Serves: Makes ~10 scones
Cost: ~€1.30
Preparation and cooking time: ~20 minutes
Calories: ~160 per scone
Hey there folks, I’m back to my regular programming, after my baby-food in my last post! Up today are the scones I served with my “Waste-not-want-not” Soup. As the soup is so deliciously light, if you were on the hungry side you will probably want to bulk it up a bit with something carby and delicious, and so enter these bad boys.
We came back from England with a great big packet of cottage cheese. Apparently it exists in France, but I’ve seen it a grand total of once in a store, and my wife is rather a fan. I suspect the pack was rather too large as there was some left, rattling around by itself in the refrigerator for a couple of days and she suggested I chuck it into some scones since it’s so healthy. I was in two minds about just how to use it. I couldn’t decide whether I would use it “as is”, chunks and all, or blend it up until smooth. In the end, my blender won, although I might leave it chunky next time for an interesting texture and colour. I wanted to keep the scones quite simple so I opted for parsley as the only real other flavour. The flecks of green and the aroma of warm parsley dotted throughout the finished product was so lovely, and the little pinch of cayenne pepper served well to give just the right amount of kick.
I hope you will decide to give it a try (maybe even with some of the soup!) and do let me know what you think. I’m off out today to take some photos… weather allowing. I’ve been to the place before – near the little village of Gambaiseuil in the forest of Rambouillet – and it’s the kind of place which always looks great in my mind’s eye but, aside from a few exceptions, the photographic results are, sadly, less than stellar. I’ll be going with a few friends who share my photographic interest so I hope we can all feed off each others’ ideas and inspiration.
I’d appreciate it as well if you could let me know if you find that my site loads particularly slowly. I’ve been experiencing a few problems with it of late and I’m just trying to gauge if the issues are impacting only me or all visitors in general. Any reports about load time, pages appearing offline and so forth are helpful – thanks guys and gals.
Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll be back in a few days with something weird new!
Cottage Cheese and Parsley Scones
Ingredients
- 230g Plain Flour + extra for dusting
- 100ml Cottage Cheese
- 80ml Water
- 60g cold Butter
- 2tsp Baking Powder
- 1 – 2tsps Cayenne Peppere
- 1tsp Salt
- 1 large handful of fresh Parsley
Instructions
- Start off by preheating your oven to 220 degrees Celsius and then blend the cottage cheese using an immersion blender until quite smooth. Don’t worry if a few lumps remain. Pour in the water to the blended cottage cheese and stir together to combine.
- Place the flour, baking powder, salt and cayenne pepper into a large bowl and chop the butter into small chunks, before dropping into the flour. Rub between your fingertips until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency, or alternatively, place into a food processor and blitz until you have a similar consistency. Finely chop the parsley and stir into the flour and butter mix.
- Pour the cottage cheese and water mixture into the bowl with the flour and butter. Mix well to form a manageable dough – slightly sticky to the touch. If the dough is very wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, and likewise, add a little water if the dough is very dry for some reason. Turn out onto a floured board and knead for a couple of minutes before rolling out to a thickness of about 15mm. Using a small cookie cutter, cut out rounds from the dough and place them onto a lightly greased baking sheet.
- Bake the scones in the preheated oven for about 10-12 minutes, until well-risen and golden brown, and enjoy as a nice side for soups, or simply on their own!
Hotly Spiced says
The page for me firstly came up saying ‘in error’. I had to refresh for it to come up properly but I didn’t think it took a longer time to load. These herby scones look wonderful and I can imagine they went well with the soup. I haven’t made scones with cottage cheese before so I’d like to try these xx
Charles says
Thanks Charlie – I’m off to a new host, hopefully, soon, when I can sort some problems out so I hope it will be resolved soon! 🙂
Maureen | Orgasmic Chef says
These almost look like American biscuits 🙂 I can’t wait to try them.
Charles says
Hi Maureen – I believe Americans do tend to call them biscuits. I can’t imagine why. Biscuits for us is what you call cookies. It’s rather confusing 😉
Minnie@thelady8home says
Lol, you are not alone Charlie, I still get confused, hahaha!! I had some awful scones in Florida recently, and I have been craving for some great ones, and these look just PERFECT!
Coffee and Crumpets says
I had an issue with it last week, it took forever to refresh after the comment and then gave a message about the server. It did finally load and my comment went through. It loaded fine today.
I like all kinds of scones. These look fabulous with the cheese and parsley.
