English Scones – What Jessica Baked Next

Classic English scones made with vegan ingredients. Made without any dairy or egg, these scones are gorgeously fluffy and will be greatly enjoyed with dairy-free whipped cream and jam.

The next vegan bake I wanted to tackle for my blog was scones. I’ve already found some great vegan bakes like this banana bread, these brownies, these cookies and these flapjacks. With every new blog post I’m adding to my vegan recipe collection and I’m really enjoying discovering loads of yummy vegan recipes. I’ve also been testing out some vegan cake recipes, one was very successful (I hope to share it soon in time for Easter) and another not so successful that I’ll need to go back and work on.

This time last year I baked these (3 Ingredient) Lemonade Scones and ever since posting they’ve become one of the most viewed recipes each day. I haven’t eaten scones in a while, but recently I’ve really wanted to bake a batch.

If you were blind taste testing these scones, you really wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the vegan version and a recipe that includes dairy ingredients.

Scones just HAVE to be served with cream and jam. For us vegans, there’s many wonderful vegan alternatives to our usual favourites. Before I went vegan, I would bake with copious amounts of double cream, but thankfully now I don’t miss out as I use an oat-based whipping cream alternative which is equally as fabulous.

You cannot even tell the difference between this non-dairy whippable cream and double cream, it’s absolutely amazing and a lovely treat piled on top of these yummy vegan scones with jam. In my recipe notes below I’ve listed the brands of vegan ingredients I used.

These are a vegan version of traditional English scones. I’ve had questions before about adding sultanas to the scone dough, I’d recommend adding about 100g of sultanas to your scone dough, you could even add the same amount of vegan chocolate chips/chunks instead of dried fruit if you fancy something different!

When serving these scones I went for raspberry jam, but you can serve the scones with any jam you like such as apricot, blackcurrant or keep it classic with a delicious strawberry jam. Another favourite jam of mine is plum jam, I have fond memories of making plum jam with my grandma and grandad a number of summers ago.

Just look at how fluffy and cake-like these vegan scones are!

As with every vegan recipe I’ve made so far, I have always been a bit worried when starting off whether they’ll be any problems with the recipe and will it taste good enough to share on the blog. I’ll never share any recipe I’m not proud of, I only want you to have fun in the kitchen and enjoy baking as much as I do.

These scones require a handful of ingredients: self-raising flour, baking powder, salt and a few tablespoons of sugar, fridge cold dairy-free baking spread and plant milk (I used soya milk). Simply sift together the dry ingredients, then using your fingertips rub the baking spread into the dry ingredients until you have a fine breadcrumb mixture. Gradually add the plant milk and very gently mix by hand until a soft dough has formed. Place the scone dough on a piece of baking parchment and press out until it’s 2cm in thickness. Leave the scone dough to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Resting the scone dough makes it’s easier when it’s time to cut the scones out the dough. Take a 6cm scone cutter and stamp out 6-8 scones and now place the scones on a large baking tray that’s been lined with a piece of parchment paper. This step is optional, but if you have the time now you’ll need to freeze the scones for 15 minutes as this ensures when the scones bake they’re uniform in shape.

Once the scones are ready to bake, all that’s left to do is to brush the tops lightly with extra soya milk. I also sprinkle the tops with a tiny bit of sugar, I used caster sugar but even some demerara sugar would add a lovely crunch to the top of each scone. This is a trick I used to do when I worked as a tearoom baker baking gluten-free scones and customers always loved it, so I’ve used that same idea here with these scones.

(Makes 6-8)

Ingredients:

350g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons caster or granulated sugar

95g vegan dairy-free spread

150ml plant milk – I use soya milk

Jam and vegan whipped cream/crème fraîche, to serve

Method:

In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together. Give the dry ingredients a quick mix and then add the vegan spread. Using your fingertips, rub the spread into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Gradually add the milk bit by bit and mix until you have soft and smooth dough – you might need to add a dash extra milk to help bring the scone dough together.
Lightly dust a work surface with flour and roll the dough out until it’s roughly 2cm in thickness. Carefully transfer the scone dough a baking tray lined with a piece of baking parchment and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up – this makes it easier to cut out the scones later on.
Once the dough has chilled, remove it from the fridge and take out a 6cm cutter (fluted or plain is fine) and stamp out 6-8 scones. Place the scones onto another baking tray lined with parchment paper leaving about 2cm between each scone and place in the freezer for 15 minutes – this is optional you can bake the scones straight away if you prefer.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220°C / 200°C Fan / 400°F / Gas Mark 6. Brush the tops of the scones with extra plant milk and sprinkle with some extra sugar to add a crunchy top. Bake the scones for 15-20 minutes until they’re lightly golden. Leave the scones to cool on a wire rack before enjoying with jam and vegan whipped cream.

