Scones (British Buttermilk Scones)
Scones are a British quick bread made from flour, cold butter, buttermilk and a little sugar, served warm, split and spread with clotted cream and jam as the centre of a cream tea. The word scone was written down in Scotland in 1513, the baking-powder scone appeared only after 1843, and today scones are associated with Devon and Cornwall in the south-west of England. They are a quick bread (leavened by baking powder and bicarbonate of soda rather than yeast) made from flour, cold butter, buttermilk, and a little sugar. The defining technique is the same as pastry-making: very cold butter worked into flour until it resembles breadcrumbs, combined with cold liquid to just bring the dough together — never kneaded. The cold butter pockets in the dough hit the hot oven and release steam, creating the characteristic slight flakiness and the dramatic rise that splits the scone naturally along the middle — the 'waist' — making it easy to break open by hand without a knife. The recipe makes six tall scones. The butter spends 10 minutes in the freezer and the cut scones 15 minutes in the fridge; neither is counted in the time.
Ingredients
- 350 gplain flour
- 1.5 tspbaking powder
- 0.5 tspbicarbonate of soda
- 0.5 tspfine salt
- 2 tbspcaster sugar
- 85 gcold unsalted butter
- 1 egg
- 180 mlcold buttermilk
- 1 tspvanilla extract (optional)
- 80 gdried fruit (optional)
- 2 tbspwhole milk or buttermilk
Method
- Keep everything cold and preheat the oven. This is the foundational rule of scone-making: cold butter stays solid until it hits the hot oven, where it releases steam and creates flakiness. Butter on the verge of melting turns greasy and smears into the flour instead of rubbing in. Cut the butter into 1 cm cubes and place them in the freezer for 10 minutes before starting. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F) — hot oven, fast bake.
- Make the crumb. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt, and sugar into a large cold bowl. Add the cold butter cubes. Using your fingertips — working quickly and lightly — rub the butter into the flour, lifting and flicking the mixture to incorporate air, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs; a few small flakes of butter may still show. Stop there and do not work it into a paste. If the butter has warmed up, refrigerate the bowl for 10 minutes before continuing.
- Combine and bring together. Whisk the cold egg, cold buttermilk, and vanilla extract (if using) together in a small bowl. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Pour in the wet ingredients and add the dried fruit if using. Using a round-bladed knife or a fork, cut through the mixture in a crossing motion until the dough just barely comes together into a shaggy, rough mass. Stop mixing the instant it holds — overworking develops gluten and produces a tough, bready scone rather than a tender, crumbly one.
- Shape and cut — do not roll thin. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat — do not roll — with your hands to a thickness of 3 to 4 cm (about 1¼ to 1½ inches). This thickness is critical: thinner than 3 cm and the scones will not rise significantly; the height comes from the starting thickness, not from oven spring alone. Use a floured 6 to 7 cm (2.5 inch) round cutter. Press straight down with a firm, decisive movement — do not twist, which would seal the edges and prevent the scone from rising straight. Press the trimmings together lightly and cut again: the dough makes six scones. Space the cut scones 3 cm apart on the lined baking sheet. Brush the tops only with the 2 tablespoons of milk or buttermilk — not the sides, which would inhibit the rise.
- Chill briefly and bake. Refrigerate the shaped scones for 15 minutes — this firms the butter back up after handling, ensuring maximum rise. Bake at 220°C for 12 to 15 minutes until the tops are deep golden and the scones have risen to show a pale 'waist' around the middle where the dough naturally split. Transfer to a wire rack. Eat warm, split by hand along the natural waist, with clotted cream (or very cold thick cream) and strawberry or raspberry jam. In Devon the cream goes on first and the jam on top; in Cornwall it is jam first and a spoonful of cream on top. Both are correct.
FAQ
Cold butter — ideally straight from the refrigerator or briefly from the freezer — remains in discrete pieces throughout the flour mixture even after rubbing in. When these cold butter pockets hit the hot oven, they melt and release steam rapidly, pushing the surrounding layers of dough apart. This creates the pockets of air within the crumb that give scones their characteristic tender, slightly layered texture and their height. Not every British recipe is this strict: Mary Berry rubs in slightly softened butter, just soft enough to squash between the fingers. What every recipe avoids is butter on the verge of melting, which turns greasy and smears into the flour instead of rubbing in to crumbs.
When you twist a round cutter as you press it through scone dough, the twisting action compresses and seals the edges of the cut circle. The sealed edge of dough cannot expand upward in the oven — the crust is too dense and bonded. The scone rises unevenly, often cracking sideways rather than lifting straight up, and may not develop the classic tall, straight sides. Pressing straight down with a firm, single, decisive motion and lifting cleanly keeps the cut edges open and layered, allowing the dough to expand upward freely and produce a scone with straight, tall sides and the characteristic waist.
Clotted cream is a very thick, rich cream made by gently heating full-fat cream for about an hour and then cooling it slowly for half a day, so that the fat rises and sets ('clots') into a dense, yellow, spreadable layer with a minimum fat content of 55%. It has a rich, faintly caramelised, nutty flavour that is entirely distinct from whipped cream. It is firm enough to spread with a knife and does not drip or run. Whipped cream is aerated cream that is light and delicate; it deflates quickly and has a much more neutral, milky flavour. They are not interchangeable. Clotted cream is produced primarily in Devon and Cornwall. If unavailable, the closest substitutes are very thick double cream (whipped very lightly), mascarpone, or crème fraîche.
The correct thickness before cutting is 3 to 4 cm (about 1¼ to 1½ inches). This thickness matters more than almost any other variable in scone-making. Scones do not puff dramatically in the oven the way bread does, so they can only be about as tall as the dough allows: dough patted to 2 cm gives a flat scone, dough patted to 3 to 4 cm gives a tall one with a clear waist. Most recipes that produce disappointing, flat scones have dough that was rolled or patted too thin.
The cream tea is claimed by two neighbouring counties in the south-west of England, and they disagree about the order. In Devon the split scone gets clotted cream first with jam on top; in Cornwall it gets jam first with a spoonful of cream on top. In practice cream teas are served both ways in both counties, so neither order is wrong. The only legal protection concerns the cream itself: Cornish clotted cream has had protected designation of origin (PDO) status since 1998, but no rule covers the order of assembly. For another British teatime bake, try hot cross buns.
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