What makes a good afternoon tea?
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The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Back here in Leish, we're all tucking into some lovely tasty treats provided by Shane Smith, author of Loaf Tin Bakes and Chef. Shane, you're very welcome. Thank you for having me. To lovely Leish.
I'm ready to move down, I think, at this point.
We let him in from Cavan. We're being very generous and open today.
What are the essential elements of a good afternoon tea?
The Cavan man giving away all these scones. I don't know what's wrong. Are you all right? Is the heat getting to you? So we're talking afternoon tea today, which is what we're all enjoying here. Where would you like to start with this beautiful tray of goodies?
I love afternoon tea. It's such a celebration. I think especially this time of year when the sun is shining and you're having friends over, it's nice to kind of pop on the table and everyone can kind of help themselves. where all the kitchens that I've worked in, we've always went with the scones or scones, depending on where you come from. Scones in Leash, isn't it? We're scones in Cavan.
Scones, yeah, oh yeah, we're scones.
I find my people, it's fine, it's good. So we start off with the scones on top and then pastries on the middle tier and then your nice savoury sandwiches then on the bottom. So starting off strong, I think I can see lots. Is there people nodding? Are we all good? Yes, great.
Scones are lovely, aren't they?
yeah it's a lovely light scone shane yeah pass me over one they're as light as angels you would have to do all the talking here shane while i enjoy this is it fresh cream it is fresh cream and a fresh strawberry on top so keep the fresh cream fresh now it is so i literally just kind of whipped it up and had an ice box with me and kept it cold because it does turn very very quickly so whenever i'm making scones i always use plain flour and baking powder i find that if you use self-raising which is completely fine you can do depending on the brand of flour you're using, you can't judge how much self-raising or baking powder is in there. So I like to make it with plain flour and I put in my own baking powder so I can control that a little bit better.
I suppose common myth growing up was you don't touch the scone too much or overwork it because you'd be left with a kind of like a heavier scone. So for me, and in the last couple of years, what I've been doing is giving the scone dough a light little knead, because there's nothing worse than when you go out and you get a scone, you cut it, it turns to dust in your hand, it just breaks. You want to be able to spread on the butter and jam. So if you give it a light knead and then cut out your scones and then rest them for maybe 10, 15 minutes before you bake them. After you cut them out? After you cut them out, pop them on the tray and then let them rest. And that gives the gluten time to rest in the scone.
So you're left with what we have today, a kind of a scone that's nice and light.
How long do you bake that for?
Those little mini ones, about, I would say, 12 to 14 minutes. But if you're going for the big agricultural style scones that I like, you want to be baking them for about 25 minutes or so. Okay, but watch them like a hawk. Yes, you don't want to overbake them either as well. But again, very simply, I'm very much a jam cream person. I don't know, does anyone go the dark side and go cream and jam? No? Okay, thank God.
How does Shane Smith prepare the perfect scone?
We're good. We're good today.
He can't put cream and jam on.
Well, some people put cream and then put a dollop of jam on top of the cream, which is very... No, you're making life hard for yourself, I think, if you do that. 100%. So I'm always spread the jam on and then put a nice dollop of cream on top. And then something simple like a fresh strawberry, really, really nice on top. But again, play around with whatever jam you like, whether it's a raspberry, strawberry, even lemon curd is actually lovely. And that's a nice little transition into the middle tier here. We have two pastries, very simple to make. One is like a Viennese swirl.
I don't believe that they're simple to make.
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