Recipe by Jodie Smith

Cheddar and Chutney Savoury Scones

Name: Cheddar and Chutney Savoury Scones
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 18 min
Total time: 33 min

Prep15 min

Cook18 min

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TRCC The Punjab Battery Tomato & Apple Chutney 280g

$12.95

Hand-packed and dispatched from our Corio, Victoria warehouse, with free delivery Australia-wide on orders over $100.

Mature cheddar grated into the dough and tomato and apple chutney folded in at the very end, so it runs through the scone in streaks instead of disappearing. Makes 8. Prep 15 minutes, cook 18 at 220C. They are best 20 minutes out of the oven.

Jar of TRCC The Punjab Battery Tomato and Apple Chutney 280g, the chutney folded through these cheddar scones

Ingredients

Makes 8 scones. Prep 15 minutes, cook 18. The flour, butter, milk and cheddar are a supermarket buy. The chutney is the part worth having in the cupboard, because it is also what you serve on the side.

For the scones
350g	self-raising flour, plus extra for the bench
1 tsp	baking powder
1/2 tsp	fine salt
1/4 tsp	cayenne pepper or English mustard powder
85g	cold butter, cut into 1cm cubes
120g	mature cheddar, coarsely grated
180ml	cold full-cream milk, plus a little for brushing
Folded through at the end
2 tbsp	TRCC The Punjab Battery Tomato & Apple Chutney
For the tops
30g	mature cheddar, grated
	black pepper
To serve
	salted butter, at room temperature
	more tomato and apple chutney, or TGK Bill's Spicy Tomato Chutney

Which chutney, and how much

Two tablespoons folded through is the ceiling. Past that the dough is too wet to hold a shape and the scones spread instead of rising. Put the rest on the table. Of the three jars worth using here, the Punjab Battery is the middle one: tomato and apple with cayenne and ginger behind it, chunky, and warm rather than hot. West Bengal Rifles mango chutney is sweeter and softer and suits a very sharp cheddar. Bill's Spicy Tomato Chutney is the smoothest of the three, so it streaks least and flavours most. If you want the difference between the three spelled out, our guide to chutney, relish and jam does that.

Why the chutney goes in last, and in lumps

Stir chutney into scone dough properly and two things go wrong. The dough turns wet and pink, which means more flour, which means a tougher scone. And the sugar in the chutney spreads evenly through the crumb, where it catches on the base long before the middle is cooked. Fold it in with four or five turns instead, so it stays in visible ribbons, and you get pockets of sweet and sour sitting against salty cheese rather than a uniformly sweetened scone. The Punjab Battery tomato and apple chutney is built for that job: 28 per cent tomatoes and 22 per cent apples with vinegar, brown sugar, raisins, ginger and cayenne, and it is chunky enough to keep its shape in a hot oven. It is made in Australia and it is one of the jars we go through fastest from the Regimental Condiment Company range.

Cold butter, hot oven, and as little handling as you can manage

A scone rises because cold butter turns to steam in a hot oven and pushes the layers apart. Everything that goes wrong with scones traces back to one of those two words. Butter that has warmed on the bench smears through the flour instead of sitting in it, and an oven at 180C melts the butter before the steam can do any lifting. So the butter goes in from the fridge, cut small, and the oven goes to 220C and gets 20 minutes to get there. The dough itself should be brought together in about ten seconds and should still look shaggy when you stop. Kneading it smooth is what makes a scone tough, and no amount of good chutney rescues that.

Method

Heat the oven to 220C, or 200C fan-forced, and give it a full 20 minutes. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and cayenne together in a large bowl.
Rub the cold butter into the flour with your fingertips until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs with a few pea-sized lumps left. The lumps are what makes it flaky, so stop before it is even.
Stir the 120g of grated cheddar through with a knife.
Pour in the milk and cut it through with the knife until it comes together into a shaggy dough. Do not use your hands yet and do not knead it.
Tip the dough onto a floured bench, dot the chutney over it, then fold the dough over on itself four or five times. Stop while you can still see streaks of chutney.
Pat the dough out to 3cm thick. Thinner than that and you get a biscuit rather than a scone.
Cut out 8 rounds with a floured 6cm cutter, pressing straight down and lifting straight up. Twisting the cutter seals the edge and stops the scone rising evenly.
Sit them on the tray almost touching, brush the tops with milk, scatter the remaining 30g of cheddar over them and grind black pepper on top.
Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, until they are risen, deep gold and the cheese on top has caught at the edges. Cool them on a rack for 10 minutes so the crumb sets before you split one.

Make ahead, freezing and what else to put on the tray

Scones are at their best within an hour and are honestly ordinary the next day, so plan around that rather than fighting it. The dough can be cut and sat on its tray in the fridge for two hours before baking, which is enough for a morning tea you do not want to start at 6am. They freeze better raw than cooked: freeze the cut rounds on a tray, bag them, and bake from frozen at 220C for 22 minutes. Baked and frozen, they need 8 minutes in a 180C oven to come back and are still a step behind fresh.

If the tray needs a sweet half, VPC ginger shortbread is the least effort for the most return and does not compete with the cheese. For a warm cheese course instead of a bake, our baked camembert with mango chutney uses the same cupboard, and there are more ideas for the jar in what to do with mango chutney.

Common questions

Why are my scones tough?

Almost always overworking. Flour develops gluten the moment it meets liquid, and every extra fold tightens the crumb, so a scone dough should be mixed until it just holds and no further. The other two causes are too much flour, usually added because the dough felt sticky when it was meant to, and an oven that was not hot enough when the tray went in. Cut the dough with a knife rather than your hands and you will avoid the first problem entirely.

Can savoury scones be frozen?

Yes, and raw is better than baked. Cut the rounds, freeze them on a lined tray until solid, then bag them for up to three months and bake straight from frozen at 220C for about 22 minutes. Baked scones can also be frozen, well wrapped, for a month, but they come back drier and want 8 minutes in a moderate oven and a great deal of butter.

Which cheese works best in a scone?

A mature cheddar, and the sharper the better, because half the flavour bakes out. Grate it coarsely so it stays in visible pieces rather than melting into the crumb. Vintage cheddar, aged gouda and a hard sheep's cheese all work. Avoid anything soft or high moisture: mozzarella and brie leak water into the dough and give you a dense, greasy scone.

The chutneys sit with the rest of our gourmet condiments, the shortbread with our biscuits, and both belong on the festive entertaining table. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100.