The scones will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days, they’re best enjoyed on the day they are baked.

Recipe Notes:

I use Pure Vegan Baking Spread but I’d also recommend Flora Plant Butter (Salted or Unsalted) – this is a block vegan butter I’ve used in other recipes and it will be fine to use to make these scones.
If you like dried fruit in your scones, you can add 100g of sultanas to your scone dough or for something different try adding the same quantity of vegan chocolate chips/chunks.
For the vegan whipped cream, I recommend Oatly Whippable Creamy Oat – this is the best whippable dairy-free cream in my opinion compared to other brands I’ve tried.

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Once you’ve baked these 3 ingredient lemonade scones you’ll never go back to baking ordinary scones ever again! This recipe produces super light and fluffy scones without all the fuss and hassle. Top with cream and jam to make your own classic British cream tea.

Scones are a traditional British tea time treat, you’ll find them in bakeries, supermarkets, farm shops and tea rooms all over the country. As you might know already, I’m trained chef. I’ve worked in a lot of different catering environments since graduating and one of my first jobs out of culinary school was working as a baker/chef at a tea room in my hometown.

Throughout the day I was baking lots of treats for the customers visiting the tearoom. We’re talking delicious cakes, the gooiest chocolate fudge brownies, savoury tartlets, sausage rolls and homemade gluten-free scones.

If you ever visit the UK then a trip to a British tearoom is essential during your time here. In Britain there’s debates around scones and cream teas – if you didn’t know already, the UK has several different accents and dialects and all over the country we pronounce our words differently to one another. Do you pronounce scone to rhyme with ‘cone’ or ‘gone’? I’m from down south (Eastern England), so I pronounce mine to rhyme with ‘cone’.

Also, what goes first the cream or the jam? In Cornwall it’s the jam first and cream on top and the other way around in Devon. I don’t really mind whether the cream or the jam goes first, all I know is that I love scones and don’t want to waste any time from devouring them!

The ingredients used in this scone recipe I’m sharing today make this recipe totally different to the majority of sweet scone recipes which typically include butter, sugar, flour and buttermilk/milk or eggs to bind it into a dough. The process usually involves rubbing the butter into the dry ingredients, however with this recipe minimal effort is required as you simply mix all the ingredients together until a dough forms.

The butter is replaced with double cream and the sugar is replaced with full sugar lemonade. Just be sure to use full sugar lemonade, I say this because we’re not adding any sugar to the scone dough, so all the sweetness will come from the sugar in the lemonade. I used a supermarket own brand lemonade and that worked wonderfully.

Tasting these scones transported me back to short breaks I’ve been on in the UK and eating scones in beautiful British destinations including lovely Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds. I’ve enjoyed a lot of afternoon teas, some with family and friends and most recently I attended a baby shower afternoon tea for my cousin. We enjoyed some of the most delicious scones there – this is my favourite part of an afternoon tea selection and I could definitely eat scones with cream and jam all day long!

So there’s a few points to take into account when making scones. The most important thing to remember is to handle the dough as little as possible. Avoid over mixing the scone dough otherwise your scones will be dense and tough. Also, scones aren’t meant to look picture perfect – they’re supposed to be odd shapes and not uniform in appearance, this is all part of their charm!

From the photograph above I wanted to slice a scone open and show you just how fluffy these scones are. I found this recipe in the food section of a magazine I read every month and thought it looked interesting enough to bake. I was dubious of how well this recipe would go, but still I decided to go ahead and bake the scones just to see. We tasted one before I decided to quickly set up all my food photography props and grabbed my camera to take some snaps to share with you!

What a treat to bake your mum this upcoming Mother’s Day in less than a weeks time. Serve your freshly baked scones with pots of clotted/whipped cream and curd or jam. My sister and I are preparing a little afternoon spread for our mum to celebrate and we’ll be baking a batch of these scones and we can’t decide between baking this yummy Carrot Cake Traybake, Carrot Cupcakes or Pumpkin Cake (all three are our mum’s favourites) – which cake would you pick?

(Makes 10-12)

Ingredients:

400g self-raising flour, sifted

175ml double cream

175ml full sugar lemonade