I don’t seem to have done any baking for ages, no particular reason why, maybe our lives and tastes have changed. We don’t have so many visitors, and we both used to have groups meet regularly at our house and I would usually rustle up something for our guests. There was one occasion when I made a cream tea, fruit and cheese scones (obviously separately, I think fruity cheesy scones would be a bit odd… although, maybe…) with butter, jam,, clotted cream available as people fancied. One person was gluten-intolerant so I bought some special flour and made a separate batch. They were so popular that they were all eaten, even though the rest of the guests were not sensitive to gluten!
I came across this recipe from The Smithy at New Galloway, which was a tea-room created by refurbishing Brae Cottage over forty years ago by Margaret and Jim and McPhee. The little recipe booklet has as you might guess, several different scone recipes, oatmeal. treacle, plain, fruit, potato, as well as shortbread (of course) oatmeal biscuits and oatcakes. Here is their recipe for Fruit Slice:
Fruit Slice
Rough Puff Pastry
10 oz plain flour
7 1/2 oz Trex (vegetable baking fat – so anything similar will be fine)
1 squeeze lemon juice
water
pinch of salt
Filling
1 lb sulatanas
1 lb currants
2 apples, peeled, cored, chopped
1 tsp mixed spice
3 oz sugar
1. put all the filling ingredients in pan and cook until apples are soft
2. put flour and salt in a basin, mix and cut the fat into it
3. mix and lightly rub together,
4. add cold water and a squeeze of lemon to make pastry
5. roll out pastry into a strip, flour lightly and fold in three
6. repeat step 5 three times then put pastry in the fridge for 1 hour
7. divide the pastry in two, roll one piece thin and place on a large,, greased baking tray
8. spread the fruit mix on the pastry strip
9. roll out the other piece of pastry and lay it over to cover the fruit
10. seal the edges and press down
11. brush with milk and bake in oven at 200° until brown – about 45mins
12. cut into squares – serve and enjoy!
I guess the adorable little image was drawn by Margaret McPhee
PS I believe the Smithy is now available as holiday accommodation.
