A Long Walk, Delicious Scones and the story of how we met Spot.

This past Saturday myself and my friend decided to redo a hike that we had done this time last year. It's a day long hike that covers c. 20km but that's 20km of constant hills!! The last time we did this hike it poured rain from the heavens, we got drowned and the whole experience was more akin to torture than our planned mini holiday. Therefore we set off to conquer this hike without carrying a paddling pool in our boots.




The walk was absolutely brilliant. It was quite tiring, some of those hills just go on forever, but it was a wonderful experience and the views were just amazing!

The view from the top of one mountain

A wonderful long hike like this deserves a delicious treat at the end though and this came in the form of my triple berry scones. Scones + Butter + hot cup of tea = best way to finish any day of outdoors activity.

 

Recuperation perfected!

Triple Berry Scones

250g    Bread Flour
150g    Plain Flour
25g      Dark Brown Sugar
75g      Granulated White Sugar
1 tsp     Baking Powder
1 tsp     Baking Soda
60g       Butter (Room Temperature)
2           Eggs (Medium)
100ml   Milk
1/2tsp   Lemon Extract
75g       Fresh Raspberries
75 g      Fresh Blueberries
50g       Chopped Fresh Strawberries

Preheat your oven to 205C/400F/Gas Mark 6. Sieve together the flours, baking powder and baking soda. Add the sugar and mix thoroughly.

Add the 1/2 tsp of lemon extract to the milk. Mix, let sit for a few minutes and then beat in the eggs.

Chop up your butter into pieces and then rub these into the flour. You will know it has been thoroughly incorporated when the mixture resembles very tiny bread crumbs with no big pieces.

Making a well in the center of the dry ingredients add the wet mixture and mix to incorporate. The mixture may seem a little dry at first but do not add any more liquid.  






At this point knead your mixture until it goes smooth. If using a stand-mixer, take care not to over knead, stop once the mixture is fully incorporated and coming away from the bowl up onto the bread hook.

 

Then flour your berries (plain flour) and, leaving a few raspberries to the side, pour the berries into the bowl and continue to mix just until they are evenly throughout the mixture. Stop mixing and add the rest of the raspberries in halfs, then mix gently with a spoon. The mixture will be VERY wet and messy but that's alright, just trust me on this one.

Gently divide the mixture into 9 even portions and roll these gently placing them on a lined baking sheet.

Let the unbaked scone sit for 10 minutes before smoothing with a damp pastry brush, egg wash at this point if you prefer. Then bake for 20 minutes or until they are browned and sound hollow when tapped on the base. Then Enjoy ;)

As close as I've ever come to the original avoca inspiration!

Could you say no?

So Spot! Well Spot(not her real name) was a little friend that we encountered at the end of the long day of hiking. As we entered the last hour, and the last big hill, myself and my friend were warmly greeted by the cutest little dog, jumping up on us and wagging her tail. We searched in vain for our little friends owner and even walked about 15mins backwards adding to our hike but unfortunately no-one could be found.  
We had a hard decision to make but we couldn't dream of leaving this little creature in the woods alone, so Spot joined us for the end of our hike.
She came home with us that night and spent one night away from home before we found the owner via a microchip registration. She was the sweetest most gentle little creature and only wanted love and attention. So although it added significantly to our hike and kept me from my scones for a while, this little face was the highlight of the whole walk.

This reminds me I must say a massive thank you to Lucy for giving me a Kreativ Blogger Award. I will be posting again tomorrow and will write further about her then. In the mean-time I hope you enjoy the scones and the story =)