Agatha Christie's Heirloom Recipe
Fig & Orange Scones
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Difficulty: Peasy
Pans required: 1 Legacy Pan
There had been ten scones.
He was certain of it.
The recipe was Agatha Christie’s. And Agatha was famously precise. If she wrote serves ten, she meant serves ten.
He counted again.
Nine.
How strange.
“Is anyone in the house?” he called.
No answer.
The back door was shut. The windows locked. He touched the pan. Still warm.
Was it a clue? Hard to say. He had never seen a clue.
He checked the recipe again. Two cups of flour. One hundred and fifteen grams of cold butter. A pinch of salt. Just enough buttermilk to bring it together. He had followed it exactly.
One could not serve nine scones to a vicar.
He did not know any vicars. But surely there were rules. Ten was etiquette. Nine was suspicious.
He would have to even them out.
He picked up one of the fragrant rounds, buttered it, and let it dissolve on his tongue.
He looked back at the plate.
Five.
It had happened again.
Something was very wrong.
He would get to the bottom of it.
But first, another scone.
You can't solve a mystery on an empty stomach.
Welcome back to Heirloom Recipes. The Ironclad series that recreates the favourite recipes of the world’s most fascinating people. Meals that reveal the human behind the fame.
We’ve stirred Johnny Cash’s chilli. Slurped Al Capone's spaghetti. And flipped Rosa Parks’ pancakes.
Today we creep into the kitchen of a writer who made a career out of tea, scones, and polite murder.
Agatha Christie lived an extraordinary life long before anyone called her the Queen of Crime. She was a nurse in the First World War, a pharmacist who learned exactly how to poison people, an archaeologist’s wife who spent years living on dusty dig sites, and a woman who once vanished for eleven mysterious days and never explained where she’d been.
Through all of it, she adored the small, steady rituals of a British teatime. A pot of strong tea. A plate of warm scones. A quiet moment before inventing another spectacularly complicated murder.
Ingredients
2 c white flour
¼ c sugar
1½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp salt
115 g cold butter, cut into small chunks
1 egg
½ c buttermilk
1 tbsp orange zest
1 c fresh or preserved figs, chopped into quarters
Extra flour for the table
Method
Heat oven to 225°C.
Combine the dry ingredients, then rub the butter in with your fingers until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.
Whisk together the egg, buttermilk and orange zest, and lightly fold into the buttery flour until just combined. Lastly, add the fresh figs and mix very gently, making sure you don’t break up all the fig flesh.
The mixture will be quite sticky, so liberally flour the benchtop and gently form the dough into a rectangle about 2 cm thick. Sprinkle extra flour on top if your hands are sticking.
Lightly grease your Ironclad Grande Pan or Legacy Pans.
Using a sharp cookie cutter, cut into 10 rounds and place all 10 in the Grande Pan, or 5 each in the Legacy. You’ll cut the first 6 out, then gently reform the dough to make the remaining 4.
Bake for 10 minutes.
Serve warm with whipped or clotted cream and extra figgy goodness on top.
Every great recipe deserves a soundtrack.
Here’s a playlist to cook along to. Music Agatha Christie was known to enjoy, alongside songs from her era. Press play, pour the tea, and let the plotting begin. Listen on Spotify.
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Heirloom Recipes is an independent editorial series inspired by recipes and stories in the public domain. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any individual, family, or estate featured. These recipes are our adaptations, created with care and respect for the lives behind them.
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