8 DAYS | 55and plenty of sheep indigenous to the area. It’s
about two hours by car or train from London. Its rural
landscape means a bounty of gourmet produce in the
region, including dairy products and meat.
After briefly drinking in our gorgeous surrounds and
also a welcome cup of tea, it’s time to get down to
work. Our instructor today is Sue Naismith, dubbed
“fairy cake godmother”. She has the air of a capable
but harried mother, herding her unruly children — in this
case, us fumbling journalists — together. A sheet of
paper printed with the recipe and placed on our worktop
looks simple enough: it contains the usual scone
ingredients of flour, butter, eggs, milk and cream. We’ve
made scones only twice before this trip, and the results
have been middling. Hopefully, after today’s lesson, we
no longer have to visit TWG Tea or some fancy hotel for
our fix.
Sue makes us measure all the ingredients using
a digital weighing scale. We like this — it means
the printed recipe is accurate. We’ve been to other
baking classes in the past that had everything already
measured out for us, and when we tried to replicate the
dish at home, things just didn't turn out the same.
Sue moves at a brisk pace. While the ingredients
are standard — it’s the technique that’s key here. She
demonstrates how to quickly rub in small cubes of cold
butter into the flour from a height till it resembles dry
breadcrumbs — this aerates the flour and makes the
scones fluffier.
“Why is my flour mix like glue?” asks a confused
fellow student, extending his goo-covered hands to Sue
like a child offering his half-eaten snack. She inspects
his bowl and replies, “That’s because you’ve just been
rubbing the butter alone instead of mixing it with the
flour beneath”.
We titter a little too loudly. “Don’t laugh at him!”
chides Sue. As karma is a bitch, we are soon having
problems of our own. We are taking too long, as usual,
to roll and cut out our discs of dough. “It’s time to
put your scones in the oven!” she urges. We do not
bake well under pressure. “Press the mould straight
down and lift it straight up to cut the pastry instead of
twisting it, or the scones won’t rise up straight,” she
adds. In our frenzy, we don’t do as we are told. So our
dough discs start tilting sadly as they brown in the
oven, looking more like floppy cushions that belong on
a second-hand Ikea couch than elegant scones worthy
of a noblewoman’s afternoon tea platter.
We stare covetously at our neighbour’s pristine
bakes and contemplate swapping her tray for ours
when her back is turned. Instead, we resignedly claim
our deformed specimens from the oven and wait for
them to cool slightly. Then, the moment of truth. We
break a droopy piece apart and slather its steaming
insides with fresh butter that Sue had just magicked up
by churning cream in an electric mixer.
It is to die for. Take that, Nigella.
Culinary classes at Thyme start from about £185 (S$332) for
a full day, including lunch and a glass of wine. Besides scones,
there’re other options like bread-making and festive dinner
menus.
See p58 for Thyme’s scone recipe.So Sue me: Our
lovely instructor
making butter
from scratch.STORY & PHOTOS FLORENCE FONGLeaning Tower
of Pisa: Our crooked
scones. Sad.