Hairy Bikers tattie scones are fried, not baked, which puts them closer to a griddle bread than to anything else called a scone. Veggie Feasts makes six rounds from 500g of floury potatoes, cut into 24 pieces, at about 300 calories a round.
They steam the potatoes rather than boiling them, and the book explains why: it gets them as dry as possible. Then the potatoes go into the flour while still hot, which they say gives lighter, more tender scones.
The flour is a range, not a fixed amount. Start with 150g and only reach for the other 25g if the dough will not hold together, because every extra spoonful makes the scones heavier.
Hairy Bikers Tattie Scones
Description
Each round is rolled thin, fried in butter for a few minutes a side, then cut into four. Six rounds gives you 24 pieces in total. The dough is riced hot potato, plain flour, baking powder, butter and one egg.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Steam the potatoes: Put the potatoes in a steamer basket over a pan of boiling water and steam for about 20 minutes, until completely tender.
- Peel them hot: Take them off the heat and peel off the skins while the potatoes are still hot. Wear rubber gloves, or spear each piece with a fork and slide the skin off with a sharp knife.
- Rice into the flour: Put 150g of the flour and the baking powder in a bowl with plenty of salt and pepper. Mash the still-hot potatoes straight into the flour, ideally through a ricer held over the bowl.
- Make the dough: Add the egg and the 50g of butter, which should melt into the potato. Mix to a soft dough. If it is too soft to hold together, add a little more flour.
- Roll the rounds: Knead briefly until smooth, then turn out onto a generously floured surface. Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces and roll each into a round about 12 to 15cm across and ½cm thick.
- Fry: Heat a little butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Any hotter and the butter burns and the scones colour too fast. Fry one round at a time, flipping when the underside is brown, for 2 to 3 minutes a side.
- Cut and serve: Cut each round into 4 pieces. Eat hot straight from the pan, or reheat later by toasting.
FAQs
Why steam the potatoes instead of boiling them?
To keep the water out. Boiled potatoes absorb liquid, and wet potato needs more flour to make a workable dough, which is what makes tattie scones heavy.
Steaming leaves them dry and floury, so 150g of flour is usually enough for 500g of potato. The book says it plainly, that steaming gets them as dry as possible for lighter, more tender scones.
Why mix them while still hot?
Because hot potato is loose and starchy and takes up flour easily. Once it cools the starch firms up and the mash turns gluey, so the dough fights you and needs more flour to come together.
Use a ricer held over the bowl of flour if you have one, which is what the book recommends, since it drops the potato in light and even. It also saves handling hot potato with your hands.
Are tattie scones the same as regular scones?
No, and the name is all they share. These are potato-based, rolled thin and fried in butter, which puts them closer to a flatbread than a bake.
There is no rubbing in and no oven at any point. Their fruit scones are the baked kind, rubbed together and into a 220°C oven for 10 minutes, which is a completely different job.
What do I eat them with?
The book gives three routes: butter and fermented tomatoes, a scrape of Marmite, or jam and honey if you want them sweet.
The classic use is a fried Scottish breakfast, next to eggs and bacon, where a tattie scone soaks up everything on the plate. Their corned beef hash does the same job at breakfast, built on floury potatoes and topped with a fried egg.
Which potatoes should I buy?
Floury ones, and the book names Maris Pipers. King Edwards and Roosters work too.
Waxy potatoes are the mistake to avoid, since they hold their shape and never mash properly, so you get lumps through the dough. That is exactly why their dauphinoise potatoes specify waxy Charlottes, because there you want slices that stay intact.
