Mary Sweeting warms us through winter with her gluten-free scone recipe.

If you enjoy a good bake-off at home, these scones will fill your kitchen with the delicious smell of maple syrup.

The quantities may seem strange, as when I first made these I didn’t have enough sugar and milk in the cupboard, yet the substitutions – maple syrup and yoghurt, gave a wonderful, earthy balance of flavour.

The gluten-free flour and oats mean these don't rise quite as well as a standard flour scone, but don’t worry, they taste just as good straight out of the oven with a sliver of cold butter.

At this time of year try serving them with some seasonal Yorkshire forced rhubarb compote. Either way, they won’t last long!”

• Mary Sweeting writes about gluten-free and healthy food at adventuresinfussyeating.com


Maple and oat scones

8oz gluten-free self-raising flour (you can use normal self-raising flour)
2oz cold salted butter, cubed
1 1/2oz sugar
3 tbsp maple syrup
3 tbsp goats’ milk yoghurt (you can use any thick yoghurt)
2 tbsp rolled oats.


Method

Turn your oven on at about 180 degrees. In a large bowl, rub the flour, sugar, oats and butter together with your fingertips until you have a fine sandy mixture.

With a table knife, work in the liquid (in this case the yoghurt and maple syrup) until you have a dough that starts to form a ball. The key is not to overwork or warm the dough with your hands, so use the knife as much as you can.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to about 4-5cm high, then cut out scone shapes with a fluted round cutter. You could also tear the mixture with your hand or cut triangle shapes, but I find the dough bakes more evenly this way.

At this stage you can glaze the top of each scone with a beaten egg mix, milk or just water. Then bake in a preheated oven for ten to 20 minutes depending on cutter size. The scones are done when they turn pale golden brown.