THERE ARE SCONES, SCONES AND YET MORE SCONES.

There are two dislikes I have when eating scones. 

The first dislike, is scones that are made with excess bicarbonate of soda to make them rise and rise, and eye-blinkingly rise.  They can  be very tempting to some people. With so much raising agent in the mix you will get ever so tall and blown scones. It looks like you're getting more for your money.   Actually, you could be.  You could easily and quickly get indigestion.  

These shouldn't give you indigestion! Some recipes use self-raising flour.

Having sunk my teeth a few times into cheese scones sold in tea rooms, which were made with a sweetened scone mix, unless I know how a particular tea shop prepares their scones, I ask.  Once I was told that the  tea room staff thought people liked their cheese scones to be sweet.  In my case, I do not, not even if it is a scone with a melted cheese topping.  When I ask for a savoury scone, or, savoury anything, I like it to be savoury and have a savoury taste. 

Courtesy Daniel Clifford. Cheese scones as they should look. These look really yummy.

Buying in just one kind of scone mix is a way to cut costs, the mix is used for anything and everything.  Mixing in some pickle, or, loads of sliced onions, might go some way to masking the sugar in the mixture for making [almost]savoury  scones.  (I shall not suggest it).  I have a hunch, too much of any additional moisture might deflate the desired outcome. 


Today, at one of the errant tea shops, I looked at some flat-ish scones on show beside their cheese  scones, all made with the sweetened mix. The new ones had brown/black bits through them.   What are these? ............  Those,  I was told, were their newest scone creation .......  Haggis.

Here is a picture of some haggis scones that by comparison to what I saw, look somewhat appealing.
 

NB: When choosing to have afternoon tea (the triple - plate variety, with sandwiches, scones and cream cakes) select your own choice of scones.  If you ask how the scones have been made you might get the full recipe and mixing instructions, but, you'll be none the wiser what mix has been used in their preparation.