Felicity's Breakfast Scones

These scones make a delicious breakfast or tea time treat

I’ve been using this scone recipe for 17 years now. (Gosh, that makes me feel so OLD !) It came from my Mum’s cousin, Felicity. When I was a student in Durban (South Africa) I used to sometimes go and spend weekends with Felicity, her husband and her daughter as they lived in a suburb of Durban at the time. I loved the break from dorm life, and being in a family environment for the weekend … Felicity used to make these scones for breakfast and serve them warm, right out of the oven with butter melting into them and slathered in a tart raspberry jam.

Mmmm …. they bring back some wonderful memories, and they are now a regular in my own kitchen. I usually make them on a Sunday afternoon, and they are also a great standby if you suddenly have unexpected visitors for tea. (Which, let’s face it, doesn’t happen that often on a remote farm !)

Here is the recipe (which I’ve adapted slightly over the years). The secret to this recipe is to have a very light hand and not to over handle the dough. If you do that, you should have perfect scones every time – this recipe hasn’t let me down once in 17 years !


Felicity’s Breakfast Scones

2 cups Flour
4 tsp Baking Powder
2 tbsp Sugar
Pinch of Salt
3 tbsp Margarine
1 Egg, beaten
½ cup Milk

Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar & salt. Rub in the margarine, until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add the beaten egg & milk. Mix with a fork, until mixture leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead gently (and quickly) on a floured surface. Roll out quite thick – about 1 to 1 ½ cm – and cut in to rounds. Bake at 200’C/400’F/Gas Mark 6 for +- 10 minutes.

I’ve also made these into cheese scones before (husband’s request !) by omitting the sugar and adding ¾ cup grated Cheddar cheese instead.

Healthy Oat & Date Muffins

These Healthy Oat & Date Muffins make a tasty tea time treat, and freeze well too

These Healthy Oat and Date muffins make a great breakfast or tea time treat. They are also nice for school lunch boxes.

As they only stay fresh for a couple of days, when I made these last week I wrapped each one individually in plastic film & froze them. Now all I have to do is remove one from the freezer and defrost it before putting it into my daughter’s lunchbox – which is great for those days when I’m in a hurry, or for when I’m running short of lunchbox ideas !


Healthy Oat & Date Muffins

1 ¼ cups Flour (I use white, but you could use wholemeal or a mix of both if you like)
¾ cup Oats (breakfast/porridge variety)
¾ cups Dates, roughly chopped (& stones removed)
½ cup brown Sugar
3 ½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
1 Egg, beaten
1 cup Milk (I use Skim/Fat Free)
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
¼ cup Sunflower Oil

Mix the flour, oats, dates, sugar, baking powder & salt together in one bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the egg, milk, vanilla essence and oil. Then blend the wet & dry ingredients together – stir just to blend, do not over mix (the mixture will be a little bit lumpy, but don’t worry). Place spoonfuls into lightly greased muffin cups at bake at 190’C/375’F/Gas Mark 5 for around 20 minutes until done. Makes 12 decent sized muffins.

Cheese & Herb Scones

These Cheese & Herb scones taste delicious served fresh out of the oven with lashings of butter !

Scones are always so quick and easy to make, and I tend to make them several times a month, at least !

Sometimes I make plain scones for breakfast or afternoon tea, and sometimes for a change I’ll make cheese scones with a touch of cayenne pepper or freshly chopped herbs added to the dough.

Here is my recipe for ‘Cheese & Herb’ scones below -: (If you’d like to see one of the very first recipes I ever published on the blog almost 2 years ago now, you can see my recipe for “Felicity’s Breakfast Scones” over here).