Nazneen
Charles says
Hi Nazneen, yeah – sometimes it doesn’t refresh immediately when someone leaves a comment (it’s part of a caching plugin I use… it *should* refresh but it seems it’s a bit slow sometimes 🙁 )
Kristy says
These look and sound delicious. I have a few MAJOR cottage cheese fans in the house too! I’m sure they would love these. I know I would too-any kind of bready carb and I’m in! Have a great weekend and good luck with the pictures. Looking forward to them. And I’m very curious about this next post! And yes, the site does load a little slow, especially when it’s loading a comment. Good luck with the fix, I’d be clueless!
Charles says
Thanks Kristy! I’m thinking of moving to a new host, but haven’t quite decided where yet. I’ve spent the entire day, pretty much, staring at a black terminal window, running Linux commands. On the up side, I now know what a “LAMP stack” (and a LEMP stack) is, and how to install it. Unfortunately I just can’t get it to play nice, so I’m going to have to go for an easier, and less good option!
Eva Taylor says
These look particularly good Charles, I’m making a mushroom soup for lunch so I know these would go over very well. I’m looking forward to your photos; it’s rather disheartening here, we’re in a cold snap with 2C and snow flurries. Not nice.
Charles says
Thanks Eva – sorry about your weather! It seems like spring is now here… or rather gone. It feels like early summer now. Was so hot the other day!
A_Boleyn says
Cottage cheese as a base of pastries seems to be quite popular these days … rugelach and now scones. I’m guessing it makes quite a rich biscuit and I love the green flecks of the parsley running through them. I’m sure they’d be great with your soup.
Charles says
Thanks A_ – the parsley was a nice addition. With a touch of cayenne pepper it was a great combo
Chica Andaluza says
I love scones and I especially love savoury ones. These look so gorgeous and fluffy!
Charles says
Thank you Chica 🙂 I hope you’re well!
Laura (Tutti Dolci) says
What delicious savory scones, I love the idea of serving these with soup!
Charles says
Thanks Laura, the cayenne gives the perfect bit of kick to lift the flavour 🙂
Marina@Picnic at Marina says
When I read a topic for this post in my in box I thought you were posting a “how-to-make” cottage cheese. Why was I thinking it? Well, I’ve been into cheese (making) up to my ears. It’s interesting how our brain works when we are deeply immersed into some project. 🙂 Your scones look fantastic! Definitely needs to be made (some use for cheeses occupying my refrigerator!) 🙂
Charles says
Hi Marina, I should definitely love to make cottage cheese some time. I guess it can’t be *that* hard, can it? I was making feta cheese quite a bit and really wanted to start making more… like cheddar, but I gave up, at least for now because it was too hard to find the ingredients. Seriously, trying to get a hold of decent rennet and sheep or goat milk here is close to impossible :p.
Raymund says
Hot of the oven and melting butter on top, mmmm! that would definitely wake me up real good 🙂
Charles says
Mmm, I have an overwhelming urge right now to put some bacon on top of these too… that would be nice!
Marta @ What should I eat for breakfast today says
The page loads ok, I did not notice anything. And muffins – yummy with a fresh parsley 🙂
Charles says
Thanks Marta :). I guess you must have stopped by on the rare occasion that the site wasn’t playing “let’s see how slow I can load and still actually load without any errors” :p.
Anneli (Delicieux) says
How good do they look cut open and speckled with green?!!! I love scones and these sound very interesting and unlike any I have had before. I am intrigued and may have to experiment!
Charles says
Thanks Anneli – the parsley, when baked, gives a really nice smell and flavour to them. I don’t bake so much with parsley… I think I’m going to have to do it more!
Amira says
Woow you just gave me another idea of my cilantro mania recipes 🙂 I bet these will smell delicious even with cilantro or I can do half and half as a test. Thanks for the recipe definitely a keeper.
P.S.: I’ve been have issue with your website for the last 10 days or so but it seems working pretty well now.
Charles says
Hi Amira – any herb would work, cilantro would be fantastic I think. Often if you cook cilantro the flavour just disappears but I think because it would be baked it would all be absorbed into the scone. Yum! Thanks for the idea!
sonia says
Hi There,
tHe scones are looking so good with all the lovely pictures and write up as well. Its really my kind of dish and I can savor it anytime 🙂
Have a wonderful week ahead. Thanks for sharing awesome recipes.
Best Regards, Sonia !!!
