Lemon thyme

I love my herb garden. Not in a passionate way but with a paternal tenderness that sees me pruning, watering and feeding at any time of day. A new infant to this nursery (in the tiniest incarnation of the word – we’re talking two window-boxes and a couple of pots) is lemon thyme. I found it at Clifton Nurseries, an upmarket garden centre in London’s Little Venice, densely stocked with elegant plants and beautiful accessories (the multi-coloured bistro chairs rock).

As the name suggests, this herb smells like lemon and tastes like lemon. I use it when I want Mediterranean flavour with added zing, like mixed into chicken or fish marinades or scattered over chargrilled vegetables. Pair it with goat’s cheese and the two will do an accomplished dance on your taste buds. But in a scone? Absolutely, and besides it’s time to lay a baking disaster to rest (we all have them, feel free to share yours).


The first time I made scones was a disaster. Flat and dry, my pallid offerings were a gift for Granny Smith, who was seriously ill with cancer. She gamely ate one and then gently dispatched me to the kitchen to unearth the Be-Ro Home Recipes book, a 1950s relic of simpler days when lard was plentiful and scones rose. ‘The woman who can cook well and bake well has every reason and every right to be proud of her cooking’, reads the intro. Sounds like a challenge.

Seven years later, I’ve dusted off that book to give this recipe a tried-and-tested backbone as well as some wholesome sentiment. ‘In 99 cases out of 100 she has a happy home’, it states, ‘because good cooking means good food, and good food means good health.’ I’ll butter a scone to that.

Lemon thyme and goat’s cheese scones

Makes up to 16

225g self raising flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
40g margarine or butter
100g soft goat’s cheese
1 large handful lemon thyme
About ¼ pt milk

The oven needs to be hot so preheat to 220°C fan/200°C/Gas 6.

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a mixing bowl as this will get lots of air into the mixture.

Remove the hard stalks from the lemon thyme and roughly chop the leaves and soft stems. With a rolling pin, lightly bash the leaves to release the oil (this works brilliantly with mint leaves and I think it does the same with thyme), then stir them into the flour.

Add the margarine or butter to the bowl then rub into the flour until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Cut 75g of soft goat’s cheese into cubes, add to the mixture and gently rub in. Pour in enough milk (around 80ml-100ml) until you have a soft dough.

Roll out on a floured surface to around 2cm thick then cut into rounds with a cutter. I used a 5cm one for bite-sized scones. Place onto an oiled baking tray and brush with milk. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden.

Put onto a cooling rack. Lightly whip the rest of the goat’s cheese until it looks like cream then serve with the warm buttered scones.