Brown Sultana Scones- vegan

Scones are a treat at tea time!

I was born and grew up in the West Country of England (Dorset, to be precise) so the traditional "Devon/ Dorset/ Cornish/ Somerset Cream Tea" is practically a part of my heritage, and jam and scone-making is probably in my blood. Being a region full of dairy and fruit farms, the West Country is home to the Cream Tea although it is enjoyed all over England nowadays. It is supposed to have originally come from Tavistock Abbey in Devon, where an 11th century record tells of bread being eaten with jam and cream. In Devon, they halve their scones as I have done, top them with thick yellow clotted cream and then put the jam on top. In Cornwall they do pretty much the same thing only with a buttered sweet bread roll called a "Cornish split" rather than a scone. Clotted cream is de rigeur in those counties, whipped cream only being used when clotted is not available. Traditional scone recipes often call for egg and always butter, but you can make great vegan scones without either of these ingredients. For a genuine West Country tearooms experience, brew up a pot of your favourite tea, make a batch of scones and serve them warm with strawberry jam and coconut whipped cream (If you whip it really thick and leave it in the fridge a while, you'll even get something like the consistency of clotted cream.) A good scone should be a little crusty but fluffy on the inside, and not too crumbly. You can achieve this by not handling the dough too much (don't knead it, no matter what your recipe says) and warming the baking tray in the oven before you place the raw scones on it, to get a good rise. Your scone can be one big circle. cut into wedges or individually-cut rounds, like I made. A classic sultana scone, made with half white and half wholemeal flours, looks like this:

Makes 6 large scones (you can make them smaller if you wish- they are quite filling):

175g plain white flour

175g wholemeal flour

2 tabs sultanas

2 tabs demerara/ light soft brown sugar

2 tsps baking powder

1/2 cup cold-pressed sunflower oil

175ml plant milk (I used soya)

• In a bowl, mix the flours, sultanas, sugar and baking powder together.
• Rub in the oil using your forefingers and thumbs.
• Mix in the plant milk gradually- you don't want the mixture to be too wet, and different flours have different absorbencies.
• Gently form the dough into a ball and lightly press until about 1 1/2" thick. Use a cutter until you have 6 rounds, or however many you want, according to the diameter of your cutter.
• Bake on a pre-warmed oiled baking sheet in an oven preheated to 200C for about 15 minutes. The scones should have risen and be slightly browned on top, but not sticky inside.

Why not make a traditional cream tea with a pot of redbush, your favourite plant milk, some strawberry jam and coconut whipped cream?

Do you have a favourite snack recipe that you grew up with and still make now?