Waterfalls and Wild Garlic - A Walk and a Recipe (2024)

by Chris Mosler

Yesterday my very lovely friend Sue took me and my boy to see the wonderful waterfall walk she and her boy had recently discovered. We were captivated!

While I was clicking away and dreaming Dingly Dell dreams of fairy folk (look, there’s even a window frame to peep through!)…

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…they were climbing the falls like a pair of mountain goats!

Leaving Sue and I to clamber up in their wakes! They built dams and redirected the water and then indulged in a bit of dam busting allowing the water to gush back down the hillside in a satisfying torrent.

They found sticks and set off to search for treasure

The water had calcified everything it touched so the treasure trove was brilliant! These were beech leaves before the fairies worked their magic encasing them in brittle stony jackets

and this looks to have been a little bundle of roots

As we wandered slowly homewards with our hoard we came upon a carpet of green leaves and the unmistakable smell of wild garlic – my idea of heaven. We stuffed a bag to bursting point, Bonus Boy snacked on a few leaves and then made himself a sandwich of the lovely stuff with the bread and cheese I had packed for lunch!

Once home, I washed it, dried it, whizzed a huge bunch up into a pesto, kept another bunch aside for tonight’s dinner (recipe to follow) and used a large handful to make these!

If you make my recipe I’d love to hear how it turns out for you. Please leave a comment and a star rating below and share your pictures with me on social media. Tag me @thinlyspread and include the hashtag #thinlyspread so I can see them!

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Cheese and Wild Garlic Scones

220g self-raising flour ½ teaspoon fine sea salt 50g butter 1 egg beaten Milk 120g grated cheddar cheese a generous handful of wild garlic, finely chopped (if you haven't got any wild garlic snipped chives work well instead) a pinch of cayenne pepper a good pinch of English mustard powder

5 from 1 vote

Print Pin Rate

Cuisine: English

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 6

Calories: 229kcal

Author: Chris Mosler | Thinly Spread

Ingredients

220 g self-raising flour
½ tsp fine sea salt
50 g butter
1 egg beaten
120 g cheddar cheese grated
A generous handful of wild garlic
A pinch of cayenne pepper
A good pinch of English mustard powder

UK Measurements - US Measurements

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F
Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl
Rub the butter in until it resembles fine breadcrumbs
Stir in the grated cheese and finely chopped wild garlic or chives
Add the pepper and mustard and mix
Add enough milk to the beaten egg to make it up to 150ml/0.65 cups of liquid
Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the egg/milk mixture
See Also
The Best Cranberry Scones Recipe - An Italian in my Kitchen Biscoff Glazed Gingerbread Scones Recipe ~ two sugar bugs Rock%20Cakes%20Mary%20Berry%20(Easy%20Recipe)The Best Cake Recipes
Mix to a soft dough with a metal knife
Turn onto a floured surface and knead gently and lightly until it is just smooth
Press out to a round about 2½cm deep and cut out rounds with a 7cm pastry cutter gathering the scraps together each time, re-rolling and stamping until you have 6 or 7 scones (and maybe a teeny one, Bonus Boy's 'Special')
Pop the scones onto a lightly oiled baking sheet, brush the tops with a little milk and bake them for 15 - 20 minutes until well risen and golden brown and your kitchen smells divine
Leave to cool on a wire rack or scoff straight from the oven!

Notes

Nutritional information is only an approximate guideline. Calculations will vary according to the ingredients you use and your cooking methods.

Nutrition

Like this recipe?Follow @ThinlySpread or tag #thinlyspread!

Spending a day with friends in the wood and returning home with a bag full of wild, foraged food is hard to beat. The washing machine is full of muddy clothes, our boots are drying in the sunshine and we both went to bed with smiles on our faces and nice full tummies. We’re going back with the others soon, Bonus Boy is desperate to show them the magical dingly dell and I love that he wants to share it with them!

Edit on the eve of the day of posting: I have realised that many of you are not sure what to look for. Wild garlic is an easy first forage, if in doubt you really can just follow your nose. If you’re really not sure, this post has a good image of the lovely stuff. It’s not in flower here quite yet so I only picked the new young leaves but I shall be back soon to pick more and the flowers which are pretty and also edible!

(Mostly) Yummy Mummy on April 11, 2013 at 5:50 pm
What a lovely day and those scones just look amazing! I have a bit of a silly question though, which part of the wild garlic do you eat? The leafy bits or flowery bits?

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- Chris on April 11, 2013 at 5:52 pm
  Both! Not a silly question at all, it’s like chives you eat the bits above ground rather than the bulb underneath!
  
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HELEN on April 11, 2013 at 5:25 pm
those scones look amazing! I don’t think I even know what wild garlic looks like…I need to rectify that soon!

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- Chris on April 11, 2013 at 5:46 pm
  It is SO easy to spot Helen…you just follow your nose!
  
