The Fluffiest Scones You'll Ever Make

I love scones. As a young child I used to bake them with my grandma almost every weekend so my grandad could have fresh scones with a cup of tea in the afternoons. As I've grown up, I bake them less and less, but I still enjoy making them now and then. I've been experimenting with a couple of different recipes over the last couple of years, changing quantities and adding different ingredients, and I've finally found one that gives me perfect scones every time. The secret is to add extra baking powder into the flour, as it makes them extra fluffy and delicious. 

Start off by preheating your oven to 200C. Tip the self-raising flour into a large mixing bowl (no need to sieve), and mix in the salt and the baking powder. Make sure your teaspoon is level when measuring out the baking powder as you can taste it if you use too much, but you want enough of it because this makes the scones nice and fluffy.

Cut the butter into small chunks and rub in until the mix looks like fine bread crumbs. Top tip - shake the bowl to see if all the butter has been rubbed in as the larger crumbs rise to the top of the bowl. Stir in the sugar.

Measure the milk into a jug, and add bit by bit into the dry mixture. Part way through, add in the vanilla extract and stir into the mixture. Carry on adding in the milk until the mixture is quite wet (but not sloppy). Use your hands to 'knead' the dough until all the liquid is absorbed and it is no longer wet - the dough should be smooth. If you have added too much milk, mix in a little more flour - but not too much. 

Tip onto a clean work surface and use your hands to pat the dough until it's just over an inch thick. Take a smooth cutter (they give a better rise), roughly 5cm in diameter, and cut out your scone. Repeat until you have 12 scones. Place the scones onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, and use a pastry brush (or your finger) to brush milk over the tops of the scones. Be careful not to let it run down the side of the scones as it can burn when in the oven. 

Place on the middle shelf of your preheated oven, and after 15-17 minutes they will be nice and golden! I usually find that most of them are done after 15, but one or two need an extra couple of minutes to finish off! If you can wait long enough, allow them to cool and enjoy with clotted cream and jam. If you don't manage to eat them all within 10 minutes of them coming out of the oven, you can freeze any leftover scones. When defrosting, allow to thaw thoroughly and pop in a low oven (approx 150C) for a couple of minutes to warm through.  

As always, I love it when you send me photos of your baking on Twitter - so if you make these please send me a snap!

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The Basics: Google Analytics

Oh Google Analytics you confusing little thing you. When I first discovered it I was so hopelessly lost, with all the numbers and graphs, I had no idea what I was looking at. So instead I stuck to the stats provided by my old friend Blogger, and ignored those provided to me by Google Analytics. After years of trying to get on with it, I finally feel like I understand the sheer basics. So I thought I'd write this post especially for those of you that are in the same boat I was, in the sheer hope that it gives you even the slightest clue to what you're looking at. 

Audience Overview // When you first open up Google Analytics this is the first page that loads up. You can recognise which page this is by the fact that it has a big graph and lots of smaller boxes. The smaller boxes tell you various things and you can select a period (and even compare it to a previous one), and it will show you several figures such as the number of users, sessions, page views, and page views per session:  

Sessions // If you don't understand what sessions are, think of them as visits. One session is where one person has visited your blog without closing the tab. If they happen to close your website and then reopen it, you class that as another session, so you would have two (and so on).  

Users // Google Analytics tracks each individual user by their IP address. So each user is a different individual. So if 100 people read your blog, you will have 100 users. 

Page views // This is the total number of pages visited on your website. 

Pages per session // I feel as though this one is pretty self-explanatory. It is the average number of pages someone views when they click onto your website.

Average session duration // Again pretty self-explanatory, but the amount of time someone spends on your blog per visit.

Bounce rate // The rate at which someone clicks on your blog and then 'bounces' back onto the page they were previously viewing. 

New session percentage // The percentage of new visits compared to returning visits. 

Acquisition // Acquisition is basically where all your traffic comes from, or how you 'acquire' it. I find this really useful as it allows you to see which social media platforms you should concentrate on. For example, if you get most of your traffic from Twitter but only tweet once a week, you should start upping your Twitter game. 

All traffic > Source/Medium // This handy little page gives you a list of all that websites that have directed traffic to your blog. It will most likely mention the likes of Bloglovin, organic Google searches, and direct traffic.

Behaviour // Behaviour is useful for getting to know what people are doing whilst they visit your blog. 

Site content > All Pages // This is where you can see what is most popular on your blog. This page displays the most viewed pages on your blog. Usually the homepage (e.g. www.charlottesophiaroberts.co.uk) is displayed first followed by a forward slash ('/').  

Behaviour > Site Speed // Allow not as important as some of the other statistics available on Google Analytics, site speed allows you to see how long it takes to load your website on someone's device. Ideally you are supposed to make sure that your website loads in under 6 seconds. Any slower than this an you may want to consider reducing your image file sizes and getting rid of any unnecessary widgets. 

How do you get on with Google Analytics?

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Meet My Plants

If I am completely honest, I thought I'd be slightly lazy with today's post and stick to pictures as the theme of the post is quite self explanatory (and because I'm one busy lady this week). It's probably quite well known that I LOVE plants. I have quite a few, and I thought I would be completely different and 'alternative' and do a little post introducing my favourites to you! I have others that aren't in proper pots which I may introduce at a later date, but these are my named plants. I even have each of their names written on the bottom of their pots!

First up are my miniature cacti and succulents from Ikea. This are quite a cult favourite as they are pretty cheap and come ready to go in cute little pots. After painstaking hours of research, I have come up with names for most of them, but I am not 100% as I have just been going off photos from cacti identification websites - so if you know the actual species plz help a girl out. 

To the left there is Cornelius, which I believe to be a 'Cereus Jamacaru Monstrosus'. Then in the middle there is Clive, which I can't even guess a species because I have never seen anything like him since, and the CactiGuide.com turned up no results. And finally there is Oswald, who could either be a 'Discocactus zehntneri' or a 'Eriosyce engleri' - but I have no idea because Oswald looks like pretty much every single cacti species ever. #typical 

On the left is Eugene, which I believe is an 'Austrocylindropuntia vestita' (bit of a mouthful lol). Then there is Sigmund (named after Freud bc of his shape obv) which I think is a 'Stenocereus stellatus'. And finally there's Lorelai, a potential 'Micropuntia tuberculosis rhopalic' which is my favourite of the lot!

Onto plants that I actually know the names of, I have a gorgeous spider plant that I named Sid. Specifically Sid is a 'Chlorophytum comosum' which is a good variety, as the colour of the leaves fade when it needs watering. My mum has one of the same variety in the kitchen, but she used to have another one that looked really weedy and pale, so she got rid of it and bought one like Sid. 

Finally we have Esther, a 'succulent crassula' which was originally three times the size of what she is now, but she developed some kind of fungus, and I was only able to rescue and treat this much of her so the pot looks a little empty now. Then there's the geniously named Spike which is a 'succulent haworthia'. My mum actually named Spike, but I liked it so it stuck! And thats it for now!

Do you have any plants?

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