Oh yes, it's Homemade Scones for Tea

There' s something very primal and magical about the smell of bread. It goes a long way to making a house into a home. Wherever we've travelled somehow that smell of bread in its local form is there. There is a universality to that distinct aroma, coloured by local traditions. It brings people together. It conjures up feelings of being cared for and nurtured.

When I was growing up in Paris we bought baguettes fresh at least once a day. I fondly remember slowly making my way home from the local Boulangerie trying terribly hard, and rarely totally succeeding, not to eat the end before putting in my finger to pull out the soft fragrant insides. Luckily my father preferred the crusty bit with his lunch.

Afternoons in my grandparents' home in England usually smelt of Grannie making scones. Tea there under the cherry trees in the summer or by the log fire in the winter just wouldn't have been the same without them. My favourite was eating them with her homemade award winning raspberry jam, although now I think about it maybe I preferred the blackcurrent jelly. What a choice!

• 1lb plain white flour (or bread flour if that's all you have)
• 3oz butter at room temperature
• no more than 1/2 pink of full fat milk (we don't have any other type in our house)
• salt
• 1 heaped teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 2 heaped teaspoons of cream of tartar

Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 6.

Sieve the flour into a bowl, either of a food processor or a large mixing bowl.

Add a large pinch of salt, the bicarb and cream of tartar (you find these in the home baking section of the supermarket).

Mix thoroughly.

Cut the butter into tiny little pieces and add one piece at a time while the food processor is whizzing, or add and knead by hand.

Take your time, the more thoroughly mixed it is, the lighter the scones will be.

Very gently add the milk by the spoonful waiting until the dough sticks together as one piece. You'll probably only use about a 1/3 pint, it depends on the weather.

When the dough is ready roll it out about 1/2"-3/4" and cut into rounds of about 2 1/2 inches, a cup will do if you don't have a cutter

Put them on a baking tray leaving a small margin around them. They don't spread. They rise upwards :)

Cook for 15-16 minutes turning them round half way through the cooking time.

Allow to cool on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

I love having these with cream cheese for a light lunch. However, my favourite way is a homage to another favourite memory from my French childhood: chocolate spread. As an eight year old the joy was insurmountable that the French actually put chocolate in pain au chocolat and better still sold it in jars for spreading on toast for tea. It was the first time I learnt the word decadent.

Imagine my delight when I found that Simona at Borough Market sells chocolate spread. This is the most superior chocolate spread I've had, knocking the socks off Nutella, while building on it's memory. Actually it's ecstasy in a jar, made by Italian Monks in what must surely be their heaven, and thus deserving of its name in our home of Spiritual Chocolate Spread. It's definitely a treat receiving the reverence of any spiritual blessed food.

When leaving a Sikh temple, Gurdwara, we receive a handful of dripping prashad. It is ambrosial: made from equal parts of melted butter, flour and honey, and yes, it's utterly divine. The sublime smell of it cooking in the temple kitchens creates this wonderful homeliness too. The smell of homemade scones and chocolate spread for me, as an Englishwoman, comes close to that.

PS This is one of the many recipes which I have posted on the Be the Woman You were Born to Be... Inner Circle. Find out more here