I need a failsafe, foolproof, easy (plain) scone recipe please

[SmileAndNod]

I have always been irrationally quite frightened of making scones. They look very easy to get wrong. I am planning on doing an afternoon tea and so I need to get them right, have a few weeks to practice. Anyone have a recipe that always works that even I couldn't mess up? Any tips? I have a kitchen aid, a food processor and a hand held mixer at my disposal. What's the secret?

TIA

right...this is the most simple and easy and bizarre scone recipe, but it is brilliant and never fails!

3 cups SR flour
1 cup double cream
1 cup of lemonade (seriously, yes lemonade)

Sieve the flour into a bowl ...or just put it in there
Make a well in the centre and pour in the cream and the lemonade

Hold your nerve cos it looks horrendous

Get a table knife and using a cutting action, cut the flour into the liquid, don't over mix it. If you have a little too much flour left then add a little more lemonade, but you rarely need to do that.

You will have a ball of dough in a relatively clean bowl, the dough should not be at all sticky

Pat it out gently on a floured board to about an inch/inch and a half thick and use your cutters to cut out

Put them onto a lightly floured tray and into a hot oven 200, not too hight up until well risen and golden prob about 15-20 mins depending on how big your cutter was.

I like sweet sultana scones so I add in quarter cup of icing sugar with the flour and a half(ish) cup of sultanas and then carry on as per the recipe.

Nigella's recipe is excellent. Really light and dead easy.

This recipe is brilliant, really successful scones:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4622/classic-scones-with-jam-and-clotted-cream

I love that recipe too mycat it give the scones a great texture and flavour.

Another recipe to try that works well is from the Guardian:-

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/apr/22/how-to-make-perfect-scones

Interestingly, in the comments on that site about the recipe a couple of Australians also mention about using lemonade or fizzy water in the recipe as well as milk.

Perhaps this is an Aussie thing?

Thank you all - the first batch of scones are out of the oven. I used the good food recipe as I had everything in. It only made 9 but they look like scones, not risen that well but I rolled them out too thinly maybe and the mix did seem quite dry - are you supposed to knead like bread? I want sure, so I didn't. We'll have a taste later.

Need to get to shops then I'm trying the lemonade and cream version . Would love to be good at baking. One day....

2 tips I can remember

• don't knead the mixture too much - just enough to get it to bind together
• cut the scones out cleanly without twisting the cutter in the dough

the worst thing to do for scones is to over roll them....or to over work the dough Get it formed into a ball and be kind to it!!

pat the dough gently and keep it all light!

I suffer from a complete inability to make scones (I am good at stones though...) until I came across this recipe. The trick to scones is to cut them high and bake them hot!
8oz self raising flour
1.5oz caster sugar
3oz butter at room temperature
1 large egg
buttermilk or plain yoghurt
Heat oven to 220 C
Sift flour with a pinch of salt, add sugar, rub in butter. Beat egg in a jug and add yog or b'milk to make up to 5 fl oz. Beat together and then add to flour mixing in with a knife til it all comes together. Cut high and bake hot for 10 to 12 mins.

Easy Peasy!!!

On behalf of MN I've spent most of half term baking and selflessly eating scones with clotted cream and jam. The most successful (we think) were the good food classic scone. Though for a throw-it-all-in-make--quickly the lemonade and cream method scones were surprisingly good.

Now for the diet