My home town is called Dunedin which means “little Edinburgh”, there’s a very strong Scottish influence and heritage in this little town of ours. We have a statue of the Scottish poet Robbie Burns in the town centre, a castle called Larnach castle, haggis served now and then, and Octagonal Day once a year where all the pipe bands from all over the country come to compete. It’s not at all uncommon to see a piper on a street corner busking, or hear the hurl of the pipes drifting out over the city.  A man in a kilt walking down the street will not even get a second glance here, unless he has particularly nice legs of course!

Scones are Scottish in origin and very much a part of our cultural heritage, including girdle scones. An interesting fact for you - Did you know that Scone Palace is the place where Scottish kings were crowned?

Why are they called girdle scones? Apparently the Scots refer to a griddle as a girdle and these little scones are not cooked in the oven they are cooked on a hot griddle or frying pan with a little salted butter.

If you are sweltering in the heat in the northern hemisphere and don’t want to turn on that oven, this is the perfect way to make scones. If you are freezing in the southern hemisphere, then treat yourself to some hot scones. See? Perfect, no matter where you live.

Unlike an oven baked scone, these are ever so slightly crisp on the outside, with the gentle flavour of brown butter. They are super fast to make and of course you can use any of the flavour variations that you would with an oven baked scone. Currant, cranberry, sultanas, or cheese would all work well. You could cut them into wedges before you cook them as I have, or make one giant girdle scone and cut into wedges after it’s cooked if you wish. This recipe is easily doubled. Fast to make, great to eat, what more could you ask from a wee bit ‘o bread.

Girdle Scones

- variation from the Edmonds cookbook.

Note: this is not a sweet scone - the mix is plain, if you like a sweet scone you may add 3 Tblspns sugar in the dry ingredients stage.

• 1 cup flour
• 2 tspns baking powder
• 1 Tblspn of butter
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup of currants
• aprox 1/2 cup of milk

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl

Cut or rub in the butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs

Add enough milk to make a soft dough and shape into a circle on a lightly floured board. Roll out to roughly 1.5 cm (1/2 an inch) thick and cut into eight wedges.

Cook on a hot greased girdle, hotplate or frying pan until golden and cooked in the centre - this will be roughly 5 minutes on each side.

Snuggle them up on the girdle arranged in the same way you cut them.

When you turn your scone wedges place them gently on the hot surface and only turn once.

Serve hot from the pan, slathered in your favourite jam.

I promised you all a little more about my surrounds while I was on holiday, so I am trying to take my camera with me when I head out the door. I do want to share a little of this fantastic country at the bottom of the planet with you all as well tales of my family and of course my passion - food.

A ten minute trip down the Bay from our house is the Broad Bay China Shop. It is an unassuming little house with all kinds of treasures tucked away within the walls of a very small cottage surrounded by roses. It’s down a winding back street about fifty feet away from the sea, you would honestly not even know it was there.

By complete accident I spent two hours here this morning. There is so much to see in this tiny shop, it’s literally packed from ceiling to floor with china, silver, glassware and linen. None of it is new, but that’s part of its charm. My mother kept saying “It’s like a trip down memory lane” I know I saw lots of pieces that reminded me of my childhood.

You have to inch through the house - not just because you are completely terrified of knocking over something and breaking it, because there are so many bits and pieces to see and corners to poke about in. There are canteens of silverware in old wooden boxes lined with velvet, rolls of music for player pianos, jewellery, crystal, embroidered linen baby gowns, heavy china chamber pots and fine bone china.

As I mentioned.. there is really not a space any where in the house - so the owner has moved stock outside! There are three more rooms out the back which have been added on to accommodate the china and linen. Step stools to stand on so that you can see the pieces on the top, and little chairs to sit on so that you can examine dishes at your leisure.

I went there with the express purpose of getting a handful of bargain plates and dishes to photograph food on. I came away with $50 worth of china and with thoughts of putting a beautiful old antique dinner set on hold. I found some wonderful crockery, which no doubt you will find in some of my recipe posts including some more uranium glass!

If you live in New Zealand and you are in Dunedin, this is really worth a visit. But do make sure that you have plenty of time because it’s so easy to lose hours in there, as evidenced by me arriving in the morning and forgetting to have lunch and leaving in the afternoon. Everything from kitschy to fine bone china is contained in this rose smothered house. If you are just visiting - make sure you take a little time to call in. Sue More has done a fantastic job putting together all these collectable items. You can make an after hours appointment if you are on limited time. I’m thinking about going back tomorrow to take another look at the linen, don’t tell Kit!