scone

A bread-like small cake, made with baking powder as the raising agent. I'm pretty sure they are (almost) the same as the American biscuit. Originated in Scotland, but are found throughout the Commonwealth.

3 cups flour

4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

25g (1 oz) butter

About 1 cup milk

Sift dry ingedients, rub in butter, and mix to a soft dough with milk. Knead on a lightly-floured board; roll out to about 6cm thick (approx 3 inches), cut into 12 pieces, and place on a lightly greased oven tray and bake in a hot oven 230^oC (450^oF) for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

recipe from the Edmond's Cookery Book

Just to confuse things, to scone someone is to whack them about the head; the head is also known as a scone. (thick and floury??)

The word 'Scone' appears to be the only fixed, immutable way of determining the position in the class structure of a British person, depending on whether you rhyme the word with 'gone' or 'alone'. Although originally Scottish, the scone has been adopted as a slightly posh treat throughout England, and indeed scones are as much a symbol of Englishness as cucumber sandwiches, cricket, and the Maxim gun.

Scones are traditionally eaten with margarine and strawberry jam; contrary to the first write-up, they are not very puffy - rather, they are brittle and have a texture similar to cake, but drier.

Also, in Australia, 'scone' is slang for 'head', as in the common Australian phrase 'That gentleman over there - I do believe that he is off his scone' (meaning 'That fellow is insane - not clinically so, merely foolish').

How to make scones

First, put on Modest Mouse's "This is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about." It's a good album, noisy and nice to bake to.

Realize the kitchen is a mess. Clean the kitchen. Not too thoroughly, but enough to get some stuff out of the way so you have some room to back in.

Pull out The Tassajara Bread Book, flip through it and find the scone recipe.

Realize you don't have any cream. Put a hat on -- it's cold out there! you'll catch your death! -- pause the cd, and walk down to QFC. Pick up some cream and some ice cream -- you'll want it when you're noding later -- and some butter that's on sale.

Once you're back, hit 'play' on the cd player and resume looking at the bread book. Pretty weird recipe. Doesn't look quite right.

Wing it.

---

Pull this out of your cupboards:

• 3.5 cups of flour (mix half wheat, half white if you like)
• 1.5 tsp baking powdah
• 3 tsp sugah
• Some herbs of some sort. How about rosemary in one batch and basil in another batch? Sounds good.

Pull this stuff out of your fridge:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup half cream, half milk -- or all cream, or all milk, depending on how you want to do things.
• 1/4 cup buttah

Beat the egg and cream and or milk together in a smallish bowl. Mix all the dry stuff (minus the herbs) together in a larger bowl. Pour the wet into the dry, and mix thoroughly. The protodough should be kind of sticking together, but not doing too good a job at it (ie, there ought to be little bits at the bottom that won't stick in with the rest of the dough) Now melt the butter (the microwave or the stovetop, makes no difference) and put a bit at a time while kneading the dough. When you've got that all mixed in, add a little bit of flour if it's too wet. If it's too dry...um, don't make it too dry, okay?

Now get your bread board (you don't have a bread board? How about a chopping block? No? What about the slide out chopping block underneath your counter? No? I really can't help you) and lightly flour it. Put the dough down, and put some of your herb of choice on top. I used about a tablespoon of basil, and it could've used more; a tablespoon and a half of rosemary was just about right. Knead the dough until the herbs are distributed well, then roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut it into triangles, and lay it out on a greased baking sheet.

Cook 'em until they're done. Mine took about 14 minutes at 375° F; that's an electric oven, so gas people may want to adjust up, and everyone who makes these should watch them. When they get a bit brown on the vertices, and are hard all over, take them out. Let them cool a few minutes before you snarf a few down -- they're hot, fool!

Now, those are pretty good, but you could alter the recipe really easily to make sweeter plain scones (double the sugar, lose the herbs), or mix different things in (I bet fresh herbs would be a lot better than the dried ones I used). Experiment. It worked for me.

