mint Julep is, see below.
My variation of a much-loved classic: a blueberry mint julep
An excellent alternative to pineau is my luscious Blueberry Mint Julep: crush blueberries with mint and sugar in a pestle, then drop a little of this onto crushed ice in a pretty glass, and stir. Then top up with whisky and Canada dry ale, and decorate with a sprig of mint. Bliss.
*** bon appetit ***
Credits: all photographs used are either mine or they have been sourced from Unsplash, a source of excellent, high quality pictures, which are free to use.
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