My Struggle With Scones

Cream tea, anyone?

I love scones, but I have no luck at all at making them. No matter which recipe I try, there comes a point when the dough is sticking to my hands and anything else in sight, and I can't seem to get them rolled out and onto a baking sheet. The other day, I was watching Ina Garten make scones on the Food Network, and I thought it was interesting that there was a convenient film splice between the lump of sticky dough and the nice, patted out disk of dough that she cut into pieces. Somewhere in that splice is my struggle with scones.

Scones are a type of quick bread, which basically means you use something other than yeast as a leavening agent, such as baking powder. The Scots are generally given credit for the scone, although the word itself may come from Dutch, or it may come from Gaelic; no one is quite sure. Early scones were probably made with oat flour and baked on a griddle, but there are dozens of basic scone recipes available, including many flavor variations. If you want to travel to San Francisco, you can participate in a Irish scone-making workshop. Whether the origin of the scone is Scottish or Irish, I would probably benefit from the workshop, because I might finally discover how to get that gooey dough off my hands and into the oven.

What better way is there to enjoy scones than a cream tea? A cream tea is a Devonshire variation on afternoon tea featuring, tea, scones, jam, and clotted cream, also known as Devonshire cream, which certainly sounds nicer. As far as I can tell, it is very similar to creme fraiche, which you can buy in the USA if you don't want to make it. Anyway, I wouldn't turn down a cream tea for any reason I can think of, but I'll probably have to buy the scones, unless I finally figure out how to make them myself without suffering grievous bodily injury. If I succeed, I'll let you know.