After more than a month of testing scone recipes, Valerie Thomas still wasn’t convinced she had a batch worth entering in Anglicare Sydney’s Great Scone Bakeoff. The 83 year old had been experimenting at home, sharing the results with a friend on Sunday mornings, but her confidence hadn’t caught up with her baking.

With the competition approaching, she went to the village manager at St Stephen’s Village in Penrith and asked to withdraw.

“I wanted to pull out and I went to my Village Manager here, and I said, ‘Look, I haven’t got it right. I want to pull out,’” Valerie says.

“She said, ‘It’s too late to pull out.’ So, I just put it in.”

That decision paid off when Valerie was crowned the scone winner. She also took home the inaugural prize for best jam, making it a double victory for someone who had been worried about entering at all.

“I had no inkling I was going to win. Honestly, I really didn’t think I’d get anywhere. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself, so it’s been a good surprise.”

Now in its seventh year, the competition involves residents baking a dozen scones or preparing a jar of jam at home before bringing their entries along for judging.

Among this year’s other entrants was 101-year-old resident Marie Arnott, who is related to the Arnott’s biscuit family. While Marie brought a connection to one of Australia’s best known baking names, Valerie’s winning entry grew out of recipes she had been making for her own family for years.

“I think I did scones once I got married and I had a family, and I would make scones for them,” Valerie says.

“My kids just loved them with the jam and cream. If they were around the kitchen with me, they would sometimes help out.”

Preparing for the competition gave her a reason to revisit her approach. She started with a traditional recipe using butter and milk, before curiosity led her to try something different.

“I heard a lot about lemonade. So, the next time I tried lemonade, and it seemed to make them lighter and fluffier,” she says.

“Then another time I put cream in, and that made them good too. And so I thought I’d go with that!”

The testing helped her settle on the combination she wanted to enter, although she says ingredients are only part of getting a good result. Her advice for home bakers is to resist the temptation to keep working the dough.

“People shouldn’t handle the scones too much, that’s what I have learned. You also have to make sure the temperature’s right in the oven and cut them out straight.”

For her jam entry, Valerie consulted an old favourite, The Commonsense Cookery Book, then adjusted the recipe to suit her preferences by leaving out a cup of sugar.

The lemon juice gave her more reason to question whether she had got the balance right, although the people who sampled it were encouraging.

“The recipe calls for lemon juice, and I thought I might have had a bit too much lemon as it had a lemon flavour,” she says.

“I did give it to a couple of people, and they said it was different, but it was nice. I guess that might be the secret, because I won.”

For Valerie, baking remains something she enjoys doing for other people, whether they are friends dropping in or whoever happens to be around. Winning both categories has given her a welcome boost, but there is still a familiar reason to turn on the oven.

“It’s fun to bake, and I will bake for friends or whoever’s round,” she says. “I will always bake when I know someone’s coming around so that we’ve got something to enjoy.”

Does this story have you dreaming of scones? Why not make a batch of these Extra-Fluffy homemade scones