Homemade oat scones

There's something about that first chill of autumn that triggers in me the need to make a roast dinner, an apple crumble....and some homemade oat scones.

My top tip for deliciously light, rustic oat scones is... handle the dough gently and don't roll it out - just pat it down until it's about an inch thick. As you can see in the photo, this makes for rustic-looking scones, but they are definitely lighter in texture than scones that are rolled out with a heavy hand.

My homemade oat scone recipe - easily customisable with your favourite autumn flavours

Lightly grease a baking tray, set your oven to 200 degrees C and gather together the ingredients below.

• 400g self-raising flour

• half tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 100g porridge oats

• 100g butter

• 30g granulated sugar, plus a little more to sprinkle

• 200ml milk, plus a little more to glaze

Options to customise your homemade oat scones

At step 3, stir in 100g raisins and 2 tsp ground cinnamon.

At step 3, stir in 75g chopped dates and 25g chopped pecans.

At step 3, stir in 2 grated apples and 2 tsp ground cinnamon.

Method

1 Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and stir in the oats.

2 Chop the butter into chunks and rub in to the flour and oats until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

3 Stir in the sugar, and add any of your preferred options above.

4 Pour in the milk and mix with a cutlery knife until the dough comes together into a ball. Add a little more milk if it doesn't clump together.

5 Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and gently pat down to about an inch thick. Cut the dough into rounds using a 6cm cutter. Gently bring together the offcuts and keep cutting into rounds until all the dough is used up. You should get about 12 scones.

6 Transfer the scones to a baking tray, brush with milk, sprinkle with granulated sugar and bake for about 15 minutes until nicely risen and golden brown.

7 Serve warm with butter and jam!

Why not make a batch of homemade oat scones to enjoy this weekend?