Easy Cheddar Cheese & Chive Buttermilk Scones Recipe

5 from 4 votes

Easy Cheddar Cheese & Chive Buttermilk Scones Recipe

These easy buttermilk cheese scones are perfect for afternoon tea and complement a variety of dishes. With a cheese and chive savory flavor throughout, they're soft and fluffy and delicious served warm with butter.

(No buttermilk? No problem! I'll show you a simple trick you can do.)

Prep Time5

Cook Time18

Total Time23

Course: Appetizer, lunch, Side Dish

Cuisine: british

Keyword: cheese, chive, chives, mature cheddar, savoury scones, scones

Servings: scones

Calories: 295kcal

Author: Vikkie Lee

Equipment

Ingredients

300 g Self raising flour (2 cups) + more for dusting
½ teaspoon Mustard powder
½ teaspoon Baking powder
75 g Cold butter (5 tbsp)
130 g Cheddar Cheese (1 cup + 2 tbsp)
2 tablespoon Chives chopped
158 g Buttermilk (⅔ cup)
½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Cayenne pepper
1 small Egg

Scone Toppings

1 tablespoon Milk for brushing
2 tablespoon Parmesan grated

Instructions

First, preheat your oven to gas mark 7, 200 c fan, 220 c conventional, 425F and grease and line a baking tray with parchement paper.
Now sift the flour, mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper into a large mixing bowl.
Add the diced cold butter and rub together with your fingertips until you have coarse crumbs.
Stir in the grated cheese and chives.
Now whisk the egg in the buttermilk.
Make a well in the centre of the dough mixture and pour half of the buttermilk mixture in and stir with a knife.
Pour in the rest and mix with a wooden sponn.
Now gently bring it together with your hands, making sure you capture the remaining flour from the bowl.
Dust a clean worktop and rolling pin with more flour, then roll the scone dough briefly until it is around 3cm thick.
Then using a 7cm (2 & ⅔") pastry cutter, cut 8 scones out and place them on the tray.
Then brush with milk and sprinkle with the grated parmesan for 18-20 minutes until risen and golden.
Now transfer to a cooling rack for at least 10 minutes before serving with a pat of butter.

Video

Notes

- Instead of a prepared baking sheet, you can grease a large baking sheet really well with butter to prevent sticking
- Can't find buttermilk? Then make your own by adding 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 1 cup of milk and leave to rest for 10 minutes

- Keep the scones cold by using cold ingredients to help create a flaky texture as the cold butter helps create steam in the oven while baking

- Avoid overmixing the dough and only gently and briefly knead it to prevent warming up and activating the gluten in the flour early, which can result in flat scones that spread more than rise

- While the oven is preheating, use the time to chill the raw scones before baking. If they're too warm, they're spread more

- Don't roll them too flat otherwise, they won't rise. Aim for 2-3cm thickness.

- For clean edges, don't twist the scone cutter in the mixture while removing

- Alternatively, you could treat them as drop scones, like Welsh cakes, and roll them thinly and fry them in a griddle pan until golden on each side

- For extra flavour, brush the tops of the scones with milk and add grated cheese before baking

Nutrition