Mothers Day Orange Blossom and Cardamom Scones

Happy Mothers Day to any mothers reading this post! I hope you're all having a wonderful day.

I made these scones last night as a surprise to bring up to my Mam for her annual breakfast in bed.

I got a bottle of orange blossom water for Christmas and I haven't been able to find a use for it until now! There's a lovely café in town called Brother Hubbard and they serve all their scones with butter that's been infused with orange blossom water, which is what inspired me. Then I looked up general recipes using the ingredient to see what other people were pairing it with and cardamom kept coming up so I decided to go for that and I'm glad that I did! The flavours went really well together- the cardamom gave the scones a warm spicey quality and the orange added a citrussy sweetness. 

I often find scones a bit too dense and filling so I decided to make them small. I rolled the dough out to less than a cm in thickness and I used a 6cm cutter. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from using a bigger cutter and rolling your dough out thicker, however you won't get as many scones.

Keep reading for the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 225g plain flour
• 3tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 50g butter
• 25g caster sugar
• 140ml milk, plus extra to glaze
• zest of 1 orange
• 1 tsp orange blossom water
• 5-6 cardamom pods, split to remove seeds

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Put flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, then stir in sugar, orange zest and cardamom seeds.
3. Mix in milk gradually until you make a soft dough and add the orange blossom water. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly.
4. Roll out the dough to desired thickness and cut out 8-12 rounds depending on what size cutter you use. Place on the lined baking tray and brush with a little milk. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until well risen and golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and serve with whatever you're into (marmalade might be nice)!