Strawberries and Cream Lemon Scone Dessert

 

Summer is on it's way, and to celebrate the long weekend I created a super yummy dessert that wasn't just baking, but actually something that was served in a bowl - not just a cupcake liner like usual these days! 

 

I was excited to put together this dessert using fresh strawberries, whipped cream and, my favourite part - home baked lemon scones.  In my mind, I think perhaps this is similar to the American dessert Strawberry Shortcake, but well... In British style, I decided to go with a basic, but delicious scone recipe with some added lemon zest to please my citrus taste buds, and also give a good twist to match the flavours of the strawberries.

 

 

What better time of year to create this dessert... It was Victoria Day, and then Canada Day is coming up on July 1st - could the colours of strawberries and cream be any more Canadian?!... Wimbledon is only a month away as well, and endless strawberries and cream will be eating in England during the tennis tournament!  ... Another thought I had was for my American readers, add a sprinkling of fresh blueberries to go with the strawberries and you have a perfect mix of red, white and blue, just in time for Memorial Day and Independence Day!  So however you choose to create this dish, I'm sure it will pair well with any Summer party theme :)

 

 

The dish didn't need too much preparation.  Each element needed some preparation, but scones are an easy bake and the rest was easy peasy too.  I'm sure anybody reading this could recreate the dessert!  You probably have all of the scone ingredients in your cupboards too, go take a look now, and get baking!  They'll be fresh out of the oven in just a few minutes!

Here's my recipe for the lemon scones, and some step by step pictures to help along the way...  The recipe will make enough for 8/9 scones, thick enough to cut in half and smother with whipped cream and syrupy strawberries. 

 

We had friends over for dinner one evening of the long weekend, and then headed over to a friends place on the final night of the bonus day off work and got to share the dessert with each of them!

 

Ingredients:

 

10oz plain flour (all-purpose)

3 oz granulated sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 oz unsalted butter, cold

1/2 cup whole milk (3.25%)

2 large egg yolks

Zest of 1 lemon

 

1 large egg

1 tbsp whole milk

Sprinkling of sugar

 

Method:

 

1.  Preheat your oven to 400°F/205°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

 

2.  Place the flour in a mixing bowl, and grate or cube unsalted butter in with it.

 

 

3.  Using a pastry blender, and/or your fingertips, rub together the flour and butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.  You could also use a food processor for this.

 

4.  Add the remaining dry ingredients to the bowl - baking powder, sugar and salt.

5.  Warm the 1/2 cup milk for 30 seconds in the microwave, and add the beaten egg yolks to the jug.  Once combined, pour into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix to combine.

 

The dough will come together into a ball that may still feel sticky. 

 

6.  Flour your hands and the surface and knead the dough a little before patting it into a round shape, around 2-3cm thick.  I thought a rolling pin may be needed here, but in the end, my hands were the only thing required!

 

 

7.  Using a cookie cutter cut out scone rounds and place on the lined baking sheet.

 

 

8.  Beat together the 1 egg and tablespoon of milk, and using a pastry brush, spread over the tops of the scones.  Sprinkle sugar on top and place in the oven.

 

 

9.  Bake for 9-12 minutes, until the tops are golden brown, and until a cake tested comes out clean.

 

If at this point, you're making lemon scones for scones sake - then dig in while they're still warm and fresh, but otherwise, leave them to cool and get started on preparing the strawberries and cream.

 

I used a box of strawberries per 4 lemon scones, one for each night of the long weekend where we ate with friends!  I cut each strawberry into 8 and placed them in a bowl along with a spoonful of sugar (to help the medicine go down!?)... Leaving it for a few hours, the strawberries tasted deliciously sweet and even a little syrupy!  Perfection!

 

 

For the whipped cream, take a carton of 35% whipping cream (500ml), along with 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract and a tablespoon of sugar and whip together until stiff.  This, like the strawberries, can be prepared a few hours before guests arrive meaning this is nice and easy to put together even perhaps after the main course as all of the elements of the dessert would be ready.

 

The soft cream paired well with the freshly baked scones - and all went down a treat with a cup of coffee or tea!

 

 

Super easy, but good looking!  And lucky us getting to eat it twice in two nights, sharing with different friends along the way!  I hope you get to try out these lemon scones - they're a really great basic recipe that can be put together and baked in just 30 minutes.  Halve and butter them and they're a great bake to share... And whether it's a traditional clotted cream and jam, or my take on freshly whipped cream and fresh fruit to go along with it - it's sure to go down a treat in these Summer months!

 



A Taste of Britain: Cherry Bakewells for a British Bride-to-Be ♥

What a fun day!  I had the pleasure of being invited to a friend's bridal shower out in Hamilton today - somewhere I had never been although I have lived in Toronto for over 4 years now!  So off I went on a little mini adventure of my own, taking the bus and the train (with some quality book reading time to myself!!) and getting to spend the day with an old friend from England who also now lives in Canada - yey!

I'm super excited that I will get to share in their wedding day in November, and was so happy to be able to join her today at her English tea party themed shower!  What great friends she has :)  Everything was decorated with red, white and blue, with streamers, bunting and Union Jack patterned plates her sister even shipped from England for the party!  There were afternoon tea style sandwiches, scones and teacup cupcakes as well as lots of amazing tea cups and saucers for the tea of course.  Everything was delicious - I'm stuffed!!

