There was a gluten free class here at the cooking school last week.  As usual, there was a menu planned – Swiss Roll and Apricot Cake for morning tea, along with grazing along the way as we cooked and baked.

The cooking plan incorporated Butter Chicken with raita and Naan Breads, raspberry jam, sweet chilli sauce, sweet shortcrust pastry, savoury short crust pastry, Blackberry Meringue Pie, pancakes, Tortilla Bake and Very Muddy Muffins with ganache.

We did all of this of course, but one of the participants asked about gluten free scones.  Now I’m not a fan of scones anytime, so I’d not experimented with a recipe, but this seemed as good a time as any to give it a go.  There is always scope and time for requests from people to attend.

With only a minor variation to my regular (wheat) scone recipe, a batch of gluten free was put together and duly baked.  Much to my delight, they worked!  They were light and fluffy, and served with jam and cream, were very bit as good as a regular scone.

We also decided on the spot that the sweet chilli sauce we had made would be nice with cream cheese and little savoury biscuits.  However, my cupboard was bare of sakatas or any other suitable crispy biscuit.  Therefore the savoury pastry we’d made was rolled out, cut into small rounds and baked.  They were delicious too, perfect for what we had intended.

The recipes are to follow of course.  I used Orgran plain and self raising flour –  it gives a consistently good result as I found when I was preparing the recipes for gluten free “From My Kitchen to Yours”.

Gluten Free Scones

1½ cups gluten free self raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch salt

Pinch sugar

1 tablespoon melted butter

1 egg, lightly beaten

¼ cup water

¼ cup cream

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt until very well combined.

Make a well in the centre and then pour in the (cooled) butter and egg (do not mix yet).  Combine the water and cream and then pour in almost all of this, holding about 1 tablespoonful back.

Mix the remainder together and if more liquid is needed to make a soft dough, add the rest of the cream/water mixture.

Turn out onto a surface that has been dusted with gluten free flour and knead very briefly.  Pat out to a rectangle about 2cm thick.  Cut with a 5cm round scone cutter and place on trays that have been lined with baking paper.

Bake at 180 degrees C (fan forced) for 15 minutes approximately.

Line a bowl with a tea towel and place the cooked scones in this and then fold the tea towel loosely over them until ready to serve.

Makes 6 to 7

Gluten free Savoury Biscuits

180g GF self raising flour

½ teaspoon salt

90g butter

1 egg

2 teaspoons lemon juice

¼ cup cold water, approximately

Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor.  Cut the butter into small pieces and process with the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. (If you don’t have a food processor, rub the butter in with your fingertips).

Turn out into a bowl and make a well in the centre.  Briefly whisk the egg  with the lemon juice and pour into the well, together with the water, using no more than ¼ cup at first.  Mix with a metal spoon until smooth, adding extra water only if necessary to bring the dough together.

On a lightly (gluten free) floured surface, roll the pastry put thinly to about 6mm thick).  Cut with a 5cm cutter and place on trays that have been lined with baking paper.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until golden and crisp.

Store in an airtight container when cool.

Makes approximately 32