My family recipe journey #4 - Girdle scones (a.k.a Holiday Scones)

Girdle scones. Gosh these were one of my absolute favourites when Grandad made them. He certainly must have doubled or tripled the batch as there was always plenty of these to go around. I can recall many a time in my life, when I would bring these out from my lunch. Only to be asked "what is that". "it's a girdle scone" I would pronounce proudly. More often than not I was asked "don't you mean griddle scone" "no!" I would declare quite proudly "it's a girdle scone". I was often met with strange stares. Neither my brother or I cared, we were super proud of our girdle scones, in fact my older brother renamed them "Holidays Scones" as a young tot, as prior to Grandad's retirement when he came to live in Whangarei with us - we would only get them at holidays. I always had mine with just butter - I still like them like this. Everyone else, had jam, or any manner of other spread, whereas, I still prefer to stick to good old butter, so I can really taste my scone.

The recipe (they are always quite basic, as we attempted to \jot down what Grandad was doing or saying whilst he was in the middle of making them - he never used a recipe)

Sieve full of S R flour (that is an old fashioned sifter with the turn handle on the side)
Half tsp Salt
2 Tbsp sugar
sieve together
Add approx half a pint of Milk
Mix to a fairly stiff dough
Pat out to about half an inch thick
Flour pan before cooking (Grandad always used an electric frypan)
Cook about 4 mins each side

 

The finished Holiday Scones

Below is a copy of a girdle girdle scones from "What's Cooking in Scotland" from 1965. My Mums family would have been settled in NZ for 10 years at this time. My Mum would have been 18.