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The Seventh Generation - Natural and Cultural History Tours.

Grandmas Easy Homemade Scones Recipe – Guaranteed to Love

Best Scone Recipe in New Zealand! Try this and you won’t be disappointed, all the tips and tricks you need to make scones how they should taste!

Consistently on of the most popular aspects of my tours has been the scones! The morning tea stop on the hill overlooking the tranquil Akaroa Harbour surrounded by regenerating nature and the natural quiet that is abundant on Banks Peninsula. The short walk out to the picnic table where you could catch a glimpse of your ship and the town far below. The feeling of simultaneously being connected to the centre of it all and far, far away. Time to get to know the folks sharing the tour with you and to ask those curious questions.

Get to Know New Zealand Culture
Get to know New Zealand culture with Maanakitanga sharing kai or food – homemade scones and homemade jam

But most simply and importantly the chance to experience a uniquely kiwi experience, homemade scones with homemade jam and a cup of hot tea. An experience that has been shared and honoured for generations of New Zealand farmers. Also, something deeper that links back to a uniquely New Zealand, and especially Maori, tradition of hospitality or manaakitanga. Of ‘looking after visitors and caring how others are treated.’ Almost universally across all cultures the simple act of sharing food brings people together, creates a space where time slows, and people are able to connect.

Akaroa Private Tours Morning tea The Seventh Generation
The Seventh Generation – Natural and Cultural History Tours – scones picnic basket

Mindfully I create this space on the tour for manaakitanga, for hospitality, for connecting as people, and also and I feel most importantly, for connecting to place. It is through this time at the Akaroa Heritage Park that visitors are able to slow, to take deep breaths of fresh air, to feel the subtle peacefulness of Akaroa, and to ground down with the place they are at.

So, while you may think that you love my scones, which I do admit are pretty good, I would dare to bet that it was the atmosphere in which you first tried them that is what is truly memorable. But, taste like smell is often is able to remind us strongly of a special moment or place, and so it with this intention that I share my special scone recipe with you, accompanied by the simple kiwi tricks to scone making. I hope they bring back a rush of vivid memories and happy relaxed feelings for you!

The Seventh Generation Morning tea scones
The Seventh Generation – Natural and Cultural History Tours.

Marie’s New Zealand Scones

Makes 12

3 cups of plain flour

3 tablespoons of baking powder (yes, this is the right amount!)

2 tablespoons of sugar

¼ teaspoon of salt

50g of cold butter (good kiwi pasture raised butter is of course the best, but this recipe will tolerate substitutes)

1 cup of milk

½ cup of plain yoghurt or cream

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Grate the cold butter into the flour mix. Cut the butter into the flour mix. Make a well in the centre and add in the milk and yoghurt together. Mix together, do not overmix. Turn out onto a floured bench space and shape into a square roughly 1cm thick. Do not kneed. Cut into 12 portions, place on a baking tray and bake for 12 minutes in a hot oven at 200C. Turn out onto a cooling rack and serve with more butter and homemade jam. Yum!

Tips and tricks:

The butter should be straight from the fridge.

Sometimes the butter will melt a little in your hand, so cover it and the grater with the flour mix in your bowl.

Grate a little butter at a time and quickly cover the grated butter with some of the flour mix so the butter doesn’t all just lump together again.

Cut the butter into the flour with two blunt knifes so that it is well mixed into the flour mix before adding the milk. In New Zealand we use the old bone handled knifes of our grandmothers for this.

Make a well for the milk and yoghurt and then cut the liquid into the flour again with the knifes, until just bound together.

Using a little extra flour scoop the mixture out and off the bowl and onto a floured surface, extra flour helps to keep the mix from sticking to your hands too much.

You know the mix is right when it is not too sticky to work down into a flat square.

You can roll the scones into a ball and dab in flour, or simply cut them and place them on the tray.

Pop them on the tray with a little space between (1/2 cm) so that when they rise they will have space to cook through.

If you cook more than you need you can freeze them and warm them through again when visitors turn up unexpectedly.

You can also use this mix as a base for pinwheel scones, roll the mix out so it is thinner and lay dates and cinnamon, or a savoury mix, on one half and then roll into a wheel and cut into 1cm rounds and bake flat on the tray. Yummy!

Marie Haley

I am your guide, Marie Haley, I was born and raised on Banks Peninsula. The seventh generation direct decedent of Akaroa’s very first French settler. I grew up on the family farm following in the footsteps of my Grandfather, and his Grandfather before.