Cheese & Herb Scones

2 cups Flour
4 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
3 tbsp Margarine (or Butter)
1 cup Cheddar Cheese, grated
1 tbsp fresh Herbs, chopped (Thyme or Rosemary work well) – if no fresh, then use dried
1 Egg, beaten
½ cup Milk

Sift the flour, baking powder & salt together. Rub in the margarine (or butter), until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add the grated cheese and herbs and stir. Then add the beaten egg & milk. Mix with a fork, until mixture leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead gently (and quickly) on a floured surface. Roll out quite thick – about 1 to 1 ½ cm – and cut in to rounds. Bake at 200’C/400’F/Gas Mark 6 for +- 10 minutes.

Rosemary-Buttermilk Scones

These Rosemary-Buttermilk scones are delicious served for breakfast, filled with thinly sliced ham

I love rosemary and I like using it as an ingredient in baking recipes, and not just with meat - as it is traditionally/mostly used. (You can see the unusual recipe for Rosemary Cookies which I published on my blog a year ago over here).

This recipe for Rosemary-Buttermilk Scones is delicious and we enjoyed these for breakfast over the weekend, split in half and filled with thinly sliced ham. They would also work well served with soup .... or for late afternoon tea !

I substituted the buttermilk for skim milk mixed with a tablespoon of lemon juice (which thickens it nicely) and as I had no chives, I left them out.

If you don’t have self raising flour, you can use plain flour instead, adding 7,5 ml’s (1 ½ teaspoons) of baking powder per 250 ml’s (1 cup) of flour.

Rosemary-Buttermilk Scones (from the South African book “Return To Corriebush” by Lynn Bedford-Hall)

500 ml (2 cups) Self Raising Flour*
1 ml (1/4 tsp) Salt
15 ml (1 tbsp) Castor Sugar (very fine sugar, with the texture of salt)
15 ml (1 tbsp) finely chopped fresh Rosemary leaves
15 ml (1 tbsp) snipped Chives
1 XL Free Range Egg
60 ml (1/4 cup) Oil
Buttermilk
Finely grated Cheddar cheese for topping

Sift the flour, salt & castor sugar and mix in the herbs. Break the egg into a measuring jug, add the oil & enough buttermilk to reach the 200ml (4/5 cup) mark – about 125 ml (1/2 cup) of buttermilk should just do it. Whisk these together, then add to the dry ingredients. Using a fork, mix quickly until the dough holds together, then use your hands to form a ball. Pat out, 2 cm thick, on a lightly floured surface & use a 5 cm scone cutter to cut into rounds – don’t twist when cutting. Place, almost touching, on a baking tray lined with baking paper, brush the tops lightly with milk and sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 220’C/425'F/Gas Mark 7 just above the centre of the oven for about 14 minutes until the scones have ballooned beautifully, are golden in colour and the cheese has melted. Makes 10.

*For a more wholesome scone, substitute bran-rich self-raising flour in any ratio preferred, remembering that the bran will require slightly more liquid.

Banana Muffins

Great for breakfast or even with afternoon tea - I sometimes split these & toast them, serving them with a little butter - delicious !

You’ll notice that I publish quite a few muffin recipes on the blog - because I make them quite a lot ! This is because they are not only quick & easy to make, but also as they freeze well and can be adapted to suit whatever ingredients you happen to have in the house (for example, you could substitute the bananas in the recipe below for any other fruit like apples, raspberries or strawberries – to mention but a few).

This recipe is great for using up over ripe bananas -:


Banana Muffins

2 cups Flour
¾ cup Sugar
3 ½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
1 Egg, beaten
1 cup Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
¼ cup Sunflower Oil
½ cup mashed Bananas

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder & salt together in one bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the egg, milk, vanilla essence, oil and bananas. Then blend the wet & dry ingredients together – stir just to blend, do not over mix (the mixture will be a little bit lumpy, but don’t worry). Place spoonfuls into lightly greased muffin cups at bake at 190’C/375’F/Gas Mark 5 for around 20 minutes until done. Makes 12 decent sized muffins.