For the party I asked if I could take something along, perhaps something English inspired.  And they said yes!  Yey!  An excuse to bake wahoo :-D

I knew the perfect item for the day - something I had baked just once before and included on my blog when I first started to write up posts before I made the blog live, and to be honest...it's a terrible post with terrible photos... so here goes take 2!  Hope you don't mind the repeat - but honestly, check it out and make the comparison - I hope you think this one is better hehe!

This Cherry Bakewell traybake definitely was the front runner while thinking about the best thing to bake.  I knew my friend had mentioned Bakewell Tarts whilst once talking about English treats we miss!  And I thought a traybake style would be a good one to cook, and then slice up each to eat in little pieces for party food.  I also love how these little squares look, the pure white icing flooded over the top, and then of course a cherry on top - literally!!

I got some really nice feedback from everyone - it was great to hear that they all liked the cakes - especially as they were something they hadn't tried before :)  I know I also got a big thumbs up from Jonathan too - he got a few of the extras before I left for the shower ~ Breakfast Bakewells!!  ... But it was nice to get the positive comments too from not my biased husband!!!

So, if you're also unfamiliar with Cherry Bakewells here's the breakdown of what makes it SO SUPER delicious!

First off, the bottom layer is a deliciously unhealthy sweet shortcrust pastry.  The original recipe stated to use the ready-made ready-to-roll kind... However not only is this sweet shortcrust not really available like that anywhere I have seen in Toronto, but also, where's the fun in that?!  I rarely get the chance to do much pastry cooking so it's fine by me to have the opportunity to do this.  But if you're in a country - like England where you can buy this ready-made pastry easily, it certainly would cut the cooking time down.

So bottom layer pastry, with a juicy layer of strawberry jam on top.  Next up is the almond spongey cake - a frangipane topped with a thick layer of icing, and sprinkled with toasted flaked almonds and of course, that cherry on top!

So it's a little of a Bakewell Tart (pastry, jam and frangipane topped with sliced almonds) and a little more of a Cherry Bakewell (my favourite is the Mr. Kipling brand!) which are baked in small tart shells and topped with the thick icing layer and a cherry on top.  These are some we ate recently brought back from my July trip to England :)

Mix those two delicious treats together and bake in a traybake and you have this Cherry Bakewell traybake that makes for a perfect sweet addition to any English tea party!

Recipe time!  I'll include the recipe for the pastry too if you want to try this out as well, let me know if you have any questions about any part of it :)  Would be happy to spread the cherry bakewell love ♥

For the pastry... This made 565g of pastry dough which covered the traybake pan (33x23cm) and had some left over.

Ingredients:

300g plain flour
150g unsalted butter, chilled and chopped.
90g caster sugar (for the first time I actually tried using the Lantic dissolving sugar as I often cannot find caster sugar here... it worked!  I'll use it again for sure)
1 egg yolk
1.5 tablespoon chilled water

Method:

1.  Combine flour, butter and sugar in a bowl (or food processor) and rub between fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  I use my fingertips for the majority of this process, until the butter is soft and combined with the flour in the breadcrumbs, but then also use the pastry cutter just to make sure no lumps are left!

2.  Add the yolk and chilled water and combine until the dough just comes together.

3.  Turn the pastry onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.  Shape into a disc and wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

So 30 minutes to kill?!... Nope!  Time to get to work on the cake part of the traybake....(and also to kindly ask your VERY KIND husband to run to the shop to get some seedless strawberry jam, because the one in your fridge you thought was correct ACTUALLY was raspberry ... booo!!)

For the frangipane:

Ingredients:

500g sweet shortcrust pastry
6 tbsp strawberry jam (I chose seedless as a personal preference for a smoother taste!)
200g unsalted butter
200g granulated sugar (I didn't want to risk the dissolving extra fine sugar here for this but if you have the real deal caster sugar go with that!)
4 eggs
100g ground almonds
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp pure almond extract
300g icing sugar (powdered sugar)
3 tbsp water
24 glacé cherries
25g toasted flaked almonds (2 minutes carefully watched in the toaster oven did it for me)

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F.
2.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to fit the base of the traybake pan.  (Mine is a Wilton 33 x 23cm)

3.  Spread the jam over the pastry base.

4.  Place the butter and caster sugar in a large bowl and beat in mixer (or with a hand whisk) until smooth and creamy.

5.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding 1 tbsp ground almonds after each addition.

6.  Add the flour, remaining ground almonds and almond extract and stir well.

7.  Spoon the mixture over the jam, spreading to make an even layer.

8.  Bake for 35 - 40 minutes until well risen, firm and golden.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

At this point, once the cake was cooled, I actually very carefully (and maybe too riskily) turned out the cake/pastry onto a chopping board as I didn't really want to be slicing the cake in the non-stick pan.  If you're not as weird about that as I am do just leave it in there and pour the icing over and cut into it no problem!

9.  When the cake is cooled make a start on the icing.  Sieve the icing sugar into a large mixing bowl and add 3 tbsp water to make a fairly thick icing.

10.  Spoon the icing on top, spreading evenly.

11.  Decorate with glacé cherries and flaked almonds and leave to set.

12.  Cut the tart into squares or rectangles, serve and enjoy :)

Like seriously enjoy... the crunchy flaky bite through the pastry, the juicy fruity jam layer and the spongey almond flavour with the added sweetness on top.  I'm about to enjoy one of the extras right now actually... YUM!

Happy Bakewell-ing!  

And HUGE congratulations to the bride-to-be ♥ 

I'm a big fan of British girl marrying Canadian boy and can't wait to share your special day :)