Jacqueline Casey 
The first time I ever went to visit my boyfriend (now husband) in England, he took me for a Cream Tea. I’m not a Tea drinker, but served with scones, clotted cream and jelly? Yes-the “Tea” and the entire experience, was amazing. Fast forward to living in the U.S and getting ready to bake some scones. My searching led me to all these amazing flavor combinations-pumpkin/pecan, chocolate/hazelnut, lemon/blueberry, etc. My husband did not share my enthusiasm. I didn’t get it, but then I did. There is a difference between many American Scones vs a more traditional British Scone (both are delicious by the way and I’m sure there are a lot of British variations of scones out there as well). But my husband was right, a traditional scone is plain, slightly sweet, buttery and flakey. They are the perfect vessel to slather a whole bunch of clotted cream (seriously thick cream) and jam or jelly. The craziest variation you might see is the addition of some dried fruit like raisins. So I looked up Mary Berry’s scone recipe, but then had to look up measurement conversions for most ingredients and how to turn my All Purpose Flour into Self Rising Flour. The next few times I experimented with different measurements and ingredients to find the right balance using All Purpose Flour. So full disclosure, this recipe is somewhat a combination of a few traditional scone recipes like Mary Berry, but made with my modifications and conversions to make it easy for us in the U.S to be able to enjoy a traditional British Scone too!
Options, Substitutions and Tips!
- The first step is to lightly grease a baking tray, but you could also use parchment paper instead.
- The second step includes making a lemon zest. The lemon in this recipe is very subtle and you could even skip this step if you do not have a lemon or do not care for the taste of lemon.
- The baking powder measurement is not a typo. Self rising flour has a rising component already included so when using All Purpose Flour, you need to account for the baking powder that would be included in Self Rising Flour plus the addition of baking powder for the recipe. The reason the baking powder quantity is so high is because the scones need to rise quickly within a short baking time.
- Butter Grating Method-When I first started baking, I had the bare minimum of baking equipment and found this alternative for using a grater in place of a pastry cutter for a pie crust recipe. While I have accumulated a few more gadgets and equipment over the years, I still do not have a pastry cutter and find using a grater works amazing for any recipe where you need to cut cold butter into a flour mix to achieve a flaky, buttery consistency. The colder the butter, the easier it is to grate. I pop the butter into the freezer a few minutes before I grate it. (This section is already too long, but I feel that this applies to any recipe. If you really want to try a something, but are missing a specific “tool” there are so many alternatives or “hacks”, so hopefully you are not stopped from trying out a recipe if you really want to.)
- You can use a whisk or wooden spoon for the mixing, but I prefer to do most of the mixing by my hands. If using a grater for the butter, once the butter is grated, I incorporate the butter with the flour by rubbing the mixture together with my hands until they form little clumps. Once you add the wet ingredients (milk and vanilla), It’s best to mix as little as possible and I find the easiest way to do this is to lightly flour my hands and then knead the dough together in a ball. Then to prepare the dough to be cut, I use my hands pushing out the sides to a rectangle shape that is about an 1 inch thick.
- I also do not have a circular cookie cutter. I just use a glass or even a wine glass to make the circular cuts in the dough. I’ve used glasses on the smaller size that are 2 inches and ones slightly larger at 2 1/2 inches. I prefer the 2 inch ones which make smaller scones and will yield about 12. Most traditional scone recipes I’ve seen call for a 2 1/2 inch cutter.
- These are baked for 12-15 minutes and are not the easiest to tell when they are done because the body of the scone will still be a bit pale. If you look at the bottom of the scone, it should be a light golden-brown color and the top will be a light golden-brown as well.
- Clotted Cream is not readily available in the U.S. It’s available on the internet and maybe in some specialty shops, or there are recipes to make your own. However, I’ve found the mascarpone that is available in the supermarkets (you will usually find it in the dairy section), is a really good alternative.
- You can use jelly or jam in pretty much any flavor, but I think the berry flavors work best. Our favorite is raspberry,
- To serve, you could either slice them halfway like how you could cut a bun and then add a generous amount of mascarpone and your choice of jelly/jam, or you could place all the scones on a plate and then have the mascarpone in a one bowl and the jelly/jam in another so everyone can make their own scone.
An American Girl’s British Scones
A traditional British scone, but made with readily available ingredients and measurements found in the U.S. A is slightly sweet quick bread with a hint of lemon is served with creamy mascarpone and jelly or jam.
- Baking sheet, Grater, Pastry Cutter (optional), 2-2½ inch circle cookie cutter (or just a glass!)
- 2½ cups All Purpose Flour
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 4 tsp Baking Powder
- 2½ Tbsp Granulated Sugar
- ½ tsp Lemon Zest
- 6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
- ¾ cup Milk
- 1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 Egg
Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C, Lightly grease baking sheet.
Using grater, take lemon and using the smaller hole setting, move lemon up and down until you have 1 tsp of grated lemon rind (lemon zest). In large bowl, add flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and lemon zest. Mix together so all ingredients are incorporated.
Adding Butter with Grater: Take very cold stick of butter, grate on the largest hole setting of the grater then mix grated butter into the flour mixture until small clumps begin to form.
Adding Butter with Pastry Cutter: Take cubed butter and cut butter into the flour mixture with Pastry Cutter until it forms little clumps.
Add milk to saucepan and warm it up. It only needs to be warmed up a little and not brought to a boil. As soon as you start to see tiny bubbles forming on the sides of the saucepan, remove and add into the flour mixture.
Add vanilla extract and mix all together. At this point, be careful to mix as little as possible. The warm milk will help bind all ingredients together. The dough will be fairly sticky, mix with wooden spoon or knead with hands until dough forms into a ball.
Add a little bit of flour to a clean surface and place dough ball on top. Working with your hands flatten the dough out, then fold it over. With your hands flatten it again into a rectangle with the dough about 1-1½ inch thick.
Using a circular cookie cutter or just a glass/wine glass, cut into rounds and place onto baking tray. Repeat until you've used all the dough. Depending on the size of your cutter you should have 10-12 scones.
Make a quick egg wash by beating egg in bowl and then brush egg on top of each scone. Bake in over for 12-15 minutes until the tops and bottom of the scone are a light golden-brown color.
To serve, cut scones in half (like how you would cut a bun). There are two ways to serve; either spread a generous amount of mascarpone and jam on each scone or place mascarpone and jam each in their own bowl and allow everyone to make their own scone.
