sultana scones

There's recipes that you'll spend a fortune just buying the ingredients, then add the hours that go into making the recipe and at the end of it, you're still likely to fail at the attempt in which case you start all over. My type of cooking generally steers away from those recipes. I do still look and drool over them but when it comes to me in the kitchen, the key ingredient is simplicity. The simpler the recipe, the easier it is in making, and the more satisfied you are at the end of it. As much as I love being in the kitchen I'm not one for slaving away for hours and not achieving anything (I actually get quite frustrated and take things quite badly...just ask J).

Here's the batch of sultana scones I made using the recipe from Bill Granger's 'Simply Bill'. I find myself going to Bill quite a bit these days for my recipes. Recipe was for a batch of 12 scones, I managed to get 15.

Ingredients: 1 tbsp icing sugar, 310g plain flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt, 60g sultanas, 1 tsp orange zest, 250ml milk, 30g unsalted butter (melted). Most of the ingredients were found in my pantry/fridge. Cooking them was even easier. Sift all the dry ingredients together, add the orange zest + sultanas and finally stir in the wet ingredients. Knead together quickly until smooth, place on a floured surface and roll to about 3cm thick. Cut out 5cm rounds and place together close on a tray. Cook for about 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 220 degrees.

Serve with butter and jam!

I've actually been doing quite a bit of baking lately and less of the eating out. Quite liking Bill, my copy of 'In the Kitchen' and well Nigella is making a comeback. I got her boxed DVD set over Christmas and I'm watching my way through them (and well time to unearth all my Nigella cookbooks!). Over the Christmas break, there's been a few more additions to my cookbook collection which I'll introduce in due time. And well, blogger is telling me that this is my 300th post!