Cranberry Cream Scones

Yeah ok. I make scones too, but I'm going to tell you something no one else did.  The word scone comes from the Stone of Scone the stone that Scottish kings are crowned on.  The stone is said to have made quite a journey, from the holy land to Ireland to Scotland, where it was then seized by the English.  The logic being if the English king is crowned on the Stone of Scone he must also be the rightful king of Scotland.  The stone is on loan to Scotland again until it's time to crown the next monarch.

Ingredients

• 2 c all purpose flour
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 c unsalted butter
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2-3/4 c heavy cream
• 1 c dried cranberries
• 1 egg beaten

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
2. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a mixing bowl
3. Cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles fine crumb
4. Mix the cranberries into the flour/crumb mixture
5. Add the egg and slowly mix in enough cream to form a stiff dough
6. On a lined baking sheet flatten the dough into a large cookie shape, roughly 1/2 inch thick
7. Press a knife into the dough to form pie slices, leave the slices flush with one another
8. Brush with beaten egg and bake 10-15 minutes until golden brown on top
9. Cool scones on a wire rack and seperate

Three words: Devonshire cream, baby.

Variations

For savoury scones you can reduce the amount of sugar, or leave it out entirely. If you're using unsalted butter like the recipe calls for they will still taste good sugarless. Also you could easily substitute the berries for other dried fruit.

PS. My scones like Harry Connick, Jr

So, you would like to fight with scones? Let us! Enough with the dairy, you know I will always deliver the fru-fru hippie vegan style. This recipe is rural New-Zealand goodness (thank you mikey) which has only been slightly mollested to convert the dairy to alternatives.

Scones

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablesppon unrefined sugar

1/2 cup margarine
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon of unrefined sugar to sprinkle on top


soften the margarine in advance if you need to
preheat oven to 450 degrees farenheit

Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, then cut in the margarine. Make sure it is well mixed and that there are no lumpies, the consistancy should resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add the milk and water, cut in with a fork - the dough ought to be a little too wet to work with your hands until it has been thoroughly mixed (even then it ought to be moist). Lightly dust a baking tray with flour or cornmeal, this will keep the rascals from sticking as they cook. Glob the dough up into a ball and place on the baking tray, now flatten it down with a rolling pin or your hands until it is about 1 1/2 to 2 inches high. Use a knife to divide it into six wedges, pull the wedges apart so that as they rise they will not grow into one large uni-scone (unless that is what you want). Sprinkle some sugar on top, if you have berries then press one or two into the top of each scone too. To make the crust smoother, brush the top and sides of each scone with some soy milk before right baking. Bake until they are lightly browned, depending on your oven, this will be from 10 - 20 minutes.

Cheat's Scones

Here is a really simple scone recipe that works well and is quick. I was also skeptical but I made them and they worked out very well.

4 cups Self raising flour
300 ml Thickened cream
250 ml Lemonade

Cut the ingredients together with a knife. The dough will be fairly sticky. Pat out on a floured surface until 3 or 4 cm thick. Use a big circular cutter to cut out scones or cut to desired shape. Place on baking tray. Brush with milk.

Cook in 210c oven for 12-15minutes or until lightly brown on top.

source: some abc local radio cooking segment thing

Also the name of a small town in Australia and a place in Scotland. There could be more!

Scone, Scotland

Just outside Perth in Perthshire, Scone was once the location of Scotland's Stone of Destiny. There's not so much a town here, rather an extensive estate. The famous castle is a celebrated tourist attraction bringing in the busloads. The setting is very attractive and the castle halls worth walking through.

Scone, New South Wales, Australia

Located in the Hunter Valley approximately 150 miles Northwest of Sydney, Scone is a small town with a population around 4500.

Known as the "Home of the Thoroughbred" or the "Horse Capital of Australia," Scone's major industry is horse breeding. It is said to have the largest horse breeding operation in any single area outside of Kentucky in the USA. A large number of well known stud operation are located in the district. These include Coolmore, Arrowfield, Emirates Park and Segenhoe. A highlight of the community calendar is "Horse Week," held each year usually in April. Activies include a street parade, racing carnival and yearling sale. The racing carnival is of sufficient quality to often attract trainers and jockeys from city based operations.

