Strawberry buttermilk scones

My 2nd attempt at making scones wasn't as delicious as the first's! (You can read the 1st attempt here)

As NTUC was having offers for strawberries at S$3.55 per punnet, I decided to try making strawberry scones! However, as there's juices in the strawberries, the end product for both strawberry scones attempt wasn't what I was looking for. It was dry and crumbly in the middle and I couldn't really taste much of the strawberries.

The recipe that I used was exactly the same as the first's, the only 2 additions I added were half a teaspoon of baking powder and 3 pieces of chopped strawberries (because this recipe calls for 5 scones)

Also, I think that as I'm using fresh strawberries rather than dried ones, the moisture content in them caused the dough to be unable to rise up and crack well!

Ingredients:

• 200g self raising flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 50g cold butter
• 150g buttermilk (I used Meiji low fat milk + 2 tbsp lemon juice & let it stand for 30mins)
• 4 pieces of strawberries, chopped 

Steps:

• preheat oven to 220 deg celsius
• Sift flour 3x
• combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and manually whisk it to combine
• add cold butter (straight from the fridge and cut into cubes) and use fingers to combine all together until it looks like bread crumbs
• create a well in the middle and add milk (careful not to add too much like I did!) 
• use a spatula to combine all ingredients together until it becomes thick and sticky
• transfer to lightly floured tabletop and lightly knead (i've read from various blogs that we shouldn't knead too much as it may cause the scones to toughen.)
• use a cookie cutter and transfer the scones to place them beside each other onto baking tray lined with parchment paper.
• bake @ 220deg celsius for 15-20mins 
• transfer onto wire tray to cool
• serve warm with jam/butter any seasoning of choice

Buttermilk scones

Whenever I dine at Popeyes, I seldom eat the biscuit (which I later knew from BunnyBoi) that they're actually called "scones". He would always say that they're nice and it's his favourite, hence I've decided to try my hands on it!

I adapted the recipe from: http://www.nofrillsrecipes.com/2012/07/buttermilk-scones.html?m=1 and I like that the recipe makes out 5 instead of a dozen like other recipes do.

Ingredients:

• 200g self raising flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 50g cold butter
• 150g buttermilk (I used Meiji low fat milk + 2 tbsp lemon juice & let it stand for 30mins)

Steps:

• preheat oven to 220 deg celsius
• Sift flour 3x
• combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and manually whisk it to combine
• add cold butter (straight from the fridge and cut into cubes) and use fingers to combine all together until it looks like bread crumbs
• create a well in the middle and add milk (careful not to add too much like I did!) 
• use a spatula to combine all ingredients together until it becomes thick and sticky
• transfer to lightly floured tabletop and lightly knead (i've read from various blogs that we shouldn't knead too much as it may cause the scones to toughen.)
• use a cookie cutter and transfer the scones to place them beside each other onto baking tray lined with parchment paper.
• bake @ 220deg celsius for 15-20mins (however for mine, i don't know why it took me close to 60mins for the browning on top to surface!)
• transfer onto wire tray to cool
• serve warm with jam/butter any seasoning of choice

Unfortunately, I've added too much milk onto the batter and it turned out quite gooey, hence I've to keep adding more flour for the texture to be right before lightly kneading them into a dough to be cut out using a cup. 

Another thing to note was maybe the circumference of my cup was too big? Instead of 5 pieces I managed to cut 3, & it took about an hour for the scones to brown at the top. 

I was about to think that "this is yet another failed attempt" when......

TAAAADAAAAA!!!

I'm so so happy! Thank you @nofrillsrecipe for this wonderful recipe! :)

It's all about eating feasts in JB!

BunnyBoi and I crossed the causeway last Sunday with my family and we as BunnyBoi has mentioned.. It's all about feasting when you're in JB!

Here's half of our dimsum breakfast! It's my first experiencing the traditional way dimsums are served - the server will carry trays filled with many different dishes and you'd get to choose! 

Next, we went to some kind of hyper market and got our baking supplies! I love love them and I can't wait to start baking cupcakes soon! :)))

We ended off the short trip by having a sumptuous feast of fresh seafood! There's fresh oysters, clams, steamed prawns, Indonesian curry prawns, salted egg yolk crabs, chilli crabs, water snails, steamed seabass and mantou buns for the chilli crabs! 

The bill totaled up to be about SGD260 and it was shared amongst all 11 of us. Super worth it!! But can't do this every week else it's gonna be very, VERY sinful!

I love times spent together with you honey! Hope you enjoyed this trip as much as I did! <3