Scones!

Probably the item you're most likely to see accompanying tea in the Afternoon Tea menu, what would life be without scones? Personally I prefer blueberry or pumpkin, depending on the season. What's your favorite kind of scone?

Plain ones, with currants in them, dripping with butter and jam. Sometimes mascarpone (a lovely Italian cream cheese) instead of butter.

Although I once tried some molasses scones that were very nice.

Plain, split with butter (or better still clotted cream!) and homemade jam -- I also enjoy cheese or current.

I have by chance gotten an entire half-gallon of unpasturized milk, so I plan to make myself a good batch of clotted cream! So, I agree with b'besotted - plain with clotted cream and jam :)

Plain with red jam (raspberry, blueberry or cherry) and cream. Or if its pumpkin scones or ones with currants, sultanas etc I prefer with just butter. And the scones need to be slightly warmed before serving :)

Plain or cinnamon slightly warm, with butter or clotted cream or marscapone (I love some dairy fat) or alternately a little marmalade or lemon curd or a good tart raspberry or huckleberry jam.

I love the plain ones - I put apple butter on them. Lovely!

Hot scones are wonderful with butter and warmed maple syrup :-)

You all are making me ravenous!!! :-D

Where's that napkin?

Lemonade scones.................mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm to die for!

Favorite sweet: orange and cranberry with clotted cream,
Favorite savory: bacon and cheddar scones, there's a place here called Central Market that makes THE most wonderful ones

Any are good if they're hot, (with the exception of the green tea ones at a Starbucks in Japan, not everuthing needs to come in green tea flavor) although I'm really partial to these cheese ones they had at a bakery I lived near. I've yet to perfect the recipe at home, but maybe one day and in the meantime I keep my family and friends well fed. I also like these cranberry, white chocolate, walnut ones that my friend makes. She also makes incredible plain ones and then we put strawberry preserves and whipped cream on them. It always makes me think of strawberry shortcake. Now I'm hungry.

Warm scones, with butter, any flavour, home made....yum! Nigella Lawson has a great recipe in How to be a Domestic Goddess one of the better scone recipes I've encountered.

I've made those, they really are good. I love Nigella Lawson recipes for tons of other stuff too though.

To bake scones, should I buy a scone pan or just use a round pan and cut the pastry into wedges? I haven't tried baking scones yet, but I'd like to!

Oh the horror, the horror!

Scones should be circular in shape. You cut the rounds out of the uncooked scone dough and put them in the oven. I've only ever encountered these strange wedge-shaped scones in Starbucks in Japan.

LOL! I always thought they were triangular in shape!! What do you cut them with? How big are they?

By the way, is the Starbucks coffee in Japan as horrible as the Starbucks coffee here in the US?

Yes it is. I only went there because unfortunately they had the only espresso machines in my entire town. Alas.
I refused to eat the scones there based on shape alone.

As for home made scones, they can be any size you like really. They're usually about 2 inches across, or more if you like. I use either a lightly floured glass or egg rings. Anything circular and about the right size is fine.

The real trick with scone dough is to not knead it more than necessary. The first lot of scones you cut out before you smush the mixture back and flatten it again are always the best. The others won't rise as well so make sure you get as many scones cut the first time round as possible.

Good luck!

I refused to eat the scones there based on shape alone.

LOL!

I looked into my The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion and found some scone recipes. Some recipes say to make the scones round; other say to cut them in wedges (Sorry!).

What are egg rings?

They're round metal rings which you can use when you're cooking eggs in a pan so that they stay round and don't spread out.

You can also buy scone cutters here, but I suspect they might be harder to find in your part of the world. A round cookie cutter will do just as well.

I pat the dough in a rough circle and cut it in wedges, that's the way my Grandmother did it. She read tea leaves too.

--> 21

If I make scones, do I have to find someone to read my tea leaves as well?! ;-)

Green tea scones sound really bad, lol! If/when I ever find myself in Japan again I'll forgo scones and stick to custard cream donuts from the Mister Donut outlets...mmm.

For cutting out the scones I just usually grab the nearest juice glass and use that. works a charm. I have also seen recipes where they are wedge shaped, although I tend to see that more with shortbread.