Fresh Lemon Muffins

I glazed these lemon muffins with some light lemon icing, & topped them with some finely grated lemon rind

You’ll see a lot of muffin recipes popping up on my blog. Over the years I’ve come up with my own muffin recipe, and I am always playing with it & coming up with new combinations. A few of my own muffin recipes which I’ve featured are -: Mini Strawberry & Banana Muffins, 30 Day Bran Muffins, Fat Free Apple Cinnamon Muffins, Mealie Meal Muffins & Chocolate & Raspberry Muffins (you can find any of these archived muffin recipes by simply typing the recipe name or ‘muffins’ in the top left blogger search box).

Here is a recent ‘muffin invention’ of mine – Fresh Lemon Muffins. Our neighbours (who live just over an hour away from us) invited us to their house for lunch last Sunday, and I baked these to take for tea. I glazed them with a light lemon icing & sprinkled the tops with a little finely grated lemon rind, but you could also just leave them plain -:


Fresh Lemon Muffins

2 cups Flour
½ cup Sugar
3 ½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
1 Egg, beaten
1 ¼ cups Milk
¼ cup Sunflower Oil
Juice & rind of 2 lemons

Sift all the dry ingredients together in one bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients together in another bowl, including the lemon rind. Then pour the wet ingredients onto the dry ingredients and mix just to blend & moisten (do not over mix) . Place tablespoons of the batter into greased muffin tins and bake at 190’C/375’F/Gas Mark 5 for around 20 minutes until done.

Once cool, ice with lemon icing & sprinkle some finely grated lemon rind on the top if you like – although they are just as nice left plain. Makes 12.

Passion Fruit & Oat Scones

Served warm out of the oven, these Passion Fruit & Oat scones make a guilt free treat !

Passion fruit (Granadilla) is readily available here and is most often used to make a refreshing drink. In fact, it’s popular on most restaurant menu’s and is delicious when served chilled (which is not always possible with a fluctuating power supply !)

I have used Passion Fruit in this recipe to make a healthy version of scones. This recipe is relatively fat and sugar free – depending on which type of yoghurt you choose to use.

You can freeze these scones, use them as lunchbox fillers or serve them for breakfast or tea. They are great served warm with a little butter and jam too, if you prefer them a little sweeter.


Passion Fruit & Oat Scones

1 cup Flour
½ cup Bran
1 cup rolled Oats
1 cup Passion Fruit (Granadilla) Yoghurt
½ cup Skim Milk
2 tbsp Granadilla Pulp or Pumpkin Seeds (optional)
2 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl & mix gently to blend. Spoon into muffin tins that have been sprayed with non-stick spray and bake at 190’C/375’F/Gas Mark 5 for +- 30 minutes until done. This recipe makes 12 scones.

Mini Strawberry & Banana Muffins For School Lunchboxes

Kids love the taste & look of these sweet mini muffins !

School has started again - my daughter’s new term (and year !) began on Monday & as you know, her school run entails about a 3 hour round trip starting before sunrise twice a week *arrrrgghhh !*

Because we leave home at such a dreadful hour (can you tell I’m NOT an early morning person ?!) and return home after lunch, we eat both breakfast and lunch on the road (not to mention tea and coffee for a much needed caffeine kick !) and I also pack her a snack box for school - so as you can imagine I am busy for at least an hour or more the night before a school run, so that we leave the farm in the morning with a fully loaded cooler box.

I’ll do a blog post soon, on the whole packing-the night-before-a-school-run scenario (with photo’s !) & will also give you an idea of some of the things I make for the road … in the meantime though, here’s a great lunchbox filler – mini muffins. I make large batches of these and then just freeze them in re-sealable plastic bags, and simply take as many as I need out at a time to defrost and add to school lunchboxes. They are a delicious, bite sized sweet treat and a perfect size for toddlers and younger children to handle, and my daughter simply loves them !

Mini Muffins for School Lunchboxes - Strawberry & Banana

2 cups Flour
½ cup Sugar
3 ½ tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
1 Egg, beaten
1 cup Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
¼ cup Sunflower Oil
1 cup finely chopped Strawberries & Bananas

Sift all the dry ingredients together in one bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients together in another bowl and add the chopped fruit to these. Then pour the wet ingredients onto the dry ingredients and mix just to blend & moisten (do not over mix) . Place teaspoonfuls of the batter into greased mini paper cups and bake at 190’C/375’F/Gas Mark 5 for around 20 minutes until done.

