Here's what I think they are:

Scones: Dry, somewhat dense, triangular-shaped, may contain sweet bits but not sweet overall. Perfect for tea accompaniment.

Biscuits: Soft-to-semi-hard layers, neither moist nor dry. Neither sweet nor savory. Perfect for slathering with butter or jam, or covering with gravy.

Muffins: Cake-like, moist, dense, crumbly consistency, usually sweet, sometimes savory. Not good for the waistline.

Scones up here are like a deep fried indian bread served with honey butter. Now I want some and the only place that made them went out of business years ago.

Scones are like very similar to biscuits. For me the basic difference is that I add sugar to scones and usually berries, such as raspberries, blueberries , blackberries, etc. But they are also good plain. Biscuits, Southern, Country, Baking Soda, etc.... are usually not sweet. They can be made with cream, milk or buttermilk. I don't think either of them should contain eggs.

Both of them have the fat (butter, lard, shortening) cut into the flour before adding the liguid and they both require a light hand. Overworking the dough creates tough biscuits and scones.

Scones like biscuits can be cut into rounds, but more often than not they are triangles or wedges.

And there are lots of variations for both of them. All a matter of personal taste.

Ann

Like Ann T, in my area scones are very like biscuits, but sweeter. Biscuits are not sweet, but sometimes mine contain savory ingredients like cheese or bits of smoked ham, maybe green onion or chipotle.

Muffins are much more like a cupcake, occasionally savory but usually sweet. Some of the things that are passed off as muffins in my area, like chocolate chip or spice are so like cupcakes I couldn't tell you the difference other than muffins are not (usually) frosted.

All of the above require a light hand. None will rise correctly if overhandled.

Annie

I've seen that episode twice now, and although I really like the technique for making the scones, for my personal taste, there was just a bit too much sugar & fruit involved. I really like the flaky, rich buttery/cream flavor of scones and don't like it overpowered by sweeteners or too much fruit.

As Ann said, it's all a matter of personal taste. Muffins are sweet and more cake-like. But since I don't like cake, I'd rather have a lot of fruit in muffins to crowd out the cakey muffin dough.

I'm with Ann on this one. Especailly the part about neither containing eggs (and no sugar in the biscuits.)
I think of scones as "sweet" biscuits. When savory ingredients are added, the line blurs, but generally scones use cream where biscuits use milk or buttermilk.

Muffins, I think of as miniature quickbreads, but as Annie pointed out they seem more and more like cupcakes these days. Hard to find a good muffin anymore...or a good cupcake.

All three go straight to your hips.

Well theres no eggs, flour, butter, baking powder and soda, sugar, milk and sour cream.
To make it more of a "true" scone - what would you do?

It's probably like vegetable soup - a million opinions on what that means and most of them different. :)

To me, a biscuit is flour, a fat (usually lard, shortening, butter or a combination thereof), and milk or buttermilk, and leavening. A scone adds sugar, subs cream for the milk/buttermilk thus increasing the fat, and perhaps adds some kind of flavoring agent (currents, berries, zest, etc.). The scone would be riched, denser and sweeter than a biscuit, and not as flaky a texture. A muffin would use a liquid fat rather than solid (i.e. oil or melted butter), even more sugar (in most cases), would have eggs, can be made from a variety of grains (think corn meal, whole wheat, oat flour), and almost always has added fruit (or vegetable), nut or spices.

But then I'm from central NC. Maybe it's different elsewhere.

Sounds like the only difference here is the sugar.
Wasn't anything like a sweet biscuit. Maybe it has more fat than a biscuit?
I'd like to take something out to make it a little more biscuity but I'm not sure you can do that?

I'm remembering Roger and maybe Pete razzing Ann and all of us about the scone/biscuit debate...lol!

I love them all for what they are...so pass the jam, gravy, and frost those muffins if ya want to.

David

Real British scones are like British humorsteeped in tradition, dry as a bone, and often tasteless.

Which IMO translates to: "We don't like scones so we made something we liked and called it a scone."

I like real British scones. As a matter of fact, when business takes me to England, I start thinking of how to fit in a good cream tea or two or .... A proper scone is the perfect foil for some good jam and clotted cream (or clotted cream and good jam). Simple and sturdy enough to support those ingredients. The ones I've had are pretty consistent and they aren't much like American scones.

They are denser and less sweet than muffins. They aren't as flaky as a biscuit and they are mildly sweet. The ones served at cream tea are usually circular.

Here is a blog that has pictures and a recipe. I can't speak for the recipe but the pictures look right.

Oh - and to answer part of the original post - putting the butter in after the liquids would change the texture of the result. The purpose of putting butter into flour first is to coat bits of butter with flour - so the water can't get everywhere, the butter bits flatten when the dough is rolled or shaped and that makes flakiness.

The kind of scones I like are a yeast bread and are fried. In fact, you could use your 5 min bread dough and fry (either deep fry or cook in 1/2 inch of oil and turn). After cooking make a hole in the end and pour in a spoon of honey. Yum.

soonergrandmom, that sounds like the frybread I grew up eating, a Native American tradition that spans all regions.

