How to Make Ham and Cheese Scones

In my opinion a good scone is one of the most amazing pleasures on the planet. They are feel good food. Not because they are good for you, they just make you feel comfy.  

If you have a gluten intolerance or allergy you may want to check out my recipe for Gluten Free Scones.

Scones remind me of my childhood – we ate a lot of scones for Saturday lunch. Now thatI’m older and wiser (maybe) I wonder if we ate so many because money was tight and they are cheap to make and fill a large number of mouths, especially hungry teenage boys!

We also ate a lot of pikelets but that’s another story!

Over the years I’ve made many variations of scones, gluten free scones, date scones (Jenna’s favourite), cheese scones and even orange scones.

If you wanted to make vegetarian scones, simply leave out the ham. They will taste just as good with just the cheese and onion as they do with the ham.

This recipe came about because I had some leftover ham in my fridge that needed to be eaten.  Everyone was at home last Friday and needed to be fed, so the ham and cheese scones seemed like a good idea to fill the hungry tums and use the ham. Win-win!

Three Different Methods

After eating these scones there was a bit of a debate about how I made them. Andy thought that they should have chunks of ham and I like the flavour to be all the way through.  You can do it either way.  

I’ve written this recipe in a weird way because I wanted to show you the different ways you can make these scones, each will give you different results. I wanted to make sure that I shared each method with you, and that you didn’t need a food processor to make these scones.  They are just as easy to make by hand.

Throw It All In

I like to throw everything into the food processor (not all at once – see instructions below)which means that the ham and cooked onions are chopped all the way through the scone.

Here’s the instructions if you want to use this method:

• Dice the onion and cook it in a little butter until they are just starting to turn golden. Don’t overcook it.
• Put the dry ingredients into the food processor with a chopping blade. Add the chopped butter and pulse until the butter is chopped through the flour – it should look like crumbs.

• Add one cup of the cheese, ham and cooked onion.  Give the food processor a quick pulse, just to mix these ingredients through.  
• Measure out the milk and add the lemon juice. This will slightly curdle the milk.
• With the motor running, slowly pour the milk mixture into the dough, pulsing so that you don’t over mix it. You will need to judge here, as you may not need all of the milk.  The mixture should come together and be slightly wet but not really sticky. If you add too much milk, you can always add a little flour to it when you turn out the dough so don’t worry.
• Turn the mixture out onto a floured board.  Knead a little, just to incorporate everything properly.
• Shape the dough into a square about 2.5-3cm(about 1 inch) thick.

• Dip a large knife into the flour and then cut the dough into nine pieces.  
• Reshape the dough into balls and place on a tray lined with parchment paper.
• Press your thumb or finger slightly into the top of each scone and make an indentation.  Divide the remaining cheese and sprinkle onto the top of each scone.
• Sprinkle the tops with paprika.
• Bake at 200 degrees Celsius (approximately400 Fahrenheit) for about 12-15 minutes.

Chunky

As Andy suggested, if you would like the ham to be chunky rather than finely chopped throughout the dough, you could make the scone mix in the food processor following the instructions below, then add the ham, cheese and cooked onion and mix it in by.

Here’s the instructions if you want your scones to be chunky:

• Dice the onion and cook it in a little butter until it’s just starting to turn golden. Don’t overcook it.
• Put the dry ingredients into the food processor with a chopping blade. Add the chopped butter and pulse until the butter is chopped through the flour – it should look like crumbs.
• Measure out the milk and add the lemon juice. This will slightly curdle the milk.
• With the motor running, slowly pour the milk mixture into the dough, pulsing so that you don’t over mix it. You will need to judge here, as you may not need all of the milk.  The mixture should come together and be slightly wet but not really sticky. If you add too much milk, you can always add a little flour to it when you turn out the dough so don’t worry.
• Turn the dough out onto a floured surface.  Add one cup of the cheese, the ham and cooked onion and mix until these are well incorporated.  You will use a kneading motion to do this.  You don’t want to spend too much time on this, otherwise your scones will be hard.
• Shape the dough into a square about 2.5-3cm(about 1 inch) thick.
• Dip a large knife into the flour and then cut the dough into nine pieces.  

• Reshape the dough into balls and place on a tray lined with parchment paper.
• Press your thumb or finger slightly into the top of each scone and make an indentation.  Divide the remaining cheese and sprinkle onto the top of each scone.
• Sprinkle the tops with paprika.
• Bake at 200 degrees Celsius (approximately 400 Fahrenheit) for about 12-15 minutes.

By Hand

If you don’t have a food processor, you could make these scones entirely by hand.  

Here’s the instructions if you want to make the scones by hand:

• Dice the onion and cook it in a little butter until it’s just starting to turn golden. Don’t overcook it.
• In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Grate the cold butter into the dry ingredients.  
• Mix in one cup of the cheese, the ham and onion.  
• Measure out the milk and add the lemon juice. This will slightly curdle the milk.
• Add the milk a little at a time, mixing between additions.  You may not need all of the milk mixture.  The mixture should come together and be slightly wet but not really sticky. If you add too much milk, you can always add a little flour to the dough.
• Turn the mixture out onto a floured board.  Knead a little, just to incorporate everything properly.
• Shape the dough into a square about 2.5-3cm (about 1 inch) thick.
• Dip a large knife into the flour and then cut the dough into nine pieces.  
• Reshape the dough into balls and place on a tray lined with parchment paper.
• Press your thumb or finger slightly into the top of each scone and make an indentation.  Divide the remaining cheese and sprinkle onto the top of each scone.

• Sprinkle the tops with paprika.
• Bake at 200 degrees Celsius (approximately400 Fahrenheit) for about 12-15 minutes.

Why Lemon Juice?

One thing I’m sure you are going to ask is why add the lemon juice.  Now, I should say that if you don’t have lemons, then don’t add it.  The lemon juice makes the milk curdle which produces a softer end result.  You could also substitute with buttermilk which would have the same effect (I’ve never tried this).  

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Ham and Cheese Scone Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 ½ Cups Flour
• 2 Teaspoons Cream of Tartar
• 1 Teaspoon Sugar
• ½ Teaspoon Salt
• 3 Teaspoons Baking Powder
• 50g (2oz) Butter
• Squeeze of Lemon Juice
• Approximately 1 Cup Milk
• 1 Cup Diced Ham
• 2 Cups Grated Cheese
• 1 Diced and Fried Onion
• Extra Butter for frying onion
• Sprinkle of Paprika

Method

Dice the onion and cook it in a little butter until it’s just starting to turn golden. Don’t overcook it.

Use one of the methods mentioned above to mix the dough.

Turn the mixture out onto a floured board.  If you’re using either of the food processor methods, you will probably need to do a little kneading, just to incorporate everything properly.

Shape the dough into a square about 2.5-3cm (about 1 inch) thick.

Dip a large knife into the flour and then cut the dough into nine pieces.  

Reshape the dough into balls and place on a tray lined with parchment paper.

Press your thumb or finger slightly into the top of each scone and make an indentation.  Divide the remaining cheese and sprinkle onto the top of each scone. Sprinkle the tops with paprika.

Bake at 200 degrees Celsius (approximately 400 Fahrenheit) for about 12-15 minutes.

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