Chorizo & Cheese Scones

These chorizo and cheese scones are a wonderful savoury alternative scone for afternoon tea or lunch. They're soft and melt in the mouth with a delicious flavour from chorizo and cheese. They're also quick to make in the food processor or Thermomix that does all of the work! Spread these scones with butter and savour each warm from the oven. But a little warning: it can be hard to stop at one...This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader.

These chorizo and cheese scones are seriously moreish. I don't give out warnings lightly and I ate two of these buttered scones after eating lunch. And Mr NQN ate one after lunch and afternoon tea polishing it off with a satisfied smack of his lips and then picked up the crumbs off the plate. They freeze really well once baked too and they are great in lunchboxes.

5 Tips For Making Chorizo and Cheese Scones

1 - You can use any favourite hard cheese for these scones. I actually used a mixture of cheeses here (honestly just offcuts from my Halloween cheese platter!)

2 - Likewise you can use your favourite cured chorizo from the deli.

3 - Cheese scones don't rise quite as much as plain scones so you do need to make them a bit thicker, around 3-4 cms (1.2-1.5inches) is ideal.

4 - Usually scones don't really reroll that well after you cut them but because these have so many other bits this scone mixture rerolls just fine.

5 - You can also shape this into a round and then cut out triangles, the way that they do scones in America. Just bake them for longer for 25-28 minutes as they require a longer cooking time as they are not separated.

I'm such a savoury tooth over a sweet tooth that whenever I see a savoury scone on a menu I have to order it. While it's wonderful to have scones with jam and cream, for every day lunch I'd eat a savoury scone whereas a sweet one would be a treat. Speaking of lunches, lunch is back! I should explain. Before COVID I used to put up a little series called Mr NQN's lunch on my Instagram stories but I sort of gave up on it. Everything got a bit too busy and although I was still making him lunches, recording them and sharing them just fell to the wayside.

A few weeks ago a friend said to me, "I miss seeing Mr NQN's lunches." At first I laughed but then saw that she looked so serious that I shared one of his lunches just for her. As soon as I did that I started receiving a whole bunch of DMs on Instagram from readers saying that they were happy that the Mr NQN's lunch series was back! So head on over to Instagram stories and follow me where I'll share what I make for Mr NQN for lunch every day. This recipes makes such a big batch of scones that these featured over quite a few days. I served them with some pumpkin soup or with salad. And because they freeze well they were great for those days where I didn't have time to cook anything!

So tell me Dear Reader, what do you eat for lunch typically? Do you like savoury or sweet scones?

Chorizo Cheese Scones

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Makes: 12 scones

• 275g/9.7ozs cheese (Manchego, cheddar, red leicester)
• 180g/6ozs chorizo sausage
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 cups/300g/10.6ozs plain all purpose flour
• 3.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 125g/4ozs butter, cold and cubed
• 2 tablespoons chives
• 160ml/5.6ozs buttermilk or sour cream
• Egg wash to brush on top (1 egg whisked with 1 teaspoon milk)

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 180C/350 Fan forced. Line 2 baking trays with parchment. Place the cheese in the Thermomix or food processor and process the cheese (Thermomix set to speed #4.5 for 20 seconds) so that it is broken up into tiny pieces. Repeat for the chorizo with the garlic. Remove and set aside.

Step 2 -Place the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in the food processor or Thermomix bowl and pulse for 10 seconds (Thermomix set to speed #5 for 10 seconds). Add the butter and chives and pulse until you get fine sandy crumbs (Thermomix set to speed #5 for 15 seconds).

Step 3 -Add the buttermilk or sour cream and pulse until you start to get a cohesive dough. Empty this mixture out and knead in the chorizo and cheese (Thermomix set to Dough mode for 20 seconds to knead the mixture). Place on a floured surface and roll out to 3-4cms thick. Use a 6cm/2.3inch round cutter cut out rounds of dough. Place them on the lined trays around 1.5cms/0.6inch apart. Brush with egg wash and bake for 19-20 minutes. Serve warm with butter.