Chocolate Chip Raspberry Scones

This simple scone recipe can be modified in a variety of different ways. Blueberries instead of Raspberries. Leave out the chocolate chips, replace them with white chocolate or butterscotch. Add 1/2 teaspoon of mint or almond extract. Thanks to AnnT at Houzz for the original recipe.

• 2-1/2 cups All Purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar or brown sugar
• 2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder (high altitude - reduce to 2 teaspoons)
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold butter cut into small pieces
• 1 cup heavy cream (or whipping cream) - (high altitude - increase to 1-1/4 cups)
• 1 cup frozen Raspberries
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients well. Cut in butter. Mix in cream. When the cream is almost incorporated, add fruit, berries or nuts. Bake at 425F for 15-18 minutes (high altitude - 440 degrees for 20 minutes) or until tops are just turning golden and centers are set.

We don't put the cream IN the scone but ON the scone LOL If you can't get clotted cream, mascapone is very good too !!!

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/classic-scones-jam-clotted-cream

I think that the term 'scone' must have a much broader meaning in the US. That recipe is very different from anything I'd recognise as a scone, which is a much simpler thing.

I agree, American scones are nothing like the original British scone.

Though I do have a quick and easy recipe which substitutes cream/sour cream and some carbonated water (soda/fizzy lemonade etc) or even tap water, for the butter. They are very good, and easy enough for young children to make.

From what I've learned from y'all, I think ”scones” there are what we call ”biscuits”. The ”scones” here, at least boughten ones, always have stuff in them, like berries or chocolate chips, and are almost always triangular, being made in a wheel or flower shaped pan with raised divisions. (I don't like them.) Our ”biscuits” are mostly round, but sometimes square, and generally a bit salty, not sweet, and the best, IMO, are raised with buttermilk and baking soda. Sometimes they do have stuff in them, though not generally, but those also seem more likely to be salty, like cheese, more than sweet—at least where I live. (I like them very much.)

This is one of those same word means somewhat different things situation, not a messed up the recipe thing.

Spot on, @plllog British scones are very similar to the US ”biscuit” (though why ”biscuit” whrn they are not twice cooked is a mystery to me). Sometimes people put currants or golden raisins in them, or cheese for a savoury scone, and I do have a yummy recipe for a sweet scone made with mashed pumpkin, but the main appeal of scones is to split them and top with homemade jam and clotted or whipped cream. (Or I’m partial to lots of butter in a plain scone.)

Scones certainly are NOT the same as biscuits! Scones are "shorter" and intended for tea or dessert...biscuits,w hile containing pleanty of shortening of one sort or another are for breakfast, sopping up egg yolk or for under sausage gravy and I never EVER heard of a current biscuit, or a blueberry biscuit.

Sort of like the differecne between muffins and cuopcakes. Does a cupcake wirh a strusel topping become a muffin?

Yeah, I don't know why they're called ”biscuit“, so I asked Mr. Google and got an English answer to the history of ”biscuit” (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/the-history-of-the biscuit/#:~:text=The%20term%20biscuit%20comes%20to,refers%20to%20bread%20twice%2Dcooked.) paired with an American answer—but that was NYT and I don't have an account, but it starts by saying they started as scones. King Arthur's answer is that they were originally a nicer version of hardtack, which was actually four times baked and further dried for ocean voyages, but evolved first with forced labor and less baking, then with chemical leaveners and soft wheat, to be fluffy. (https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2023/01/30/history-of-american-biscuits) Which Implies that they aren't actually descended from scones, but grew up parallel to them. See also the Wikipedia, which seems closest to what sounds right to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit_(bread) 

What perplexes me is multiple references to yeast being expensive. Jews have been guarding the last of the wheat crop for millennia, keeping it dry so the yeast won't grow, for making the matzah, come Spring.

Let alone the beer and wine makers, who grow large quantities of yeast. Many modern advice givers suggest getting your sourdough starter yeast from grapes rather than grain, because it's so danged easy! Surely back in the day, they must have known where to get free yeast! My guess is that the low gluten content of Southern wheat, probably even less in those times (and you can still get 5-6% protein Southern soft wheat flour. Compare to 10-11.5% AP or 13% bread) didn't lend itself to yeast rising, or the loaves molded too quickly to be worth the effort, or some other thing.

Linda, a breakfast and lunch place near me, famous for their biscuits, has blueberry biscuits. They're not sweet like muffins. They're baking powder biscuits with blueberries in them. They're good. The bacon cheddar biscuits, while nutritionally indefensible, are unstopably delicious. I don't put stuff in my biscuits, but some folks do...

I think my favorite scones are the Cream Scones from America’s Test Kitchen. Tender, flaky, moist…so good.

