Devon (British-style) scones

Having a jar of homemade strawberry jam on hand was the perfect reason to bake up a batch of scones.  It gave me an excuse to try my hand at British-style scones and I made a British-themed breakfast out of it; I love a good theme to a meal!

For a while now, I've been intrigued with the idea of baking up a different kind of scone.  Now, I speak with no authority whatsoever on this - having never had the pleasure of sitting down to a proper tea in the U.K. - but it is my understanding that British style scones are very different from American ones.

Cook's Illustrated has an excellent article that outlines the difference between the two. To sum up, British-style scones use less butter, are more cake-like, on the more light & fluffy side, and are less sweet than American-styles scones. American scones are more buttery, flaky, and biscuit-like.  While American-style scones often incorporate all kinds of add-ins (from fruit to chocolate chips), British scones are generally plain or simply include currants or raisins.

It's not to say that one type of scone is better than the other; they're just different. And for me, different is good; there's a time and place for everything.  British scones aren't necessarily "better" or more virtuous simply because they're lighter. There's actually a reason for the restrained use of butter...British-style scones are meant to be split open and topped with an ample slathering of butter, jam, cream (clotted or otherwise), and/or other equally tantalizing things like honey or golden syrup.  I can remember watching Nigella Lawson eating a scone in such a way on one of her television programs, and being totally mesmerized.

British-style scones are more cake-like, lighter, and crumbly in texture than American ones

When it comes to American-style scones, on the other hand, we rarely need anything to go with it because they are so buttery and flavorful all on their own.  So it's essentially about different philosophies.  Why not try both and enjoy them in their own way?

Today, it's British-style scones.  I used Mary Berry's Devon (or Devonshire) scone recipe.  Are you familiar with Mary Berry?  I came to know of her after I started watching The Great British Bake Off (where amateur bakers take on baking challenges, very often amazing me with their abilities).  

Now is the time to admit, again, that I am really not good at handling dough, as in scone or biscuit making.  I'm pretty sure the dough can sense my fear.  Take a look at the scones above...only one baked up with a fluffy height and, ironically, it came from some re-rolled dough!  It's all a bit of a mystery to me and I just can't seem to get a good handle on it.

Luckily, despite the general lack of height, the scones turned out light and fluffy - definitely more cake-like than we're used to when we think of scones.  They were a great canvas for the homemade strawberry jam, and other things, we decided to spread on.

The "ceremony" of sitting down, splitting our scones, and deciding what we wanted to spread them with was a nice way to slow things down.  I would definitely say our British-themed tea breakfast was a fun hit!