Cookery books are brilliant for inspiration

This is from a book I bought a long time ago called The Essential Baking Cookbook" published by Murdoch Books. I am terrible for buying books, I always joke that I don't drink and I don't smoke but my addiction is buying books. Just borrowing them from the library isn't enough and one of my dreams has always been to have my own library. Anyway, as a result I have a reasonable collection of cookery books and quite a few of them are about baking. This particular one was bought from a book club that visited where I was working at the time. It has turned out to be a really good book as there are several recipes that I use regularly, including my breakfast blueberry muffins which are adapted from this book. I think it is important to have books as they can inspire you to try new things. Don't get me wrong, I don't think a book will ever inspire me to eat more mussels or squid (sorry seafood lovers) but the recipes can give good ideas which you can either use as they are written or adapt to suit your needs more.

As I've mentioned previously baking is the 'thing' my son and I share. He can play cars and tractors for hours with Daddy but baking is our special time where we work together and enjoy sharing. He's learning some great skills that I hope he will be able to use one day. Actually, whilst we were making these at the weekend my husband even said to our son that he ought to learn to cook so that he can get himself a decent wife when he's older. Apparently if he can cook her a good meal he will! I'm not sure how far I believe that philosophy but I do believe in getting our son involved, he's much more likely to eat something he's been included in preparing and it gives him the confidence to try out new things. He loved helping to rub the butter into the flour and stir in the cheese but admittedly got a bit carried away with combining the wet ingredients, so some of the later scones were a little bit tougher! A recent equipment purchase I made was a set of different size scone cutters, so ours varied in size. We visit a really great local art centre that makes really good quality food and when you buy their soup it comes with sliced bread and a mini cheese scone, now I can recreate those mini cheese scones.

Cheese scones

Makes 6

Prep time :15 minutes

Total cooking time: 15 minutes

125g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 tsp dry mustard

Pinch of salt

15g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

15g grated parmesan

45g finely grated cheddar

125ml milk

1. Preheat the oven to 220C and lightly grease a baking tray. Sift flour, baking powder and mustard and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips.
   
2. Stir in the parmesan and 30g of the cheddar then make a well in the centre and add most of the milk.
   
3. Use a flat-bladed life, use a cutting action to bring the dough together. Work the dough as little as possible. Use remaining milk if necessary.
   
4. With floured hands, gently gather the dough together and pat into a smooth ball on a floured surface. Use cutters to cut out shapes to the size you want. Gently bring the remaining dough together and cut out more shapes.
   
5. Place shapes together on the baking tray and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top. Move the scones away from each other so that they don't stick together whilst baking.
   
6. Place in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the tops are golden. Best enjoyed warm