Easy Walnut and Orange Scones

Preheat oven to 200ºC (390ºF). Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Add flour and butter to a mixing bowl. Using your fingertips, rub butter into flour until there are no large lumps of butter remaining and mixture resembles breadcrumbs. A few pea-sized lumps of butter remaining is ok. Alternatively, you could use a food processor—pulse the flour and butter together until there are no large lumps of butter remaining.

To the bowl or food processor, add sugar, chopped walnuts, baking powder, salt and orange zest. Stir or pulse to combine everything.

To your milk, add the orange juice and vanilla essence. Then pour the milk a little at a time into the dry ingredients, stirring to combine each time. Do this until the dough begins to come together. If you are using a food processor, use the pulse setting, as leaving the machine to run constantly can cause overworked dough and, consequently, tough scones. The dough is ready when it just begins to come together to form a ball. There may be a little bit of flour that is leftover in the bowl —leave it. You do not want the dough to be wet and sticky.

Tip dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Bring dough together with your hands and knead a few times.

Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough into a disk that is 2 centimeters (around ¾ inch) in depth. Use a pastry cutter to cut out individual scones, then place them onto your lined baking tray. When you can no longer cut out more scones, bring the dough together in a ball and roll it out again into a disk and cut out more scones. Do this until there is not enough dough left to make into a scone.

Brush the scones with a little milk or beaten egg, trying not to let it drip down the sides of the scones. Bake scones for 12–14 minutes until they are golden brown on top and have risen. Leave to cool slightly before serving. Enjoy!