Alison
BBC Good Food Member since 20 November 2006
My Latest favourites recipes
Last comments I've made
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11 November 2009
Ultimate scones
67 comments
"Make sure your oven is hot and make sure that your oven tray is in the oven when it is warming up. Take the tray out only when the scones are ready to bake and put it straight back in, this ensures that the scones start to cook straight away. I eat them warm from the oven just with butter and find that they are just wonderful."
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11 November 2009
Ultimate scones
67 comments
"Once the mixture is on the work surface I literally touch it two or three times lightly with my fingertips to smooth the surface and shape it into a round-ish shape - don't knead it like making bread as it knocks all the air out and your scones will end up being flat and biscuit-like. Even though this recipe uses self raising flour, the scones will not rise considerably in the oven so you need to make sure that you do not flatten the mixture out too much, it may seem to be too tall when you look at it on the work surface but use the tip of your thumb as a guide. From the recipe above, I make only 4 scones cut with a floured knife from a round, so they come out sort of triangular with a rounded edge."
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11 November 2009
Ultimate scones
67 comments
"I've tried may scone recipes and this is the one that has given me the best results - But you must follow the recipe to the letter. I would not try and make substitute buttermilk using milk and lemon, if you cannot get buttermilk then use sour cream or creme fraiche. I use a food processor with the plastic blades, not the metal blades, to crumb the flour and butter and to add the buttermilk but as soon as the mixture comes together in a ball I stop and tip on to the work surface. I only added about 100ml of the buttermilk/milk mixture so you definitely do not need the full quantity from the ingredients list. "
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28 December 2008
Velvety duck liver parfait
7 comments
"Excellent recipe but perhaps it would benefit from clarification for less-experienced chefs (seeing as it is marked as 'easy') in relation to the correlation between shop-bought weight of the livers rather than the cookable weight, i.e. after the sinews etc have been removed. If, like me, you buy your livers in a rather rough and ready (but wonderful!) old-school butchers, your livers might not be quite as pre-prepped as those bought in larger supermarkets, so some clarification would assist. For example, 600g shop-bought yields me only 250g cookable product (I pay a very low per-kilo price!) but the recipe should say if the 600g in the ingredients list is shop-bought weight or weight to be added to the pan."
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12 November 2007
"Absolutely scrumptious. We first made this when we were hidden away in a cottage in the far North of Scotland with a howling storm outside but an open fire and plenty of red wine inside! Really hits the spot and is now a firm favourite. I serve it with buttery mustard mash and there's never a scrap left on the plates!"
