Scottish Drop Scones recipe

Scottish Drop Scones 

Like the Scottish Oatcakes recipe I blogged a while back, Scottish Drop Scones have a hundred and one variations because everyone's grandma has their own special ingredient or secret method! They are a thick batter pancake rather than a scone in the jam-and-cream sense which, just to add to the confusion, is what Americans call a biscuit! We used to buy Scottish Drop Scones readymade and heat them up in a toaster for lunch, but once I realised how quick and easy they are, I now make my own. Freshly cooked always tastes so much better!

If you have self raising flour, use this and omit the baking powder. Wholemeal flour is also good if that's what you have to hand. I think a finer sugar is often called for, but we only have the golden brown kind at the moment and it did the job without any grittiness to the Scones. I fried the batter in rapeseed oil, but again whatever cooking oil you normally use will probably be fine.

Batter in the pan 

Ingredients
4oz / 100g plain white flour
Scant tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
2oz / 50g brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 free range egg
Milk to mix - approx 4 tablespoons
Squeeze of lemon juice
Rapeseed oil for frying
Various toppings to serve

Place all the dry ingredients into a bowl or 1 pint pyrex jug and mix them together.
Make a small well in the top and break the egg into it. Mix in the egg a little, then start slowly adding the milk, 1 tbsp at a time. Mix well in between each tbsp and make sure to incorporate all the flour mix.

Add a squeeze of lemon juice and mix in.

When your batter is ready, heat a little oil in a non-stick frying pan until it begins to crease. Drop a tbsp of batter into the frying pan. If your oil is hot enough it will begin to bubble at the batter's edges.
Each Scone is 1 tbsp of batter and I can cook 3 at a time in my frying pan.
Keep a palette knife (or similar) handy. After a minute or two if should be possible to lift up a pancake and look underneath. If it has started to brown, it's time to flip them and I find sliding the knife underneath is the easiest way to do this. It does take a steady hand!
A couple of minutes later both sides should be cooked through and you can either serve your Scottish Drop Scones straight from the pan or cook up the whole batch ahead of time and reheat them just prior to serving.

Traditionally Scottish Drop Scones are served at breakfast time and, despite being sweet, are good to mop up fried egg yolks. I like mine with just a smear of salted butter or a nut butter. You could try nutella, soft cheese, marmalade ....

Cooking the other sides