Authentic Scottish Scones Recipe-Soft and Crumbly Tea Scones (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between Scottish and English scones? ›

British scones are usually lightly sweetned and contain fruit like currants or berries. Scottish scones are often closer to a biscuit and are made with buttermilk, though some Scottish grandmothers will swear you should only use sour milk.

Be sure to double or even triple sift your flour, as it takes away the clumps in the flour allowing for more air pockets in the scone dough - the result being a fluffier and more crumbly scone. It's like washing your rice before you boil it, it's boring, but makes a world of difference to the end result!

Tea biscuits and scones are both baked treats, but they're not the same. Regarding tea biscuits vs. scones, the main distinction is in the texture. Biscuits are flaky and buttery, while scones are dense and crunchy.

You want to work the dough just enough to add some structure, until the dough is smooth and supple, which does two things. Firstly it develops the gluten allowing everything to hold together, preventing crumbly scones.

Biscuits and scones have the same British ancestor, but the early Southern colonists' version included butter, lard, buttermilk, and soft wheat, plentiful in the South. Over time, this fluffy and layered bread evolved into a regional commodity: the Southern biscuit.

Just a reminder: Don't overwork the dough or the scones will turn out rubbery – or worse, bullety and hard. Cut out your scones cleanly. Twisting the cutter can impair the rise. If you use a fluted cutter, you can't twist it.

Don't overbake! If you bake scones too long, they'll dry out, so keep an eye on them through the oven window. (Don't open the oven to look — it'll let out the heat.) “Bake your scones until they are just golden brown,” Bethany recommends.

Scones can be made either with self-raising flour or with plain flour and baking powder. Sweet scones and cheese scones have an egg added to enrich them. Both will rise but whatever scone you make its important that they are handled lightly and not rolled too thinly.

A cream tea (also known as a Devon cream tea, Devonshire tea, or Cornish cream tea) is an afternoon tea consisting of tea, scones, clotted cream (or, less authentically, whipped cream), jam, and sometimes butter.

Scones are supposed to be crunchy on the outside while soft and moist on the inside. They should not be dry or crumbly.

What are the differences between American style scones and British style scones? ›

American scones use much more butter than British scones, and they usually have quite a bit more sugar. The extra butter is what makes them so much denser. This is not really a good or bad thing, as British scones pile on plenty of sugar (in the form of preserves/jam) and butter or clotted cream as toppings.

Recipes for scones sometimes provide a make-ahead option that involves refrigerating the dough overnight so it can simply be shaped and then popped into the oven the next day. But now we've found that resting the dough overnight has another benefit: It makes for more symmetrical and attractive pastries.

While the scones are chilling, preheat the oven to 425°F with a rack in the upper third. Bake the scones in the upper part of your oven for 18 to 23 minutes, or until they're a light golden brown. When you pull one away from the others, it should look baked all the way through; the edge shouldn't look wet or unbaked.

In Scotland and Ulster, savoury varieties of scone include soda scones, also known as soda farls, sour dough scones known as soor dook scones made with sour milk, and potato scones, normally known as tattie scones, which resemble small, thin savoury pancakes made with potato flour.

A Biscuit (U.S.) Is a Scone (U.K.)

Both baked goodies use flour, fat, liquid and a leavening agent. The main differences are that scones tend to have less butter (because you'll add butter to it when you eating it — or else, clotted cream or jam) while American biscuits tend to have more butter and light layers.

While quite similar, what distinguishes Irish scones from English scones is that they typically contain a bit less sugar. They're also made with less leavener, so they're slightly flatter and smaller. It's important to note that no two Irish families make their scones the same way.

“I say it like 'cone' personally but Her Majesty did always say 'scon'. “I think more people say 'scone' but the ones who say 'scon' swear they're the only ones that say it right. Posh people definitely say 'scon', but ultimately both are valid.”