Scones with homemade Strawberry Jam

I love having scones for breakfast, they are a good alternative to other higher fat breakfast treats. Here is a basic recipe for both the scones and the strawberry jam. They go so great together.

Basic Scone Recipe

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. The ingredients you need are as follows:

Two cups of all purpose flour

One tablespoon of baking powder

1/4 cup of butter, diced up

One beaten egg, and another one for the glaze on top

Five tablespoons of milk

Clotted cream to put on top of the finished scone. Its also commonly called double heavy cream. Its more cream than liquid.

Directions: You will need a baking sheet, and butter it to help with sticking.

Mix the flour and baking powder together, and cut into the cut up butter. Make a little indentation or well in the center of this mixture, and your egg and milk into that. Mix with a fork until a soft dough forms.

Next, put the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead lightly just until its smooth. Roll this to 3/4 inch thickness , and cut into rounds using a biscuit cutter or cookie cutter or glass, etc. It helps if you dip your "cutter" into the flour each time before cutting the next one.

Transfer these over to your baking sheet, and with a pastry brush, brush the tops with egg, and bake for about 8 minutes. They will rise a little and turn a golden brown color.

Cool on a wire rack and serve with your strawberry jam and clotted cream. I would put a dollop of the cream on first, then the strawberry jam. Great if still warm, and can heat up a very little bit if not warm.

Variation:  You can use a tiny bit of lemon zest, and put it in your scone recipe to add another angle of flavor.  I LOVE lemon, so this is fun to do.  One of my favorite handy kitchen tools is a lemon/orange "zester".  It takes that super flavorful little bit right off the surface of the lemon.

This is almost too easy, and has hardly any ingredients!  It tastes great though, and is good on these scones, but on a number of other things as well.

Strawberry Jam Recipe  You will want to start this process first, the night before.  The strawberries sit with the sugar overnight.

Ingredients: 

Nine cups of strawberries

Four and a half cups of granulated sugar

Two lemons, you will be using their juice. 

Directions:  In a large bowl, you will want to layer your strawberries and sugar together.  Cover these, and leave them overnight in the refrigerator. 

Next day, put the strawberries and their juice into a large, heavy duty pan.  You will want to squeeze the lemon juice into the pan now.  Tip for getting the most juice from your lemon:  Put the lemon on the table, lay your palm over it, and kind of roll  it back and forth with a bit of pressure.  This way, when you cut it open, the juice is easy to squeeze out.  Watch for seeds and remove.

Bring strawberries, lemon juice with their sugar, to a boil and keep stirring until the sugar has fully dissolved.  Boil it for about 10 - 15 minutes, and spoon a small amount of this on to a saucer that has been chilled.  Chill this for three minutes.  Test it by pushing it with your finger, and if you see wrinkles when you do this, the jam is ready.  Cool for ten minutes. 

If you know how to do a sterilized storing of jam,  you can do this now.  If done right, it can keep up to one year in a cool, dark place.