I am a huge fan of scones and this is the best easy raisin scone recipe which rises so tall and is soft and fluffy in the middle. This fool-proof recipe is sure to become your favourite too.

I was jotting down a recipe from TV again. This has become a bit of a habit of mine recently. I was watching a guest chef, I can’t remember his name, on James Martin’s ‘Sweet’. He is a pastry chef and with very little effort threw these easy raisin scones together. I was sold.

The two things that struck me as interesting were the ease of the making (everything gets put into an electric mixer bowl and then mixed) and the use of ‘strong’ flour. Since our flour is limited to “cake” and “bread” in South Africa, I thought it must be the latter. The scones are made with raisins which I love, and then the big selling feature on the show was that they were good risers. Always important for a scone.

So off I went to make these this morning and they worked out exactly as I had seen.

The only change I made was to the baking powder. He threw in what he said was 30 grams, which would amount to just over 6 teaspoons, and I felt that given the quantity of flour was far too much. So I used 4 teaspoons instead. You could go the whole hog and probably get little towers.

These are soft and smooth with a lovely crumb. Not too sweet, which is preferable in my opinion, as the jam takes care of that.

Scones freeze well, so they can be stored for future eating if you don’t get through these in one sitting.

A few of my favourite scones recipes:

My best scone recipes

My perfect cheese scones

A recipe to make perfech cheese scones that are light and fluffy

Easy butternut scones with cheese and chives

Easy pumpkin and Parmesan scones

Easy pomegranate scones

Quick & easy cranberry & orange scones

Quick and easy cranberry & orange scones

Easy lemonade scones with cheese and herbs

My best baking recipes on Drizzleanddip

How to make perfect scones:

Don’t overwork the dough. Handle it as little as possible and gently flatten it out before cutting your shapes.
Make scones by hand and work on a cool surface such as marble if possible.
Allow the scones to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes while the oven is preheating.
Use cold or frozen butter. With this recipe, the butter is grated in, and using fridge-cold or semi-frozen butter makes it easier.
Flour your knife, cookie, or a pastry cutter before cutting and slicing into the scones. This makes the pastry drag less as you cut down which helps it rise in the oven.
If you are going to egg wash the top to get a more golden colour don’t egg wash the sides of the scone.
If you want really high scones don’t flatten the dough too much before cutting. Keep it quite thick to start with.

Prep Time:10

Cook Time:15

Ingredients

75 gms butter
2 large eggs
75 gms sugar
4 tsp baking powder
230 ml milk
500 gms ‘strong flour’ – I used white bread flour use cake, bread or All-purpose
1 cup of raisins
1 x additional egg for the egg wash

Instructions

Put all the ingredients except the flour and raisins in the mixer with a paddle attachment and mix on low until all combined
Add the flour and raisins and mix briefly
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, need slightly, and press out to a height of about 4- 5cm (I used my fingers)
Press out scones with a round and sharp cookie cutter until all the dough has been used (I used a 58mm or 2 1/4 inch cutter)
Beat an egg and brush over only the tops of the scones.
Put the scones in the fridge for about 30 minutes while you preheat the oven to 200C/400F.
Brush a second egg wash layer over the scones which gives them a really nice glaze and bake in the oven for 15 minutes until well-risen and golden brown.

Notes

Make sure you don’t press out the dough too thinly to start, you want them to start out with a bit of height.

Ensure you only brush egg wash on the top of the scone. If you brush the sides it prevents the scone from rising as much.

Chill the scones if the fridge before baking and while the oven is preheating.

Servings: 12

Author: Sam Linsell

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19 Comments

Apparently the difference between strong and normal flour is the level of gluten in it.
Also, apparently (I say apparently because I dont know for sure) the difference in gluten in SA flour’s (bread and cake) is negligable so you might as well use cake flour.
These look yummy btw – served hot out the oven with butter 🙂

Iteresting! I found the texture of these scones to be quite fluffy and light despite the bread flour. Will be good to know what ‘strong’ flour actually is. Will do the research. They were so delicious steaming hot with butter.

I love scones, but still haven’t found a recipe to rely on. I have to try this one, as these scones look perfect!

These look delicious (I never eat scones or cakes, but your lovely photographs made my mouth water, and reminded me of my gran’s raisin scones!). I agree that 6 teaspoons is way to much b.p. – that amount would make the scones taste very odd.

Thanks JA, I can get a bit annoyed on Tv when they casually toss in an ingredient out of the container and say what its weight is without measuring it, dont they know someone like me is writing it down. I like Bill Granger he is very accurate about his quantites on Tv..

I just made these now, and i followed the recipe to the last letter, but they did not rise, why is that??

Hi Isra. Sorry to hear they didnt rise. The only thing I can think of is over handling of the dough. Scones have to made with as little ‘work’ as is possible. Or alternatively temperature too low. Oven needs to be hot for scones. If you rolled out too flat perhaps? I cut from quite thick dough

Is the egg used for the egg wash before baking one of the two in the ingredient list, or do we actuall need three aggs in all?

Hi Chris. The egg is an additional egg and I apologise for the confusion.

I tried the recipe with my 3 years old daughter and the result was awesome! Thank you for sharing!

I’m so happy to hear they were a hit and they really are so easy.

I tried this recipe and the result was awesome, the scones were fluffy.

Hi Kudzai, I’m so happy to hear they were a success. Definitely one of my favourite scone recipes.

What kind of butter do i need to use? Salted, unsalted margarine? can you maybe be more precise. Sorry for the confusion

Hi Grace, I generally always use salted butter but you could use unsalted if you prefer. Margarine is not butter, it is made from plant oils but you would be able to use it in this recipe too.