Edited to add: Shortbread also goes lovely with a cup of tea. MMMmmmmm buttery goodness

Because of this thread I am now going to have to go and make scones. Which means I have to trek out to the shops to get cream and jam...sigh. So much for a nice relaxing day at home.

Shortbread I have made. Double yum!!

I live in the Seattle area and there is a company that makes Peach and Passionfruit scones..they're not conventional but they are incredibly good. They're more of a cakelike consistency though, and the "frosting" on top is passionfruit flavor. They're sort of round but are more uneven shape, kinds like drop cookies.

Unfortunately they don't ship well. :/

For some reason no matter where I live I seem to always be unable to get at least one thing that I like in the snack department without a lot of work. When I'm home in the US I can't get Jammie Dodgers or English type biscuits, and when I'm in the UK I can't get proper cookies or US type biscuits since when I describe them everyone assumes I'm talking about scones. Ah well, I did find a place to order Jammie Dodgers online even if it's going to cost more in shipping than to actually buy them. Anyone else have this sort of problem?

>#28 sydaisy

YES! I am always and forever on a hunt to get Jammie Dodgers. Even the stores in my area that specialize in British goods don't carry them. :(

My favourite has to be the raspberry/white chocolate chip scones that my dad makes. 8D

I did it! I baked some!! They came out fabulous and were truly delicious. Now I'm going to be making them in a variety of flavors. I soooo love to bake.

Scones will be better for my weight loss because they are not as sweet as muffins (which I sometimes have for breakfast). Thank you, ladygata, for having started this thread.

I made Cranberry-Orange scones. Okay. I'll admit that I made them into wedges because that was less work. :-) *dodging stale scones*

I'm loving this thread. I've tried several different recipes myself, and have yet to find one I really like. And off the top of my head I can think of at least 4 fairly distinct pastries called "scones" around here. One from the local bakery is dry, dense, slightly sweet, full of black currants, and dusted with powered sugar. Good, but only if you get and eat them fresh. Even a day later they are too dry. Triangular.

There is my favorite tea shop that has round ones, somewhere between a muffin and a crumbly biscuit (and not the British version of biscuit), fully of some sort of fruit, brushed with an egg wash so it is all golden, and served with Devonshire cream.

Most of the grocery stores sell a wedge-shaped scone (obviously cut from a larger round just before baking) that is very sweet, often covered with rocks of sugar, and usually kind of gummy-soft in the middle. Not my favorite, but dang, the ones with papaya chunks! Yummy!

And then there is the BBQ place that offers a "scone" as a side. It is a very light a fluffy biscuit served with whipped butter & honey. Basically a light doughy conveyance for fat and sugar, that probably no on on this list would remotely recognize as a "scone".

Just as Douglas Adams conjectured that every culture eventually invents a drink called a Gin and Tonic where the only similarities are the name and that it is a drink, perhaps every one also eventually invents a pastry called a scone.

"Just as Douglas Adams conjectured that every culture eventually invents a drink called a Gin and Tonic where the only similarities are the name and that it is a drink, perhaps every one also eventually invents a pastry called a scone."

I think the same about biscuits. Biscuit in US= yummy plain sconish type thing that I'm still not sure what the equivalent is in the UK.
Biscuit in UK= something between cookies and crackers which most types of are difficult to get in the US. I really miss those rolls of chocolate biscuits from Tesco.

I'm so glad you're all enjoying this thread. I baked scones over the weekend for a tea party at my home (a first, and it turned out to be a really good time), and it really is satisfying to sit down to a fresh scone with a nice dollop of clotted cream/lemon curd/jam, depending on the type of scone. As my brother-in-law says, "Scones are the food of the gods". I guess tea would be the nectar then.

I love scones to eat and love to bake them. I have a recipe for buttermilk scones and I love them with blueberries in them and then swimming in butter and hot out of the oven.

Actually I like just about any kind. One of the best ones I ever had was in Ireland at the end of Dunloe Gap outside of Killarney in a small tea room. It was a plain scone with strawberry jam and clotted cream! Yum!

plain scones, with butter and jam. hopefully, some homemade black current jam that my cousin sent home with me after a visit to Ireland..the best.

as to shape...I have always made them in a triangle shape. when you roll out the dough, triangles result in no 'wastage' that needs to be re-rolled to form. my mother always said that minimal handling results in a more tender product.

