A Pot of Tea, Some Clotted Cream and Plenty of Scones

This week I seem to have once again been in the wars.

To tell you of my little accidents briefly;
On Saturday night I was carelessly chopping onions and managed to stab the webbing between my thumb and forefinger.
On Sunday, my wisdom tooth decided to start coming through and has been quite sore all week.
On Tuesday, M was about to go looking through our fridge, as is her latest habit, and I bent down to pick her up and she opened the door right into my forehead.
On Thursday, I was holding M up to the window and letting her hit it in her excitment over seeing a white cat cross the street. Somehow, she managed to hit me right in the eye and her little nail scratched my retina. A trip to A & E confirmed a superficial wound to my retina and a course of antibiotics and instructions stating 'do not rub your eye' have followed.

I am sure I am not normally so clumsy.

Today, all I wanted was a little bit of comfort and a cup of tea to accompany it.

I associate certain foods with certain times of the year and certain moods. In the depths of winter, I used to come home from secondary school, often with my friend G, and we would sit down to watch a little TV and scoff some hot, bubbling cinnamon toast. In Spring we would enjoy Easter spiced biscuits and Simmel Cake, argueing the while who was to eat the last marzipan ball. All year round however, someone would come home wanting a hot treat for tea and whip up a batch of scones to enjoy with jam and occassionally, some clotted cream.

Ingredients
550g plain flours
4 tsps cream of tartar
2 tsps bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt
125g unsalted butter
300ml butter milk
1 egg, beaten in a small bowl

Method
Preheat the oven to gas mark 7/220C and lightly grease a baking tray.
Sift all of the dry ingredients into a bowl and rub in the butter until it resembles very fine breadcrumbs.
Add the buttermilk and bring together to a dough in the bowl.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to 3cm thick.
Use a circular cutter to cut out as many scones as possible - do not twist the cutter to do so or they will not rise as well. I get 14 scones from this dough.
Arrange the scones on the baking tray and brush the tops with the beaten egg to glaze.
Cook for 10 minutes until tall and golden on top.
Eat while still warm from the oven with lashings of clotted cream and jam.
If, by some miracle, not all the scones vanish during one sitting, freeze the leftovers and to serve, defrost for an hour before popping them back in the oven to heat through again.