Another mainstay of the local economy is coal mining. While none are located in Scone itself, further down the Hunter Valley towards Newcastle, the closest within 20 minutes drive, are a large number of both open cut and underground coal mines. They are a major employer in the region.

There is very little alternative industry in Scone and other economic factors include viticulture, dairy, beef and supporting activities.

Scone has three primary and two high schools. Other facilities include a hospital, post office, railway station, two medium sized supermarkets, a swimming pool, three motels, two caravan parks, four petrol stations, a bowling club, golf club, rugby union club, Returned Services League club and five other pubs. The pubs are known as the Royal, Willow Tree, Golden Fleece, Thoroughbred and Belmore. The local weekly newspaper is known as the Scone Advocate. The New England Highway runs directly through the centre of town. Lake Glenbawn, which was formed by damming the Hunter River, is located close to the town and is a popular recreation destination.

Further information can be found on the Scone Shire Council website located at - http://scone.local-e.nsw.gov.au/

Scones are easy easy easy to make, highly variable and really yummy.

Turn the oven on to "almost as hot as it gets" - that's 230°C (which is 450°F- Thank you m_turner) in my oven.

Put about a cup of self-raising flour into a mixing bowl.

Put a big blob of margarine or softened butter in there too.

The fat must not get warm enough to melt. That's the only even slightly tricky thing about scones. Mix in a cool room and don't put the bowl on your lap.

Using the back of the wooden spoon, squish the margarine through the flour until it looks like rather rough bread crumbs, If it's wetter then bread crumbs, bung in a little more flour. If it's drier than bread crumbs, put in a bit more marg.

This is where you decide what flavour you want your scones. Add a handful of any of:

• sultanas
• dried apricots
• raisins
• currants
• whatever else you can think of in that vein

along with a tablespoon of sugar

or
a handful of any of:

• sun dried (or semi-dried) tomatoes
• pine nuts
• chopped herbs (chives, parsley, and even rosemary can be nice)
• Last night's left over steamed vegetables, squished up with a spoon

along with a handful of grated cheese, if you like cheese. And who doesn't like cheese? :)

Or you can make them plain - either with just flour, fat and water (or you can use milk) or with those plus a tablespoon of sugar.

Mix it all up till it looks all mixed.

Turn on your cold water tap. Adjust it till there's a tiny but smooth trickle of water running.

Let a little splash of water come into your mixture. Mix it in till it looks all mixed again.

Keep doing that till the mixture is wet enough to stick together, but not all gluggy.

Sprinkle a large handful of flour (I use SR again, but plain is fine at this stage) all over the bit of clean bench where you are going to work.

Plop the mixture out on the bench.

Squish it down with your hands - but remember, your hands can be quite warm, so don't squish for too long.

If you want to use a rolling pin, rub flour all over it before it touches the mixture. If you don't feel like washing yet another thing up when you have finished, just make the mixture nice and flat by hand-squishing. You want it to be about... Um... 2cm thick? 

Get a large, flat metal tray. Either rub a fine layer of fat all over it, or cover it entirely in Aluminium Foil. Put it next to your mixture. I put it on my right and I am right handed.

You don't have to use a cutter unless you want to. If you don't, take a bread-and-butter knife and cut the scone mixture into strips, then squares. They should be no larger than 1/4 of a CD cover... and even that is almost too large.

If you have and want to use a cutter, put its cutting surface down into some of the flour on your bench. Swirl it round while it's pressed down so the whole inside gets a little flour on it. Press it down on the smoothed out mixture, lift it up quickly and you should have a little circle of scone.

Transfer this to the flat tin. If it didn't come up with the cutter you will need to slide a bread-and-butter knife underneath and lift it up with that.

Place the scones on the tray with an about-1/2-their-own-width-sized space between them.

If you used a cutter, you will have a large, holey, bit of scone mixture on the bench. Wash your hands in cold water, dry them, and squish it all up together again. Squish it flat. Cut it again. Repeat till it's almost all used up. - But he more times you re-squish, the less "light" your scones will be.

