Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones

My recipe for Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones is perfect for sourdough starter discard. It uses just 60g of recently fed and bubbly sourdough starter.

My recipe for Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones is perfect for sourdough starter discard. It uses just 60g of recently fed and bubbly sourdough starter. The recipe also has seasonal wild garlic in it, along with vintage Cheddar cheese

These Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones were a revelation, a cross between a normal scone, as in short and light, but almost like a bread roll with a bit of chewiness and a layered flaky texture.

I used quite a lot of wild garlic in this recipe, but it is a very subtle herb and you need to add a fair bit so you can taste it alongside the Cheddar cheese. The recipe is simplicity itself, with no requirement to knead or prove the dough.

I am lucky enough to have swathes of wild garlic growing in my garden, not just by my back door, but also in the woods at the bottom of the back garden. It’s delicately pungent smell pervades the garden when they are in season and, when the buds appear, I like to pickle them, the recipe is coming soon for that.

I remember picking wild garlic and chewing on its vibrant green leaves whilst walking to school. Goodness knows what I smelled like when I was in class! However, there is no need to worry about smelling too garlicky if you make these Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones, as the wild garlic becomes very subtle and less pungent on baking.

Bakers new to sourdough baking may ask what is sourdough starter discard? Well, as you may know even if you are a sourdough novice, sourdough starter is a living thing, it’s essentially wild yeast. And like all living things, it needs feeding, just like normal brewer’s yeast.

If you bake sourdough bread regularly, as I do, your starter will be fed regularly and you probably won’t have any discard. But, if you don’t bake every week, your starter will need feeding and it’s then that you need to discard what you have fed it, in order for it to remain healthy and not to store ever increasing amounts of starter.

What you don’t need as you are not baking, is called “discard” and rather than pour it down the drain, many bakers use it for other recipes, as I have done today in my recipe for Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones.

My recipe for Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones is vegetarian, as the cheese I used was not made with animal rennet. You can make these scones vegan by using a plant-based spread in place of butter, as well as a vegan cheese.

And, if you want to add other ingredients, you can add chopped olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fennel seeds, caraway seeds, re-hydrated dried cep mushrooms and fried lardons.

Other variations are chopped chives or spring onions, when wild garlic is not in season. Or, any local hard cheese you have to hand….a mixture of different cheeses works well too, as long as they are hard cheeses.

These Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones can be served just warm, split and spread with butter. They are wonderful with a cheese board, soups, stews, casseroles or as part of an afternoon tea. They also make great sandwiches.

We love these Sourdough Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones as part of a ploughman’s Lunch, with ham, assorted cheeses, pickles, chutney and tomatoes. They freeze well, to freeze, allow them to cool completely and pack them into a container with paper between each layer, or in a bag.

The recipe for these Cheese and Wild Garlic Scones made with sourdough starter is shared at THE END OF THIS POST, so do scroll down if you’d like the recipe. I am sharing some more wild garlic, sourdough and cheese recipes before then though, for your interest.

I hope you enjoy these if you make them, we love them and find that they last longer than normal scones, they don’t go as dry so quickly. You can store them in an airtight tin for up to three days, if that last that long. PLEASE do let me know if you make these, Karen

You’ll find the full and printable recipe at the end of this post.

• Pre-heat the oven to 200C/Fan 180C/400F/Gas mark 6. Grease and/or line a large baking tray with baking paper.
• Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Rub in the butter until it resembles fine bread crumbs.
• Add 200g of the grated cheese and the chopped wild garlic, mix well.

• Mix the sourdough starter and the buttermilk together and pour it into the dry ingredients. Mix well, initially with a spoon, the bring the dough together with your hands. DO NOT OVER HANDLE.
• Place the dough on a floured board and gently roll out until it is 2.5cm (1″) thick. Stamp out the scones with a 7.5cm (3″) scone cutter, re-rolling the dough to make the final scones.

• Place the scones on the prepared baking sheet and brush milk over them all, before scattering the remaining grated cheese over the top.
• Bake them in the oven for 20 minutes until they have risen, are golden brown and the cheese has melted.

• Remove them from the oven and place them on a wire cooling rack.
• Serve them split in half and buttered. They are wonderful with cheese, soup, stews, casseroles or as part of an afternoon tea. They also make great sandwiches.

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