Yea, the recipes always say to work quickly when forming the scones. Mine turn out to see a rounded out triangle. They rarely get thick enough to cut in half in the middle.

Ooh the best scones I had were in London during winter in a hotel in Mayfair. Plain with butter and jam and tea... Good God! They were delicious!

From my recent trip to England, my favorites remain the ones served in the Cafe in the Crypt in St. Martin's in the Fields - not the fanciest of locations, but delightful, fluffy scones.

Oh darn! I was right there and had heard of the cafe in the crypt but missed another opportunity for scones.

I did discover welshcakes though which are also delightful ooh and Welsh rarebit.

Fluffy scones...ohhh...

my cousin and her husband from Ireland were visiting this weekend so I whipped up a batch of scones. (among a number of other baked goods..) 15 minutes from start to finish and very, very nice, warm, just out of the oven.

I loved the scones with jam and clotted cream I had the blustery afternoon I climbed Warwick Castle's ramparts--a perfect cream tea that lives in my memory, though it was ten years ago.

A completely different but still delicious scone was sold by the deli where I used to live in Connecticut; it was one of those triangular-shaped varieties with cranberries and orange zest and powdered sugar on top; I usually managed to turn up when they were still warm from the oven.

Oh my, fluffy scones! It's quite cold here today and I may just need to dig through my cookbooks and whip a batch up for myself! I have some fresh cranberries to boot.

ok much to my embarassment, I tore through my numerous cookbooks and not one scone recipe. If any of my fellow tea drinkers would share, I would be so happy:) And do I need to order some British clotted cream or can I make it out of heavy whipping cream?

Lots of recipes on the web! :-)

For starters:

http://www.epicurious.com/tools/searchresults?search=scone&x=0&y=0

There is a way for us poor non-Brits to make clotted cream, but it isn't easy--I think you have to start with unpasturized milk and there's some complicated heating process to get it right . . . far easier to order it on the web.

As with most of the things worth having in life, you can order it on Amazon. (As an example: Used tonight for the first time my new immersion blender. It is splendiferous, as was the curried butternut squash-apple soup it pureed for me.) Alas, no scones were involved in an otherwise really good dinner.

I am a scone purist...no additions, no flavors. Just scone.

1 ¾ cups flour
1 ½ tsp. double acting baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 Tbs. sugar + 2 Tbs. sugar
6 Tbs. butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425º. Grease cookie sheet. With a fork, mix flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut butter unto the flour mixture with a pastry cutter or two knives scissor fashion until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
In a cup beat eggs, reserving 1 Tbs.
Stir milk into the remaining beaten eggs, and stir into flour mixture just until well mixed.
Turn dough onto well floured surface rolling lightly into a 9” x 6” rectangle, ½ “ thick. Cut into 3” squares, then each square into 2 triangles. Place triangles 1” apart on cookie sheet, brushing with the retained egg and sprinkle with 2 Tbs. sugar.
Bake 10-15 minutes, until golden

Staffordcastle, you really seem to know where to find these things online. I was overcomplicating the search I think by only checking tea houses & such for the recipes. I'm still hoping my husband buys me that Brown Betty teapot for x-mas.

#48 thank you. I am going to try your recipe on Sunday, I made one yesterday from 'whispering heavens tea room' and it was strange. No eggs, and very heavy, I added choc. chips and felt like I was eating raw cookies. Looking forward to the triangles, up here they all look like giant oblong biscuits. And I def. think I will leave the clotted cream making to somebody else. Like britishfoodshop.com!

thank you everybody :-)

Just found this thread, and it is making me hungry! My favorite scone recipe is for lemon almond scones, made with lemon zest and sliced almonds.

So many references to making clotted cream, but I don't see anyone describing how one does such a thing. Have I just missed it? I would love to know!

It's something like, first get some unpasturized milk, which is the step I usually give up on. Then there's something about putting the milk/cream in pans and heating it--I think you are supposed to keep it at a warm temperature for a while.

Anyway, the short version is: order it from Amazon!

