Saturday Breakfast at Mine: Roasted Strawberry Scones With Vanilla Whipped Cream

Hi friends! I hope you’re having a lovely weekend and, more importantly, a delicious one!

I think I’ve already mentioned a few times how much I love scones. And if you asked me to choose, I’d almost always pick a savoury scone over a sweet one. A good cheese scone with salty butter on top is honestly very hard to beat. That said, I still think it’s worth having a really good sweet scone recipe in your collection. Especially at this time of year, when strawberry season is in full swing and the strawberries here in the UK are finally tasting sweet, juicy and actually worth buying.

I’ve wanted to make a strawberry version for a while. The kind you’d split open and serve with whipped cream alongside a cup of coffee on a slow weekend morning.

When I started working on the recipe, I wasn’t sure whether to use fresh strawberries or roast them first. In the end, I went with roasted strawberry compote, and I’m so glad I did. Maybe it’s just me, but I often find fresh strawberries a little underwhelming once they’re baked into something. Roasting them first concentrates the flavour, makes them sweeter and gives you those little jammy pockets running through the dough.

You’ll also notice that I use a combination of yogurt (buttermilk) and milk here. Most of my savoury scones are made with milk only, but for this version I wanted a slightly softer, fluffier texture, and the yogurt really helps with that. Another thing I feel quite strongly about is sweetness. I don’t like scones that taste like cake. For me, the best ones sit somewhere between sweet and savoury. Just enough sweetness to work with strawberries and cream, but not so much that you couldn’t add jam, clotted cream or whatever else you fancy on top.

And of course, the main goal was layers. Tall, flaky, buttery layers. The kind that pull apart when they’re still slightly warm. Anyway, these turned out exactly how I hoped they would.

So if you’ve got some strawberries in the fridge and are in the mood for a cosy weekend bake, I think you’ll love these.

Let’s bake.

Roasted Strawberries

400 g strawberries

35–40 g sugar

1 tsp lemon juice (optional)

Scones

320 g plain flour

70 g sugar

15 g baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

140 g very cold salted butter (or unsalted)

50 g thick natural yogurt (or buttermilk)

160–170 ml cold milk

Whipped Cream

300 ml cold double cream

1 tbsp icing sugar

vanilla paste

For the top

egg yolk and milk for brushing

coarse sugar for sprinkling

Method

1. Cut the strawberries into pieces and toss with the sugar.

2. Bake at 180°C for 35–45 minutes until thick, jammy and reduced, but still with visible pieces of fruit. Leave to cool completely before using.

3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

4. Grate the cold butter on the coarse side of a box grater. Alternatively, use a pastry cutter if you have one. Toss the butter through the flour mixture until you have large crumbs.

5. Add the yogurt and milk and quickly bring the dough together. Try not to overwork it — scone dough likes to stay cold and the little pieces of butter are what create those flaky layers later on.

6. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and gently shape it into a rectangle.

7. Cut the rectangle in half. Spread 180–220 g of the cooled strawberry compote over one half, then place the second half on top.

8. Gently roll it out again and fold the dough over itself 2–3 times. Try to keep some distinct pockets of compote rather than fully mixing it into the dough.

9. Shape into a rectangle about 3–4 cm thick and cut into 6–8 large square scones.

10. Transfer to a tray and place in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.

11. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200–220°C.

12. Brush the tops with a mixture of egg yolk and milk, then sprinkle generously with coarse sugar.

13. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until deeply golden brown. The scones should feel light for their size and have a rich golden colour all over.

14. For vanilla cream. Whip everything together until soft and fluffy. Serve the scones slightly warm with the whipped cream and fresh strawberries on the side. The contrast between the warm buttery scones, cold cream and sweet strawberries is absolutely worth it.

A couple of extra tips:

• You can shape the dough into a rectangle and cut square scones, like I did here, or shape it into a round and cut it into wedges.

• When cutting the scones, use a very sharp knife or bench scraper. Press straight down in one confident motion rather than sawing back and forth through the dough. This helps keep the layers intact and encourages the scones to rise evenly in the oven.

• If at any point the dough feels too soft or sticky to work with, pop it into the freezer for 10 minutes before continuing. Cold dough is one of the secrets to tall, flaky scones.