This picture is a bit embarrassing. Classic British Scones are neater, straighter, and slightly smaller than the ones pictured here 🙂

When British people talk about scones, what they are picturing is a simple raisin scone. The one alternative to the raisin scone, is cheese. That’s it! No drizzle, triangles, lemon, poppy seeds or chocolate chips. No oats, maple, cranberries or eggs! Definitely no eggs.

In the North of England, scone rhymes with gone—easily remembered with the rhyme “The scone is gone!” YUM 🙂 In the South of England, and I think in the palace—and by those who want to be in the palace—it’s scone with a long ‘o’ sound; easily remembered with this rhyme: “The scone is stone!”. I made up that mnemonic hint all by myself and I am quite proud of it! 🙂 Unfortunately, the US seems to have adopted the more upper-crust pronunciation of scoooooone. I find it quite irritating, harrumph.

Here’s a handy graphic I found on the Interwebs:

Now, I’m all about finding the best balance between American creations and Classic British Scones. While I respect and cherish classic scones, and adamantly promote the Yorkshire pronunciation, I have happily incorporated some tasty American twists 🙂

1. The triangular shape. It’s so much easier to pat the dough into rounds then slice like a pie to get the triangular shape. No more fiddly rolling, cutting and re-rolling and re-shaping. YAY!
2. I like some of the other Americanized flavors! Some are a bit over the top, though, and a bit too sweet. But I really enjoy Tropical Mango Scones, Apricot Cream Scones (my personal favorite-after the traditional Yorkshire scone, of course). All are posted on this website.

Things I don’t like about Americanised scones:

1. They are too dry
2. They are too sweet
3. They are too big

Traditional British Scones, Yorkshire Edition

INGREDIENTS

• 1½ cups flour (188grams)
• ¼ cup sugar (50 grams)
• 1¼ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 6 Tablespoons salted butter (frozen)
• ½ cup raisins
• ½ cup buttermilk—sour milk is more authentic, but let’s use American buttermilk*

To Brush on Top of Scones

• Approximately 1 Tablespoon cream—milk is ok, if that’s all you have
• Approximately 1 teaspoon sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 425° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside
2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda.
3. Take the butter out of the freezer. Dip it into the flour mixture—this will help with the butter not sticking to the grater—grate the butter into the flour mixture, stopping to re-dip the butter into the flour mixture as needed.
4. Add in the raisins
5. Stir the butter, raisins and flour mixture together. DO NOT BEAT! Just stir by hand, to combine.
6. With a fork, and only a fork, stir mixture together until it clumps together into a ball. It will happen. Stir and mash a little bit until the whole things clumps.
7. Place the dough ball onto the baking sheet and pat it into a round about the size of a salad plate.
8. Brush the top of the round with either cream or milk and then sprinkle with sugar
9. With a pizza cutter or a knife, cut the round into 8 wedges like you would a pizza or a pie
10. Now lift and move each wedge just a little apart from every other wedge, leaving about ¼” of space on all sides.
11. Place in oven and bake at 425° for 15-20 minutes or until tops are golden and insides are cooked.
12. Serve warm with butter, jam, and a cup of warm tea with milk 🙂

NOTES: Scones can be frozen after step #10. Wrap securely—I pop the whole thing into a Ziploc with a piece of cardboard, or a plate under the round scone to support the shape. Bake directly from frozen, adding only a few minutes to the bake time.

*I have successfully use Buttermilk Powder in this recipe. And if you have leftover buttermilk and no need for it right now, just pop it in the freezer to defrost and use next time 🙂

I hope you enjoy your traditional scones, however you pronounce it! Stay tuned for more scone recipes soon!