Some of us in the north ate them sweet, with honey or berries but they were mostly used as a utensil to scoop out stews or meat from the pot. The southwestern tribes ate them kind of like a taco with that spicy savory filling folded into the middle. Everyone ate them folded around whatever dinner was available and good, I think.

And the ever-present elephant ears I get at the county fair also remind me of fry bread, kind of.

Annie

Using a name like soonergrandmom you probably could figure out that I live in Oklahoma. Fry bread is a frequent thing for kids to make in school, or Scouts to have at camp, etc. It's a native American hold-over that we all enjoy here. If I have bread dough made and don't have time for the 2nd rise, that is the way I will cook it. It's yummy.

My opinion... Take a recipe for biscuits add sugar and fruit and you have a scone... Take that mixture and add eggs, more liquid, more fat, a little more baking powder and you have muffins...

But, if you want a truly great scone try AnnT's Scones (Raspberry, Blueberry, Fresh Currants,etc..)... And, if you feel adventurous, try different ingredients... I took the basic recipe and created, apricot with mini chocolate chips, apple-walnut and chocolate scones with fresh black cherries...

Rita

I always loved the scones served on the Air Canada flight London to Vancouver. Just before arrival in Vancouver after we'd spent the night flying, we'd awake (that's if we could possibly sleep) to fresh coffee and wonderful scones with Devon clotted cream and strawberry jam.
They were heavenly!

Lately they've been serving a disgusting slice of hot pizza instead. What a disappointment! Those scones with cream and jam were the best part of the flight LOL!

SharonCb

1. They are all quick breads which require low-gluten flour/s and little mixing. They all depend on the fat to shorten the gluten strands.

2. Scones vary widely in texture, shape, size, and flavor. They can vary from (soft) cookielike to cakelike in texture and from savory to sweet in flavor. Making them is similar to making biscuits. Scones can be rolled, shaped, or dropped, but the mixing method is about the same. Scones contain eggs as well as milk or cream, which makes them richer than biscuits. They may also contain pieces of dried fruits, unlike biscuits.

a. Mix the dry ingredients together.

b. Cut the chilled butter into the dry ingredients - this is done to shorten the gluten in the flour. Everywhere the butter coats the flour, the liquid will not be able to be absorbed by the flour, thus making short, or shortening, the strands of gluten. If the fat is cold and the mixture resembles a coarse meal, this will contribute to a flaky texture.

c. Mix the liquid ingredients together (beat the egg lightly and add the milk/cream) and any other liquid ingredients, and add all at once to the dry ingredients, then stir to combine. Some recipes call for a little kneading to help develop the gluten, but avoid overkneading the dough because this will produce a tough scone.

d. Judge the recipe... A high butter or sugar content in the dough will help inhibit the formation of gluten and produce a more tender product.

3. BISCUITS also rely on the fat for shortening the gluten formation. The method of mixing is similar to scones. There is less liquid in biscuits than most scones and biscuit dough usually requires a little kneading to develop the gluten because of the lack of liquid.

a. The dough is then rolled. A thickness of 1/4-inch for plain biscuits, 1/2 inch or less for tea biscuits, and 1 inch or more for shortcake. Then it is cut into rounds or squares.

b. Drop biscuits have more liquid than cut biscuits.

4. MUFFINS - The ratio of liquid to flour is higher than either scones or biscuits. The batter needs to be placed in a pan that forms the muffin, unlike scones/biscuits which will hold their shape once free formed or cut to form.

a. There are two types of mixing methods for muffins.

b. Traditional muffin-making: all the steps are geared to minimize mixing, and therefore gluten formation in the flour. The fat is most often in liquid form, either melted shortening or an oil. It's usually mixed with eggs and the liquids, then added all at once to the dry ingredients. Since fat affects tenderness, muffins with a high fat content not only taste rich, they also have a soft crumb.

c. Stir muffin batter only until the dry ingredients are lightly moistened (NO ELECTRIC MIXERS PLEASE, or you'll end up with tunnels inside from overmixing). The batter SHOULD be lumpy as it's spooned into the muffin pans - even to the point some bits of dry ingredients are still remaining in the batter.

d. Muffins made by creaming fat and sugar will be more tender, but they are also more cakelike. This is the second mixing method.

-Grainlady

This is a very good discussion in answer to the original post. I make scones quite often and have one notebook devoted just to scone recipes. It needs to be said that scones are a much beloved bread from Great Britain. Their main reason for being to serve as a base for clotted cream, jam, and/or butter served with tea. So most British recipes are plain so as to not interfere with the cream and jam.

The American consumption of scones may be entirely without jam or even butter, and almost certainly without clotted cream - so we put fruit, spices, nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips, etc. in our scone recipes.

One of the best scone recipes that I have tried used cake flour. But I still can't get my scones as tall as some I have seen in English cookbooks.

Teresa

We have a chain in my part of the US that makes a "cinammon biscuit". It taste like a biscuit but sweeter with cinnamon and raisins and glaze. It is awful. Two bites was more that I could stand. Give me a biscuit or give me a cinnamon roll, but don't mix them up.