PICNIC LIKE THE FAMOUS FIVE

RECIPES BY THE TELEGRAPH’S DIANA HENRY

Buttermilk scones

275g plain flour 1 tbsp baking powder 65g cold butter, cut into cubes 30g cold lard, cut into cubes ½ tbsp caster sugar (increase this up to 1 tbsp if you want them sweeter) 175ml buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.

Sift the flour, baking powder and one teaspoon of salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and lard and rub them into the dry ingredients using your fingers until the mixture resembles a bowl of breadcrumbs. Mix in the sugar.

Add the buttermilk and stir the ingredients together with a knife, then bring the mixture together with your hands, working quickly but lightly to form a dough. Don’t overwork the dough; put it on a lightly floured surface and gently press it out to about 1.5cm thick.

Use a 6cm cookie cutter to stamp out 10 scones (you’ll have to gather and re-roll the dough to make the last few).

Cook on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment for 20 minutes. The scones should be risen and golden on top.

Ginger iced tea

Ginger beer is tricky to make – my last batch exploded. So here is a delicious, foolproof alternative. 600ml darjeeling tea 4cm piece root ginger, peeled and thinly sliced juice of 3 lemons 3 tbsp caster sugar (or to taste) 700ml freshly squeezed orange juice 1.2 litres ginger ale slices of lemon or orange, to garnish handful of mint leaves, to garnish

Put the tea in a saucepan and add the ginger. Bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for about four minutes.

Take off the heat, leave until completely cold, then strain.

Mix the lemon juice with the sugar, stirring to dissolve.

Now mix this into the gingery tea with the orange juice and ginger ale.

Taste for sweetness. You may also want to add a little more orange juice or ginger ale.

Pour into a jug full of ice cubes. Add slices of lemon or orange and a big handful of mint leaves just before serving. more Greek myth than Enid Blyton. Finally, we stumble, exhausted, into West Lulworth and treat ourselves to ice creams and a swim in the deliciously cold sea.

On our last morning, we catch a ferry to Sandbanks and take a second short boat trip to Brownsea Island, the inspiration for Whispering Island in Five Have a Mystery to Solve. In the Twenties, Mary Florence Bonham Christie, Brownsea’s owner, evicted all the inhabitants from their homes and allowed nature to reclaim the island. Although not quite the forbidding place of Blyton’s books, the isle, now owned by the National Trust, gives us an uneasy feeling.

A huge tree clearance programme is under way and the island is scattered with the silvery corpses of felled trees. It’s a slightly unsettling end to our trip, but as Blyton herself knew, all good stories need light and shade.

“I somehow feel more English for having seen those Dorset fields, surrounded by hedges, basking in the sun,” says Julian in Five Have a Mystery to Solve. We certainly did. Perhaps that’s what appealed to Blyton. And like her, I suspect we’ll return.

The Carter Company’s four-day Enid Blyton’s Dorset trip is £975 per person, half board, staying at Knoll House Hotel in Studland (01296 631671: the-cartercompany.com); price includes maps of the route and cycle hire. For Fiona Duncan’s review of Knoll House, see telegraph.co.uk/tt-knollhouse