The other weekend one of my sisters came over to visit me in London (that’s her in the photo holding the tray of scones).

A visitor is always a good reason to get baking, especially if they stay over night and you are going to have a leisurely brunch with them. A batch of home baked treats are a great way to make visitors feel welcome and scones are a quick and easy bake that you can’t do much wrong with, so give it a go.

The hazelnut-chocolate scones here are American scones and I therefore like to cut them in to triangles like they do over there, as opposed to British scones which are usually cut into circles. Of course you can cut them into whatever shape you fancy – squares maybe!?

For 8 scones you’ll need:

• 280g plain flour, plus a little extra
• 60g sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• a good pinch of salt
• 90g cold butter
• 120ml buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp of molasses syrup (maple and treacle also work)
• 100g chocolate (I used 70% dark chocolate but if you want it sweeter go for 50 – 65% milk chocolate)
• 55g whole, skinned hazelnuts

Roast the hazelnuts in a pan and ensure you keep moving the hazelnuts around as they otherwise easily burn. Once they have taken on a little colour take them out of the pan onto a chopping board and roughly chop them.

Chop up the chocolate into chunks of roughly the same size or a little bigger.

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a baking tray with baking paper.

In a big bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb of soda and salt with a spoon. Add the butter, in little pieces and then get your hands inside to rub the butter into the flour mix until you have a crumbly mixture.

In a jug whisk the buttermilk, egg and syrup together, using a balloon whisk. Pour this liquid into the bowl with the dry flour crumbs, add the chopped chocolate and hazelnuts and quickly combine everything with a fork or spoon – only until just combined. You want a lumpy dough!

Tip the dough onto a floured surface and form a big circle with a thickness of around 2cm.

Cut this circle into eight triangles like you would cut a cake into eight pieces and line those on your prepared baking tray.

Bake for 20minutes until the have got a nice golden colour and the chocolate has started to ooze out of them.

Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes on a wire rack before tucking in!