Introducing… Scone Watch

This is a new occasional column devoted to the humble scone, and most importantly, where to find the really good ones.

It is extremely disappointing to find the sort of teashop or café that looks as if it would do a fantastic scone, only to be served a day-old scone, or even worse, a shop-bought one masquerading as home-made. You know what I’m saying.

So, purely in the interests of the scone-loving community, I have decided search out the very best scones and post their details here. I shall of course make it my duty to sample scones further afield from Edinburgh when circumstances permit. And please, if you have experienced scone nirvana recently, share the good news in the comments box below!

What criteria will I be judging scones by? Well, we all have our favourite types but I look for a crisp crust, a fluffy inside, not too sweet, plenty of raisins, and freshly made, ie. that day. In a perfect world, it would be still warm from the oven. I’m not that keen on cream on my scones – sacrilege to some but I’d rather have butter and raspberry jam. Posh raspberry jam. With seeds too.

Yesterday I sampled the scones at the Scottish Parliament Café and most of my stringent criteria were fulfilled. Freshly made every day? Yes. Light, crispy? Yes. And warm too! Plain and fruit scones were available and a cream tea version if you like The Works. Ideally, I’d add a few more raisins to their fruit scone and have raspberry jam on offer as well as the blackcurrant and strawberry. On the subject of jam, I’d ideally swap the individual plastic containers for a wee jar or dish but then, I am fairly fussy about these things. (Or, as Mr Enemy would say, most things).

So, Scottish Parliament Café– definitely recommended. Enric Miralles’ cool architecture and a lovely design exhibition on at the moment. In the photo above there is a card in front of the lovely (large) scone, bearing the word ‘crèche’. If you have children under six, you might just want to check this out…

A quick note on making scones at home – I could tell you my own recipe but then I’d have to kill you and frankly, I’m loathe to kill anyone who reads my blog, and particularly anyone who has made it this far through a post.

However, I was very very happy to have found this wonderful article by Felicity Cloake in The Guardian. Her favourite scone recipe is quite different from mine (lard? Who would have thunk it?) but there’s a veritable wealth of scone information here.

Come across any Really Good Scones recently? Please let us know where!