Grana Padano and Dried Fig Scones with Spring Salads

Serves 4 as afternoon tea, 2 scones each or 2 as lunch; Prep Time 20 minutes; Cooking Time 15-20 minutes; Difficulty - Moderate Cook

Grana Padano PDO Sponsored Recipe

Alex Mackay, cook, teacher, writer, and food lover serves up a collection of his recipes made for sharing showing the versatility of Grana Padano PDO cheese. With breakfast bakes to lunchtime bites, afternoon tea to supper standby's you will find recipes for every springtime occassion.

This beauty is inspired by a Delia Smith recipe. I love the combination of Grana Padano PDO cheese and dried fruit, and I feel like it can become a bit of a culinary chameleon, sweet, savoury or somewhere in-between. My Grana Padano scones gives you a beautiful high protein base from which you can explore down whatever path your fancy takes you. Wherever you end up, please serve them a little warm to enjoy them at their best.

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Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 220°C / Gas 7 / 425°F Rack Position Upper Middle Shelf.

2. Sift the self-raising flour into a large bowl. Add the salt and cayenne pepper. Mix together well.

3. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour mixture until it is well combined and crumbly. Add the 80g grated Grana Padano and dried figs and mix it in.

4. Put the egg and the buttermilk into a jug and whisk them together. Add this mixture gradually to the to the dry ingredients, I use a strong rubber spatula to mix this. Try to get it done quickly, the dough doesn’t need to be super smooth, just combined. If you over mix the dough, you beat the lightness out of it and the scones will be stodgy.

5. Put the dough onto a non-stick baking sheet. Roll or pat the dough out evenly to a circle of roughly 17cm diameter and 2.5 cm thick. (Delia says the secret of well-risen scones is to start off with a thickness no less than an inch).

6. Use a fluted or plain scone cutter to make 6 or 8 scones (depending on the size you like your scones to be). You may need to re-roll the dough to cut out 8 scones.

7. Brush the top with milk, then sprinkle the 40g of grated Grana Padano cheese on top and pat it around the outsides so that you have a sublime circle of Grana Padano.

8. Bake the scones in your pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes until they are golden brown and gloriously cheesy.

9. Transfer to a wire rack to cool, but serve warm, (these can be re-warmed in an air fryer) with whatever you fancy today.

Grana Padano Spread
10. To make the Grana Padano spread, mix the ingredients together in a Nutri bullet or blender until you get an almost smooth mixture, you’ll need to take the cup off and scrape down the sides a few times as you blend.

Serving Suggestions
LOTS of butter
With the spread and anchovies

Savoury Salads
Thinly sliced asparagus, rocket & spring onion, lemon and extra virgin olive oil
Radish, carrot & pink grapefruit
Thinly sliced mixed carrots with nigella seeds and white balsamic

Sweet
Poached Rhubarb & Clotted cream
Last of the blood oranges
Lemon Curd or clotted cream and blackcurrant jam (we had this at the palace, yum, but my version with lemon curd is even better than HRH’s).