Dan's Return to the Blogosphere... Part 1

Spring is here, spring is here,

Life is skittles, and life is beer,

I think the loveliest time of the year

Is the spring, I do, don’t you?

'Course you do.

But there’s one thing that makes spring complete for me,

And makes every Sunday a treat for me.

All the world sings in tune on a spring afternoon,

When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.

Every Sunday you'll see my sweetheart and me,

While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

Tom Lehrer, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.

   Okay, now I want to make one thing perfectly clear before I start this recipe. I am not- repeat NOT- suggesting that you spend your Sunday afternoons gaily prancing through Wollaton or Cae Sgwar feeding arsenic to hapless dumb stupid birds. All I’m saying is if you do plan to spend your time doing so, make sure you take a decent lunch with you. Cheese scons are excellent spring afternoon lunchtime fare, just what you need for picnics, with soup, or on the side of a Ploughmans. Serve them up with a bit of extra cheese, some cold ham, chutney, pickled onions, Branston, salad, all that mullarky, and enjoy while sitting under a tree on a tartan blanket, whilst listening to the distant gargling of a pigeon spending its last minutes wondering why that bread tasted so, well, poison-y.

   I feel I should note also, that these scons to not taste in the least bit poison-y. They taste delicious and flavoursome and wholesome and satisfying and wonderful. Not poison-y.

   Me, I like these with just good butter on them. Some folks like to add jam, which is fair enough, but you can’t taste the cheese if you do that. However you enjoy them, here’s the recipe. Makes about thirty.

Ingredients:

450g plain white flour

6tsps baking powder

A pinch of salt and pepper

100g finely grated strong Cheddar

100g butter

2 eggs, beaten

Cold water

The recipe I had called for a bit of mustard, I didn’t fancy it so left it out. If you try it, let me know how it turned out, I love hearing people’s experiments!

1.     First of all, preheat that oven. Gas 7, 220C. Grease up a baking tray to plonk the scons on.

2.     Sift your flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the salt, pepper and cheese. Sling in the butter, and rub it all in with your fingers to amalgamate- a word which remains one of my absolute favourite, right up there with hammock and taranau, Welsh for ‘thunder’ (say tah-RRRRRRRRRRRANN-nigh).

3.     Add the eggs and a couple of tablespoons cold water. Mix lightly together with a fork. Pull the dough together into a loverly soft ball of dough. If it’s dry, add more water, if it’s sticky, add more flour.

4.     Dust your tabletop with a good bit of flour, and roll the dough out flat- I’d say between an inch and half an inch thick. This is the stage when you look most like a professional baker, so if people are calling round to join you for scons, get a proper apron on, roll your sleeves up, and make it look like you’re taking this really seriously so they can be suitably impressed by your masterful baking talents^*.

5.     So yes, roll the dough out, and use a glass or a pastry cutter to cut out a few scon shapes, as big or small as you like, but about three inches across is good. Gather up the remaining dough and roll it out again, cut out more shapes, etc. Keep going til you’ve used it all up.

6.     Put them on a baking tray, leaving them a bit of room to expand (they don’t need a lot to be honest), and then sling in the oven for ten minutes. If you need to, do them in batches, just for heaven’s sake don’t forget them, they don’t take long!

And there you have it. Thirty beautiful cheese scons, best served warm from the oven with real butter. Or take them to the park one sunny Sunday for a cracking picnic with your friends and loved ones. Naw… in’t that lovely?

When they see us coming, the birdies all try and hide,

But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.

The sun’s shining bright, everything seems alright,

When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park!

^*Seriously, I tried this in kitchen six (sans apron, but hair back and sleeves rolled up- all I was doing was rolling out pastry but you’d think I was making a seventeen-tiered wedding cake the way people went on. Then they smeared jam all over the scons when they were done, I mean why put cheese in if you’re gonna wipe the taste out with cheap tacky Chinese jam on top?! But I digress. Go back up to the recipe, there’s nothing more to read here. Seriously, go back up. Fine, I’m not writing any more of the recipe until you go back up. So there.