  Reply
Brinabird and Son on April 11, 2013 at 5:36 pm
Need to find a walk with a river so we can start practising building dams with my wee man! Sounds like so much fun. Those scones look rather appetising!

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- Chris on April 11, 2013 at 5:48 pm
  You do! We had such a lovely time. Little rivulets emptying on to beaches are good for damming too 🙂
  
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The Fool on April 11, 2013 at 5:45 pm
Ok these scones sound AWESOME
Love the idea of foraging just not that confident of what to look for..

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- Chris on April 11, 2013 at 5:49 pm
  Wild garlic is an easy one too start with because you really can just follow your nose. Look it up on google images it is quite obvious when you’re in woodland and you can do the nose check just to be sure.
  
  Reply
Purplemum on April 11, 2013 at 7:29 pm
What a wonderful post. Sounds like a perfect walk followed by delicious food which is my idea of a perfect day. Wild garlic pesto sounds divine, we need the recipe for that.

Reply
See Also
Easy Cheese and Bacon Scones Recipe
Agnieszka Jarecka-Griffiths on April 11, 2013 at 7:26 pm
It’s a very beautiful place 🙂 It looks a bit like something from the Lord of the Rings 🙂 Scones – definitely a must try.

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Domestic Goddesque on April 12, 2013 at 7:56 am
Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow. Now, can I buy this garlicky stuff in Waitrose? #citygirl 😀

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Veronica Cloubusta on April 13, 2013 at 10:48 am
I love days like that. What a beautiful place and those scones look delish!

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- Chris on April 13, 2013 at 10:57 am
  They really were, I’m going back for more as soon as possible. Bonus Boy would be there now if everyone else wasn’t doing ‘stuff’!
  
  Reply
Hayley on April 13, 2013 at 10:23 pm
I would never think to use wild garlic but the scones look delicious!
Over from Country Kids.

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Iota on April 14, 2013 at 6:50 am
That post sent me off exploring your blog to see if I could find out whereabouts you live! Thanks for the info in the “About” section. Specific enough to assuage my curiosity.

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Coombemill on April 14, 2013 at 11:28 am
We have lots of wild garlic in the hedgerows and how stupid, I have never thought to use it in cooking! I shall be borrowing this scones recipe, as yours have risen to perfection. Your special waterfall really reminds me of the babbling brook at Coombe Mill, the children here spend hours making dams in it in the summer, this has made for such a lovely post of enjoying nature in every way. Thank you for joining me on Country Kids.

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Emma T on April 14, 2013 at 7:14 pm
Ooh, loved building dams in the local stream when we were kids. Looking forward to taking my son on trips like yours when he’s a bit older.

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The Mum with the Silk Scarf on April 15, 2013 at 8:34 am
Lovely photos and post, looks like loads of fun finished off with some great scones – must try out your recipe it sounds delicious.

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Amy at Qmee on April 16, 2013 at 10:27 am
Just stumbled across this, far too early for lunch and my mouth is watering!

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- Chris on April 16, 2013 at 8:46 pm
  Hoorah! My work here is done! 😉
  
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Sonya Cisco on April 18, 2013 at 8:40 pm
Oh gosh those scones look incredible!!

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Michelle | The American Resident on April 24, 2013 at 6:37 pm
The scones look wonderful and I’ve just copied and pasted. I also love the Dingly Dell! We have a woodland walk behind our house that is thick with wild garlic every year, but I had no idea you could use the leaves like chives!! I shall collect some leaves this very weekend! x

Reply
- Chris on April 24, 2013 at 8:47 pm
  Hoorah! I LOVE that this post has made so many people set off to forage! 🙂
  
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Mary Keynko on May 3, 2013 at 10:30 am
The scones look lovely! And the waterfall is beautiful! I love hedgerow foods, tastes so much better knowing it was free!

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Emma on May 3, 2013 at 6:23 pm
Oh my goodness they look delicious! And what gorgeous gorgeous pictures! It looks like a beautiful place! 🙂

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Michelle | The American Resident on May 4, 2013 at 6:07 pm
Perfect for this linky, Chris! Thank you for joining in!! x

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Ruth on May 6, 2013 at 8:06 am
You’ve got me signing wistfully here – what I wouldn’t give for some time in the Dingly Dell! Looks like a fab family walk, and what a bonus to find all that garlic. Lovely 🙂 x

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HodgePodgeDays on March 27, 2015 at 5:50 pm
Having foraged this afternoon for some wild garlic for this recipe I can confirm that these are the best scones ever. I’m having them for tea with some tomato soup, simple but pretty much perfect, thank you so much for the inspiration!

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Choclette on April 7, 2016 at 4:09 pm
The walk looks lovely and the calcified leaves so interesting. Those scones look very enticing too. I made some wild garlic scones yesterday and reckoned they were the best savoury scones I’ve ever eaten.

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Robert lloyd on May 1, 2023 at 7:50 am

Great Recipe

Reply

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