Pretty much anything heart-shaped makes me go "aww". I've baked a good scone many a times however I've never been as delighted making them as I have been whilst making these CUTE-AS-ANYTHING heart-shaped raspberry scones.

This recipe is an updated one of the best scone recipe I use. It's not just cute because of its heart shape, it's heart-achingly pretty in pink too with a little tart twist of raspberries and a fluttery dusting of pink icing sugar.

Whip these up in no time for Valentine's Day or any special afternoon tea - it's not much more effort for extra-ordinary scones that will get all the awws from even the coldest of hearts.

Heart-Shaped Raspberry Scones Recipe

Yields: 12

Time: 10 minutes preparation, 10 minutes baking

Ingredients

500g plain flour

30g caster sugar

1tsp (5g) sodium bicarbonate

2tsp (10g) cream of tartar

1tsp (4g) salt

130g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

215ml whole milk

Juice of 1 lemon (approx. 60ml)

2tsp red food colouring (ideally a liquid gel paste)

1 egg, beaten lightly

20g frozen raspberries

2tsp icing sugar

2tsp freeze-dried raspberry powder

Method

1) Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius (200 degrees fan). Prepare a baking tray with a light dusting of flour and set aside.

2) In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar. Mix in the chilled cubed of butter by hand and massage it into the dry ingredients until you reach a bread-crumb-like consistency.

3) Place the lemon juice into the whole milk and stir till it thickens. Add in the red food colouring and 2/3rd of the beaten egg and stir to combine well.

4) Pour the wet ingredients into the flour-butter mixture and mix just until you get an even sticky dough. Chuck in the frozen raspberries (any large berries can be halved) and mix briskly by hand so you don't break up the fruit too much.

5) Tip the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead gently 3-5 times till the dough comes together.

Do not overwork the dough beyond this as you'll risk making dense scones! Roll it out with a rolling pin to 2cm thickness. 

6) To cut out the shapes, make a small mound of plain flour on the work surface next to the rolled out dough and dip a heart-shaped cookie cutter (approx. 6cm is a good size) into it. Using the floured cutter, cut out a shape in the dough, reflour the cutter and repeat till you have 12 scones. Any extra dough can be rolled out again to make more scones.

7) Use a fish slice or palette knife to life up each heart-shaped piece of dough and place on the prepared baking tray with a gap of a few inches from each other.

8) Glaze each scone lightly with the remaining egg and a pastry brush and bake for 10-12 minutes until the tops and edges have coloured lightly. Once baked, place them to cool on the tray for 10 minutes before moving onto a wire rack to cool completely. Mix the icing sugar and freeze dried raspberry powder together to make a pretty pink powder and sift over the heart-shaped scones. 

These look gorgeous every step of the way and are a real joy to make. And obviously, they're scrumptious when served with jam and clotted cream, whichever way you choose to do it!

Lots of heart-shaped sconey love,

Reshmi xoxo