Charles says
Thank you Sonia – they went really well with the soup we had, and the cayenne pepper gave a lovely little piquant after-taste. Would recommend them 🙂
Sissi says
Scones… it sounds so dreamy, idyllic British as “high tea” or queen… Just joking, but frankly whenever I read about scones with clotted cream in some British book (99% of what I read is contemporary British literature) I long for them. Your scones look extraordinary: soft and moist… and perfect for the English tea snacks I would choose, i.e. savoury tea. Putting any fresh cheese inside baked goods is always a good trick. This is what I do with my French “savoury cakes” (kek 😉 ), do you remember? I posted I think two versions. Since I started to replace oil/butter with fresh cheese, people (French people!) keep on asking me how I manage to make the cakes moist but not oily. The lower-calorie side is a bonus too!
They do sell cottage cheese here in Switzerland (the big grains suspended in a kind of creamy thing) in every supermarket (it’s produced here but the name is in English 😉 ). It’s extremely popular in Poland: the smallest grocery shop carries it. It was also one of my favourite snacks when I was a student. I have never looked for it in France though.
Charles says
Haha, I’m trying to remember if I’d asked you whether or not you ever had a cream tea before… big cup of tea, two fat scones, strawberry jam and thick clotted cream, with a yellow crust on top. Oh yes… that’s where it’s at!
I remember your “kek” 😀 – I bought some delightful little paper loaf cases in England… perfect for a batch of savoury cakes, so I should really get around to trying them sometime soon! Good tip with the replacing oil/butter with cheese. I can imagine it will make a big difference because I had a commercially made savoury cake once and it was really quite oily.
I’m told they have cottage cheese here… We see it very occasionally. The brand “Jockey” make it I believe, although we once bought a tub of something called “cottage cheese” and it turned out to be completely smooth. Not quite what we were after :p.
Kelly @ Inspired Edibles says
Bad boys indeed! Wow, do these ever look fantastic Charles and yes, the next best thing to tasting fresh bread is smelling it… parsley really tickles my fancy – I love it warm, it’s so fragrant and spring fresh. The cayenne is perfect here (I also love it in homemade crackers – lends just the right accent). Funny how hard it is to find cottage cheese in France; who would have thunk it. Spring has finally sprung here in Ontario – collective YAY from the Canadian crowd!!! :). I hope your photo session went well – Cheers.
Charles says
Thanks Kelly – I hadn’t baked with parsley before, but I’m definitely going to again. Speaking of parsley, do you know if curly and flat-leaf are part of the same family? I absolutely LOVE flat-leaf parsley, though it’s not as common as curly stuff.
You know, I never made crackers (well, except for the gluten-free seed ones). It’s something I’ve been meaning to try for a long time. I can imagine cayenne would be perfect in them.
Kitchen Belleicious says
Cottage cheese in scones makes them so moist with a slight tang. I think this is a superb idea to include the cheese with the parsley. A savory scone- its delicious
Charles says
Thanks KB – they certainly went very well with the soup 🙂
mjskit says
What great biscuits! They look SO MOIST and I did notice the 1 to 2 tsp. of cayenne making them quite spicy as well. These are definitely my kind of biscuits. Great job Charles!
Charles says
Thank you MJ – they made a great addition to the soup we had 🙂
Nami | Just One Cookbook says
I haven’t seen scones/biscuits recipes that have cottage cheese (but you have to remember I’m not a baker). I always don’t know what to do with leftover cottage cheese (as it’s not a common dish that I can use for my ordinary Japanese cooking) and this sounds fantastic! The whole family will appreciate this recipe. Love the parsley inside. Must be delish!
Charles says
Thanks Nami, I must admit that I wouldn’t normally know what to do with cottage cheese myself, so it was a great idea of my wife’s to put them in these scones 🙂
Gourmet Getaways says
Oh these look so scrumptious! I love savoury scones and as the weather is getting a little cooler here I can’t wait to try them with soup or a slow cooker dish.
Charles says
Thanks GG – the cayenne pepper gives the perfect bit of heat in the background of these… well recommended!
Sawsan@chef in disguise says
I don’t have any cottage cheese but I just might make these with nabulsi cheese and see how they turn out!
I love scones and have not made any in a long time, thanks for the inspiration
Charles says
Hi Sawsan – I think I remember seeing a post of yours about nabulsi cheese before, right? It would work really well I think in this!
Naeema says
I tried out this recipe today just because I needed to use up some cottage cheese and they turned out absolutely fantastic!
I didn’t have any parsley so I actually substituted that for some spinach which I thought would work well with the cheese. Also added some extra chilli flakes.
Thanks for the recipe, will be using it again. 🙂
Charles says
Hi Naeema, I can imagine spinach would have worked well – nice substitution! Glad you liked them 🙂