Mum's 30 Day Bran Muffins (Yes, really !)

Great for breakfast or tea, these healthy bran muffins also make a tasty lunchbox filler

My Mum used to often make these muffins when we were growing up as kids.

We moved around a lot as children and these muffins always remind me of the short time we spent living in a tiny town in Zululand called Kwambonambi, in South Africa. Our house was on the border of a large forest where my sister and I would often take our dogs for walks (it was really safe in those days to wander around on our own !), and we had a tree house built into a tree in our garden. It’s also where my Auntie Lylie and cousins Quentin and Linelle came to visit us for a holiday, and where we formed our own “kiddies band” and Auntie Lylie taught us how to do macramé – it’s funny what you remember about certain times of your life, and these muffins always remind me of that time, perhaps because this may have been when my Mum first got the recipe, and started making them for us.

The batter keeps for up to 4 weeks in the fridge and I can vouch for the fact that it really does last that long, and we never got sick after eating muffins made from the batter after the 4 weeks was up ! (I would therefore recommend using the freshest eggs possible for this and honestly, I myself would not keep it for 4 weeks if using local unpasteurized African farm eggs, that’s for sure !)

A great tip, especially if you have a houseful of guests staying over, is to make the mixture the night before, leave it in the fridge and then it is dead easy the following morning to whip up a quick batch for breakfast.

These muffins also taste great with butter and cheese on them.


Mum’s 30 Day Muffins

2 Eggs (as fresh as possible)
½ cup brown Sugar
1/3 cup sunflower Oil
2 cups Digestive Bran
2 cups skim (or Low Fat) Milk
1 tsp Salt
2 ½ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 ½ cups Whole wheat Flour(I use plain white cake flour a we cannot get whole wheat here)
1 tsp Vanilla essence
¼ cup seedless Raisins
¼ cup Oats

Beat the eggs & sugar together until well blended. Add the oil, and beat again. Then add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Refrigerate overnight and then pour spoonfuls into greased muffin tins & bake at 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4 for 20 to 25 minutes.

This mixture (batter) keeps for up to 4 weeks in the fridge, just stir it well before using – it makes around 22 muffins in total.

(I sometimes sprinkle a few pumpkin seeds on top of each muffins before baking.)

(Almost Fat Free) Apple Cinnamon Muffins

These were delicious for breakfast - with a nice cuppa tea, of course !

Seeing as I’ve just had exciting new supplies arrive on the recent container from Holland – one of the items being jars and jars of applesauce – I just had to try some experimental baking with it !

The majority of the recipes I post on my blog are tried and tested favourites which I’ve made for years (or have been made by my family for years) . So I have to confess that this recipe was one I only came up with last week ! But, having said that, it does originate from one of my tried and tested old favourites which you’ve seen here before – the recipe for “Chocolate & Raspberry Muffins”. I’ve just fiddled with that recipe a bit, to come up with this.

The fact that these are made without the addition of any sort of cooking fat (applesauce has been used in place of this), I must just point 2 things out …firstly, these muffins should be eaten within 2 days of baking as they do not last as long as their fattier relatives (!!) – their texture is also slightly tougher as a result. (They do freeze well, though). Secondly, I remove them from the oven when they still have just a little way (around 5 mins) to go. Actually, I just leave them in there with the oven switched off. This way, they come out perfectly.

For those of you who count them, these muffins work out at around 120 calories each. Not bad for a nice sized muffin like this ! I’m not sure of the fat content, as the only fat added was the egg (yolk).

My applesauce is the sweetened variety. If you’re using unsweetened applesauce, you may want to increase the sugar from ½ cup to ¾ cup instead.


