The Tea Journal
An English scone is a lightly sweetened, plain baked good, somewhere between a biscuit and a bread roll, served warm and split by hand with clotted cream and preserves. It is not the large, sugary, iced thing sold in most American coffee shops, and it is not a Southern biscuit either, though it sits closer to the biscuit than to the coffee shop version.
If you have only met the American cafe scone, the English one will surprise you. It is plainer, softer, and far less sweet, because it is designed as a vehicle for cream and jam rather than as a cake in its own right.
Both descend from the same Scottish original. They diverged, and the gap is now wide.
| English scone | American scone | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | Round, tall, cut with a cutter | Often triangular, cut from a disc |
| Sweetness | Barely sweet | Distinctly sweet, often iced |
| Texture | Soft, light, cakey crumb | Dense, crumbly, drier |
| Add-ins | Plain, or currants and sultanas | Fruit, chocolate, nuts, glazes |
| Served | Warm, split, with cream and jam | Room temperature, on its own |
| Eaten | As part of a tea service | As a coffee accompaniment |
Neither is wrong. They are simply different things wearing one name, which causes no end of confusion for British visitors to American cafes and vice versa.
Southern American biscuits and English scones are genuine cousins. Both are quick breads leavened with baking powder, both rely on cold fat cut into flour, and both are best warm.
The differences: a scone carries a little sugar and often an egg, giving it a lighter, slightly cakier crumb. A biscuit is savoury, flakier, and built in layers to pull apart. A scone is sweet enough to take jam. A biscuit is made for gravy and butter.
Confusingly, biscuit in Britain means a cookie. That is a separate argument entirely.
Two pronunciations, both correct, both defended with unreasonable heat.
Scon to rhyme with gone, and scoan to rhyme with bone. The split runs partly by region and partly by class, and British people will tell you with total confidence that their version is the right one.
Order either. Nobody will correct you, though they may quietly notice.
There is a correct method, and it is genuinely worth knowing because it makes the thing easier to eat.
Break it, do not cut it. Split the scone in two with your hands, along its natural seam. Cutting with a knife compresses the crumb, and it is considered a small brutality.
Treat each half separately. Do not reassemble it into a sandwich. Each half gets its own cream and jam and gets eaten on its own.
Spread with your knife, then put the knife down. Eat with your hands.
Eat it warm and eat it soon. A scone is at its best within a few hours of leaving the oven. This is not marketing. It is simply how they are. It is also why a scone is at its finest as part of a full afternoon tea, straight from the kitchen.
The genuine controversy, and one of the more entertaining regional disputes in England.
Cornwall spreads jam first, then a spoon of clotted cream on top.
Devon spreads clotted cream first, then jam over it.
Both counties consider the other method obviously wrong, and the argument has been running for well over a century with no sign of resolution. There is even a Cornish claim that the Devon method is an affront to the scone.
We serve both and take no official position. Do whichever pleases you.
Clotted cream is a thick, faintly nutty cream made by gently heating full-cream milk and letting it cool slowly, until a rich golden crust forms and sets on the surface. That crust is the clotted cream, and it is scooped off.
It is richer than whipped cream and softer than butter, sitting somewhere between the two. Traditionally it comes from Devon and Cornwall, where the local milk is high in fat.
It is also the correct thing on a scone. Whipped cream is a substitute rather than an equivalent, and butter, while pleasant, is a different proposition.
If you cannot find clotted cream, mascarpone loosened with a little heavy cream is the closest widely available stand-in. It lacks the nuttiness but has roughly the right texture and richness. Devonshire cream, where sold, is the same thing under another name.
Preserves. Strawberry is the classic, raspberry a close second. A good preserve with real fruit, not a jelly.
Clotted cream, as above.
Tea. A black tea with enough backbone to cut the richness. English Breakfast, Assam or a straightforward Ceylon. This is not the moment for a delicate white tea — see our guide to the types of tea.
A scone with cream, jam and a pot of tea, with nothing else, is a cream tea: the simplest and in some ways the finest form of British tea drinking.
Both are traditional, though sweet is more common.
Plain scones are the standard, and the best canvas for cream and jam.
Fruit scones carry currants or sultanas, sometimes candied peel.
Cheese scones are savoury, sharp with mature cheddar, and eaten with butter rather than cream. Excellent, and unaccountably rare in America.
We bake scones every morning for our dining room, and have done for years. They come warm, with clotted cream and preserves, as part of every afternoon tea service.
They are also the reason our bakery exists. Guests kept asking to take them home, so now you can order ahead and collect from us on Union Boulevard, along with cakes and macarons.
We bake to order rather than ahead and frozen. If you order for Thursday, it comes out of the oven Thursday.
A lightly sweetened baked good, round and soft, served warm and split by hand with clotted cream and preserves. It is plainer and far less sweet than the American cafe version.
An American biscuit is savoury, flaky and layered, made for butter or gravy. An English scone is slightly sweet with a lighter crumb, made for cream and jam. Both are quick breads leavened with baking powder.
Both scon rhyming with gone and scoan rhyming with bone are correct and widely used across Britain.
Cornwall says jam first, Devon says cream first. Both are traditional and the argument is unresolved after more than a century.
A thick, rich cream made by slowly heating full-cream milk until a set crust forms. Richer than whipped cream, softer than butter, and traditional on scones.
Mascarpone loosened with a little heavy cream is the closest common substitute. Devonshire cream is the same product under a different name.
Yes. A scone is at its best within a few hours of baking. Warm it briefly in a low oven if it has cooled.
Eat them the day you get them if you can. Otherwise keep them sealed at room temperature and warm them before eating. Do not refrigerate them, which dries them out faster than the counter does.