Searching for Scones

Moving to the UK has allowed this North American girl the opportunity to fulfill some lifelong goals first identified while flipping the pages of The Secret Garden or Mrs Dalloway and during the hours spent watching Pride and Prejudice.

The goals included:

1. Acquire a boyfriend with an English accent
2. Go for moody solitary walks in the mist amongst old and grey buildings. Or moors/seaside. Whichever is closer, really.
3. Use British slang without sounding stupid, but not when talking to people back home. Never ever doing it then.  
4. Eat a lot of scones while visiting ancient historical homes

How have I done so far? Well #1 has been checked off the list and #2 describes my walk to work most days of the year. #3 has been less successful, but it's a rare foreigner who doesn't at times sound ridiculous in their new setting. Sometimes people in Canada think that my accent has changed, but mostly they are polite when I refer to my flat and I do my best not to say mobile when I mean cell and pissed when I mean drunk.  

The fourth entry on that abridged list has proved trickier than I thought. The picture above was taken after an early morning bike ride. Having gone on an empty stomach, the last 5 miles of my ride were spent thinking about the scones at Pollock House, a lovely stately home in Pollock Country Park, and right on my way home. The upper floors of this house are a museum complete with an ornate library and an impressive collection of Spanish paintings and small William Blake's that you could touch if you wanted to (I didn't, but I wanted to). You have to pay to go into that part and so I've only been with my mom. Downstairs, though, they have a cafe in the incredible old kitchen. There are shelves of old pots and strange tools, beautiful green tiles and pitch black stoves, comfortable wooden tables and a large skylight, opening up the space. And when the weather is nice, you can also sit outside in the garden, snuggled up to huge planters of alarmingly fragrant magenta hyacinth and absorbing all light possible. A setting like that can only be made more perfect with than tea and a fresh scone (preferably fruited), something fatty to spread on its soft interior and a little pot of red jam.  The picture looks pretty good then, huh?

Well, it's deceiving. First of all, you will notice that the young lad serving me placed the butter right on the paper napkin on my plate. As my napkin cam pre-buttered, it was not great at its intended job to debutter me. And while the jam is there, and the tea was great, that large and fluffy scone was a pretty big disappointment. A dense scone is a terrible thing, generally made from over-mixing the batter after the liquid has been added. I know this because I make this mistake almost every time I attempt them. To get a light and fluffy one, the maker needs to be swift and judicious with the addition of liquid. Unfortunately, the maker of this scone didn't take that gamble and just added 1/2 c of baking soda instead. I exaggerate, yes, but every crumb tasted of chemically salt. A scone should not be salty. It should be barely sweet and moist. Salt should be provided by the butter alone. In this case I ended up omitting the butter and slathering the jam twice as thick to try and achieve balance on my tongue. Not a good compromise.

 Too much baking soda also affects the texture. A scone should fall apart in layers, not clumps. It should not look like bread. This was definitely bready. I know that the recipe they use is a very old and traditional one, but either someone was having a wobbly day in the kitchen, or it's time to raid the recipe cards of somebody else's granny.     

But this isn't a unique affliction. At a recent work event held at the Abden House in Edinburgh I had an equally underwhelming scone in another gracious old residence. This one was wholewheat, and I was prepared to accept that as it came sliced with cream and jam already cozy between it's layers. And it came at 3 o'clock when a the sight of a scone and a cup of tea can solve almost any problem. But again, it was bready and far too salty. There wasn't a crisp and rocky crust. It was like eating a slightly stale brown  roll with too much whipped cream.

So a quest has begun for a great scone in an amazing setting. I'm sure this is possible, but thinking back I am not sure if I've hit upon a contender yet. I fear that as scones do not keep well, people preparing them for large numbers of people over extended periods of time tend to mess around with the basic make-up of the scone. Sometimes they are like bread and sometimes, if you get one at a coffee chain for instances, they are too sweet, more cakey, like a muffin of a different shape. Both variations keep far better, but neither is acceptable. But when I find a place that is willing to make small batches of fresh scones, I'll let you know. I might just give it another shot myself.

p.s. If you do visit the cafe at the Pollock House, their gingerbread is really, really wonderful. It's want I normally have and it's what I will now revert to.

Comments

[MBT Shoes]

It's so nice to have you do all of the research for us. It makes our decision making so much easier!! Thanks.

[Katie]

Dad, I think I'm siding with Ri on this one. As I recall, I spent that day discovering my vertigo on the high cliffs of Tintagel (probably due to my low-iron teenage vegetarian status). Because of a near-faint, I definitely needed tea and probably some sugar. And I definitely had some there. I can only assume it was while two parents were smothering me. Two parents! Imagine.

I have fond 16-year-old memories of scones, too. I think they're out there. I think I've just had some bad luck recently.

I will say this, on a subsequent visit to Abden House I had a fantastic raspberry meringue. Could I accept a world where all lousy scones were replaced by great meringues? Definitely.

[Dad]

Just to be picky, it wasn't a castle at Merlin's cave, but a teahouse in town....and it was about the greyest and wetest day possible. and i think the scones were delicious.
And hot tea. and dry chairs. and four kids. did we mention the four kids?

[riri]

Maybe it was the extreme rain and the dank and the fact that it was really important to keep four children from killing each other in the back of a van while sheep and other drivers and rocky hedgerows vied instead to be the murderers, but i have warm fuzzy memories of the scones at the castle with Merlin's cave. But then that was also a while ago and now they may be bready and dense....