When your tray is covered with scones, open the oven only as much as you have to to get the tray in without either dropping the scones (drop scones are quite different:) or burning yourself.

Slip the tray in on a shelf in the top half of the oven, set a timer for seven minutes, close the door and put all your dirty mixing stuff into the sink. Clean down the bench. Get out a wooden board to protect the bench from the hot tray (actually, I put the hot tray on the stove top, so the heat doesn't matter).

Don't open the oven till the seven minutes are up.

When the timer goes off, open the oven just enough to look at the scones.

If they are a pretty golden colour on top and quite tall they are probably ready.

Take one out (use an oven glove) and break it in half. Is the mixture nice and cooked-looking? If so, take the tray out (If you have another tray full to cook, keep the door opening to a minimum, otherwise, open it as wide as you like).
If it's not cooked, you can put it back for another minute or so before checking again.

Put the scones onto a plate. Plain scones like some jam and thickened cream. Savoury scones like butter or margarine, or to be served as a side dish with roast meat.

Scoff 'em down.

Lovely things, scones. Not too sweet, crisp on the outside, tender on the inside. Wonderful with coffee or tea, as a light snack.

I wanted scones the other day but I had no cream with which to make them. Oh, I could have used milk, and indeed, I've done so on many occasions. The results are a lovely light breadstuff. But, due to a shopping misunderstanding, there are several unopened tubs of sour cream sitting in the back of my refrigerator sighing in their abandonment. So, since I know sour cream is luscious in pastries, I thought to myself, why not?

From thence came this recipe for sour cream scones. They are much like regular scones, although I would say they are much more robust in texture. Actually, they're more than robust, they're hard. There is no mistaking them for a classic cream scone. If I wanted a scone to stick in my pocket as I'm dashing out the door, these would survive the handling. If I felt the need to pelt my enemies with breadstuffs, I would use these. Indeed, if I wanted to make something to approximate Hagrid's rock scones for a Potter party, I would use this recipe. It's not that they are too hard to eat. However, they do stiffen up significantly when they cool and I don't recommend biting into a cold one as it really is hard enough to cut one's mouth. Still, they are quite tasty, barely sweet with a distinct buttery cream flavor and scent from the sour cream. They are best served hot out of the oven, ideally with a cup of tea. Fresh out of the oven, they are crisp/crunchy on the outside and wonderfully tender on the inside. Toasting restores some of the interior tenderness, but they never return to their initial glory. These aren't really something to stock up on unless you like eating rocks.... Still, hot or cold, dipping morsels into that cup of Earl Grey is not amiss.

Sour Cream Stones, er Scones

Makes 8

• 280g (2c.) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 6 tbsp. chilled butter
• 1/3 c. sour cream
• 1/3 c. milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla, or finely grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking pan with parchment paper.

Mix the dry ingredients together with a whisk or a fork, and then cut the butter into the flour mixture as if making a pie crust. Stop when all the flour has been coated in butter, but there are still lumps of butter about the size of small peas or lentils.

Briskly beat the sour cream with a fork into the milk to eliminate lumps. Beat in the egg and then add the vanilla and beat again to combine. It should be a little less than a cup of liquid, about 7 fluid ounces.

Add the liquid to the flour mixture and stir until it comes together. It will clump into large smooth lumps rather than form a cohesive dough. Avoid over working it, the dough is wetter than it appears. Stir just until all the loose flour is absorbed.

Flour a surface and your hands, pat the dough into a rectangle about 1 inch thick. Cut into 8 triangles or squares. Place at least 1 inch apart on the baking tray, and bake until medium golden brown, about 20 minutes.

These have the best texture when still warm from the oven. They are a very firm when cool, downright hard. Toast them to restore about 90% of their texture.

I've also posted this recipe at the LJ community Molly's Cauldron under the moniker Rock Scones.

Scone (?), n.

A cake, thinner than a bannock, made of wheat or barley or oat meal.

[Written variously, scon, skone, skon, etc.] [Scot.]

Burns.

 

© Webster 1913.