You have no idea how badly I want scones now. Is there any place in NJ that delivers 24 hours a day? Why am I not in England where scones run free in the wild?

Incidentally, this vegan bakery makes these lemon scones that are some of the best I've ever eaten.

scones are available 24 hours a day! It is called baking...lol

I am a huge fan of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher mysteries. Phryne’s cook, Mrs. Butler, has kindly provided her recipe for scones on Kerry Greenwood’s web site http://www.phrynefisher.com/takingtea.html):

SCONES
2 cups of self raising four
1 tablespoon butter
about a cup of milk
pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to hot (220°C)
Sift the flour and salt ( this really does make a difference with scones). Rub in the butter until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs. With a knife, make a hole in the middle of the mixture and pour in milk a little at a time, mixing with the knife, until you have a dough.
Turn it out onto a floury board and knead very briefly. Roll out until flat and cut quickly into small rounds for the parlour or large squares for the kitchen. Glaze with milk, slip into the oven and cook for about seven minutes. Speed is of the essence with scones. Mrs Butler prides herself on being able to have the scones cooked by the time the big kitchen kettle comes to the boil.

And of course, what are scones without tea?

MRS. BUTLER'S INFALLIBLE TEA
Rinse the largest kitchen tea pot, then scald it with boiling water. Into the pot put one spoon of tea for each guest and one for the pot. Pour in water at a rolling boil and clap the lid on quickly. Allow to brew for two minutes. Turning the teapot is permissible but it must be turned clockwise. Strain the tea into the silver company tea pot. This means that there will be no leftover bitter leaves and the last cup will be of the same strength as the first.
Mrs. Butler loathes stewed tea.
If tea leaves are required for fortune telling, provide a silver strainer for those who do not wish to know about the future.

I recently made some cinnamon/white chocolate scones that were pretty darn good. They were also drizzled with melted cinnamon chips so they were also very pretty...the kind I could take to show off at work :)

>scones are available 24 hours a day! It is called baking...lol

You took the words out of my mouth! But not the scones. :-)

I love the Mrs. Butler tea instructions!

I would not recommend taking someone's scone...they might bite.

Because I was curious, and had never even thought about how clotted cream is made or why it isn't just like less dilute ordinary cream I googled it.

From wiki:
"Clotted cream is a thick yellow cream made by heating unpasteurized cow's milk and then leaving it in shallow pans for several hours. During this time, the cream content rises to the surface and forms 'clots'.

When clotted cream is not commercially available, a reasonable copy may be made by combining two parts whole milk with one part whipping (heavy) cream, heating at the very lowest possible heat for a couple of hours until a skin forms, leaving it undisturbed overnight, and then harvesting the skin and its underclots. The remaining milk may be consumed or used in any number of recipes.

In the European Union, Cornish clotted cream is a protected designation of origin (PDO) for cream produced by the traditional recipe in Cornwall. True Cornish clotted cream must be made from unpasteurized milk or the clots will not form. It has a minimum fat content of 55%.

"

I actually baked vegan blueberry scones for the new year.

They were amazering.

the best scones I think are made with buttermilk. I finished the last cranberry scone (triangular) from New Year's last night. Some diet!

My brother-in-law is still gently reminding me that I haven't baked him scones in a while. He's right - it's time!

>61 loosha: Cranberries are very healthy. If they *happen* to be surrounded by buttery flaky pastry goodness, well, what can you do? You need those cranberries!

#60 - Oh please could you post your recipe for vegan scones? I've been looking for a good recipie and am not having much luck.

I love the recipes for scones. They seem much simpler than the one I have from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.
I've saved them to my notes.

I just joined this group and it is lovely! Thanks so much, reading-fox, for posting the clotted cream recipe as I cannot find it in my local stores here in Connecticut. Can't wait to make it and slather it on a homemade scone. Cholesterol be damned!

I've been enjoying perusing this thread, but now I'm going to have to make some scones tonight... (especially since we're having the rare treat of a soft grey rainy day - rare for Denver, anyway. ;-)

Usually make plain ones, but sometimes with currants, or other dried fruit. (Currants don't have to be snipped, though and nearly everything else does.)