Almost Fat Free Apple Cinnamon Muffins

2 cups Flour
½ cup brown Sugar
3 ½ tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon powder
½ tsp Salt
1 Egg, beaten
1 cup Skim Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
¼ cup sweetened Apple Sauce (if using unsweetened, increase sugar to ¾ cup)

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, & blend well. Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl, & blend well. Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix only to moisten. The mixture will be lumpy but it is important not to over mix it.

Spoon the batter in to a 12 cup muffin tin which has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Bake at for 190’C/375’F/Gas Mark 5 for 15 – 25 minutes.

Mealie Meal Muffins

These are so moreish, you won't be able to stop at one .... or two !

This is what I made our visitors for morning tea today. Served hot out of the oven I served some of them with grated cheese and the others with strawbery jam. They were delicious !

I plan to feature Mealie Meal recipes from time to time as they seem to be quite popular and there do not seem to be a huge number of them available out there in ‘cyberspace’. Mealie Meal is also a typically African ingredient, which people may find interesting to read about. (As it is made from ground maize/corn I am sure that you could substitute it with something like polenta ?)

If you’d like to try my Mealie Meal Crumble Pap recipe you can find it here and if you’d like to try an easy and delicious Mealie Meal Bread recipe you can find it here.

This recipe, for Mealie Meal Muffins, also comes from the famous South African cookbook “Cook and Enjoy It” by S.J.A. de Villiers.

Mealie Meal Muffins

1 cup Mealie Meal
1 cup Flour
½ tsp Salt
4 tsp Baking Powder
2 tbsp Sugar
3 tbsp melted Butter (or Margarine)
1 cup Milk
1 Egg, beaten

Sift together the Mealie Meal, Flour, Salt, Baking Powder & Sugar. Mix the melted butter, milk & beaten egg together and add to the dry ingredients. Mix well but do not over mix (the batter may still be a little lumpy, but this is fine). Spoon in to muffin tins and bake at 200’C/400’F/Gas Mark 6 for 15 to 20 minutes. Makes 12.

Chocolate & Raspberry Muffins

The raspberries soften & sweeten once baked inside the muffin so I find that no toppings are needed & they can be enjoyed "as is"

It’s a cold, rainy Sunday afternoon here which calls for one thing – a bit of baking !

My daughter loves making and eating muffins, so when I suggested that we “do some baking”, muffins were top of her list !

This is a recipe which I make on a regular basis. You can also omit the cocoa powder (make up the balance with some extra flour instead) for plain muffins. As a variation I have also added banana or flax seeds to the plain muffin mix before.

But my best “combination” is chocolate and raspberry. There’s just something about chocolate paired with fruit like oranges, raspberries or strawberries that ‘does it’ for me. (I draw the line at chocolate and chilli though. Absolutely not, thanks !)

I’m going to include this as a “Diet Friendly” recipe because these muffins have on average 158 calories each (depending on ingredients/brands that you use) compared to many chocolate muffin recipes which clock in a calorie count of anything between 250 to 400 calories per humble muffin *gasp*


Chocolate & Raspberry Muffins

1 2/3 cups Flour
¾ cup brown Sugar
1/3 cup Cocoa powder
3 ½ tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Salt

1 Egg, beaten
1 cup fat free Milk (Soy milk also works well)
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
¼ cup Sunflower Oil

½ cup fresh Raspberries

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, & blend well. Combine the wet ingredients in another bowl, & blend well. Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix only to moisten. The mixture will be lumpy but it is important not to over mix it.

I use a 12 cup muffin tin which I spray with non-stick cooking spray before placing a few raspberries in to the bottom of each muffin cup and then topping with a generous tablespoon of the muffin batter. I then take a teaspoon and gently “lift” and fold the raspberries through the batter in each cup, so that they don’t all sink to the bottom.

Bake at for 190’C/375’F/Gas Mark 5 for 20 – 30 minutes until done.

When the raspberries cook they go all gooey like jam, so I find that you don’t actually need to serve these muffins with anything – just eat them as is and enjoy !