These Vegan Strawberry and Almond Scones are perfect for serving as part of a summery afternoon tea. All wee need now is some sunshine...

The British Scone

I am born and bred in the UK and so I feel very passionately about a specific tea time treat - the scone. I do find it really interesting that the word scone made it's way to the US but now means something quite different. British and US scones are not quite the same. A British scone could be described as a sort of biscuit.

What makes this a British scone is a mix of flour and a leavening agent and butter rubbed into breadcrumbs. This then brought together into a crumbly dough with milk or sometimes cream! A British scone uses more leavening agent and less butter than traditional biscuits. Still, it's great for enjoying alongside a cup of tea.

Whilst the distinction between a US scone and a British scone may not seem all that important you'll find me eating these scones as part of an afternoon tea covered with vegan whipped cream and some fresh strawberries. (PS. strawberry jam also works well!)

Vegan Strawberry Scones with Cream and Jam

How to make vegan British scones

I mentioned above that these tea time treats are made with butter, milk or cream. All ingredients a vegan won't / can't eat.

Substituting butter is easy. There are many butter alternatives on the market or you can simply use margarine. You just need to make sure it comes in the harder, block form and is nice and cold when you come to rub it into the flour.

To replace the milk and cream I could just use vegan cream. But I find it's too thin and doesn't add enough richness. Instead I use a mix of soy milk and plain yogurt. I find that by adding a vegan yogurt to the mix you get much lighter, fluffier scones.

Strawberry and almond

Scones come in many shapes and sizes in the US. Whilst this recipe is for the British type of scone, I've taken inspiration from US flavours. Rather than dried fruit that you would ordinarily find in traditional British scones I've used fresh strawberries. They have been cut into small pieces - roughly the size of blueberries so that they add a burst of fresh flavour in every bite.

Adding fresh fruit does make the dough a little wetter but we've counteracted this with the almond flour.

Whilst the strawberry component of this recipe might be obvious when you look at them, the almond might not. I've used an ingredient I don't usually add to my bakes - almond flour. I played around with the amount and found that you didn't need much to get that almond flavour. The wonderful sweet nuttiness that worked really well with the strawberry.

And so these Vegan Strawberry and Almond Scones were born!

The recipe