My scone-recipe source, The Highlander's Cookbook says to pat the dough out in circles, then cut into wedges & put on the baking sheet. I tend to pat the dough out into circles in a small pie pan, and cut into wedges, but don't separate the wedges, so that they cook with soft eges, but break apart gracefully. The recipe calls for 2T sugar, which I sometimes reduce, or use turbinado sugar instead. (It's very nice patted onto the top of the dough before baking.)

I haven't tried making clotted cream (yet!), but do make lemon curd and rather a lot of jam. Just ran out of the organic raspberry from two summers back,though I've still got a fair bit of last summer's blackberry and some of the organic apricot-honey. (Soft home-made cheese goes well, too.)

R

(edited to get rid of typo)

Thanks for bumping this thread! It put me in the mood for scones...I think I'll make some tonight :)

I must say that i am always in the mood for scones, warm from the oven with some butter and jam and a nice cuppa tea....{{darn}}

>48 caitemaire:
Just tried your recipe and it was delicious and a lot easier then I thought. I will be making this often. Thanks for the post.

glad they turned out well!

May i have one now?

Here you go. and a nice cuppa tea. Cream or Lemon?

I have a produce market in my area that regularly sells both Irish and English style scones ! Gotta go there today and pick some up ! And I finally found a market that carries clotted cream too !

dreamlikecheese said: The first lot of scones you cut out before you smush the mixture back and flatten it again are always the best. The others won't rise as well so make sure you get as many scones cut the first time round as possible.

But if you pat them into a circle only *once*, then cut into wedges, they'll ALL come out good. :-) The shape doesn't change the flavor...

I must try some!

I was looking at the clotted cream recipe (from just a year ago - message 59) and wondered if the 'lowest possible heat' has to come from underneath, or could one put the pan in, say, a 110 F oven for a couple of hours, then turn off the oven and leave it overnight?

I may have to try this. :-)

Wheat-free scones from "Gluten Free Baking Classics," with dried cranberries in 'em. Best when eaten right out of the oven.

Well, the first proper scone I had was in a little tea shop in Bradford-on-Avon, when I went to England in August 2005 for a church conference. The scone I had ordered was a plain one, with butter, clotted cream, and jam, along with a cup of earl grey tea (my first time trying that flavor of tea). I have also had scones with raisins, cranberries, and other dried fruits.

My Gran was from Liverpool, but I was born in Norway. I still grew up with a lot of English cooking and scones was quite the favourite! Unfortunately, self-raising flour and clotted cream is not that available, so my favourite scone is with jam or lemon curd and whipped cream. Mmmmm, lovely!

I never met a scone I didn't like (ok, the maple scones from Sbux are less than stellar, but that's it!). My favorite is cranberry walnut scones that I make myself by adapting a recipe by Murray Jaffe (from his Perfect Recipe Baking Book). I crossed Jaffe's recipe with a recipe from the Simply Scones book by Leslie Weiner and Barbara Albright. A. Maze. Ing.

I enjoy scones in all forms. I love the traditional cream tea, consisting of plain scone topped with clotted cream and strawberries (although also good with jam or lemon curd). When I was living in York I discovered a lovely little tea room which serves chocolate cream teas, which was hot chocolate with a warm chocolate scone with chocolate chips, topped with clotted cream and nutella. I was in heaven. Warm cheese scones with melted butter are another favourite.

At my favorite tea place (an independent tea shop called TeaLula), I could not live without the scones the order. They have raisins in them, I believe. It makes going there all the more better.

So those are my favorite kind of scones. My old favorite was cinnamon chip, which I have occasionally.

Yay resurrected thread! I recently purchased the Alice's Tea Cup recipe book and made their pumpkin scones. They came really close. I couldn't imagine anyone disliking these scones...so good!

I love to bake scones and put in culinary lavender. And any scone is made better with Pumpkin Butter slathered on it.

Oh dear, the bowl of wholesome, whole-wheat oatmeal I just ate for breakfast is starting to feel very inadequate! {Har! Yes, you sharp-eyed editor types: I meant whole-grain. :-)}

>84 Kek55: What is whole-wheat oatmeal? I mean, what's the wheat doing in the oatmeal in the first place?

"whole-grain oatmeal", perhaps?