Having had such a big hand in the digression, I thought I should bring it back to Valentine's treats. The easiest I've done are heart shaped sugar cookies with dip icing of powdered sugar and pomegranate juice. This strawberry bundt cake is the best, however. I'm a bundt purist, so have never used the ganache, though I think I once made it to use with something else... I did once make it GF with 1:1 substitution of buckwheat flour for wheat. The taste and texture were excellent, but it was unbleached and somehow the beige-ish flour and strawberries came out kind of taupe. Being that it's cake, that didn't stop the eating of it, but I'm sure it makes up nicer with white flour. ;) I've posted this link before. It's a really good, pink cake. ;)

https://www.brighteyedbaker.com/confession-109-i-buy-too-much-chocolate-strawberry-bundt-cake-with-white-chocolate-ganache/

I tend to use the King Arthur cream scone recipe. Flour, baking powder, salt, cream. I like them like that- yum with good butter and jelly. Sometimes I add in the sugar, vanilla, currants and occasionally walnuts. They tend to be triangles or squares because I'm lazy once I smush out the dough and don't often use the round cutters, heh.

Linda, I know you’ve said that before, but as someone who has eaten both I can assure you that the original, plain scone is almost identical to the US plain biscuit. While scones are often eaten at morning or afternoon tea, they are eaten whenever someone fancies a scone and are often used as a topping for savoury casseroles baked in the oven.

I have also looked at various recipes and they are as close to each other as, for instance, different peoples’ interpretations of chocolate chip cookies and the proportions of fat to flour are very similar.

While Americans might not add currants to biscuits, Britons and Aussies adding them to scones doesn’t change the esential scone.

Cream tea eaten today. Pot of tea, scones, (with a few raisins), strawberry jam and clotted cream. Nothing else needed.

I recall that AnnT gave a recipe for biscuits and while I can’t remember exactly ( and haven’t yet searched ) I seem to recall good US biscuits had layers unlike what I think of as traditional UK scones which do not form layers. I love a good scone with jam and cream and let’s not get started on which order to place the jam and cream. I am a jam first with cream on top person LOL.

You can't forget about Utah Scones. A quick google says it's from Mormons copying Indian's fry bread. My Italian/Catholic Grandma made them, so I always assumed it was an Italian thing.

So many scones and all of them yummy.

I like the more ENGLISH version😧 i guess that’s what I learned to make. i agree that many versions are called ’Scones” They arent what i would call them that all.

@neely there are several general varieties of American biscuits. Some are classed by the ingredients: Buttermilk biscuits, Baking Powder biscuits, Lard or bacon fat biscuits, etc. Others are classed by the method, the most common being Drop biscuits, Rolled Biscuits and Cut biscuits, (rolled biscuits are also cut, of course, but being rolled differentiates them). A subset of Rolled biscuits is laminated, though they're usually called Rolled, or sometimes "flaky layers". AnnT gave us a recipe for laminated biscuits which I've been meaning to try for years but never remember to make time for. As one would expect, laminated biscuits are rolled and folded and rerolled to make layers, but they're much less involved than something like a croissant. Biscuits are meant to be quickly made, and my time crunch is about following a new recipe and getting out my baking board, which would not be a big deal if it were one's normal recipe. Not that many people make laminated biscuits, but the biscuit dough in the refrigerated can is laminated so a lot of people eat laminated biscuits. All biscuits are good if made properly, and they're pretty darned easy.

Drop biscuits are like drop cookies. It's a looser dough, or even a batter, and one just blops a big spoonful on the baking sheet. My mother mostly made drop biscuits--they're the fastest, take the least space and least washing up. Rolled are as one would expect. Better for double acting baking powder biscuits than buttermilk. Buittermilk biscuits (my favorite) need to be worked quickly, and wet, and not handled too much. One kind of mooshes the dough into a shape (rectangle or log or whatever) of an even height, then cuts them out with a biscuit cutter or long knife (for squares), careful not to drag or twist the cuts so as not to seal the edges, which keeps them from rising. Glasses and similar closed shapes don't work as cutters because the biscuits stick. That would be Cut but not rolled biscuits.

It's all yummy!!!

I read that you have to push down the cutter straight with no turn nd that the bisquets will be more layered. i make scones in loose circle and thne cut them to wedges.

Yes, that was what I was saying above. If you drag or twist the knife or cutter, the sides of the biscuit mush together and form a kind of sealed surface which prevents lofting in the middle. Additionally, if you put them just barely touching, they'll be kind of supports for each other, making it easier for them to climb.

I tried your biscuits once and they're really good.

....and did they taste like scones? Could you imagine them with jam and cream?

Not really. But lovely with a savoury dish. An alternative to a dumpling, for example, (I'm not comparing them!) if you're looking for something different.

Well, as I said, American biscuits tend to be salty. They're meant for butter and honey, or spicy sausage gravy, or sopping up any kind of meaty gravy. Jam is better on toast, but a good peaty marmalade is excellent on a biscuit. We don't generally eat cream the same way as one might in Britain. Sour cream or crème fraîche on a dish of berries, sure, but not on bread, biscuit or otherwise. Whipped heavy cream on sweets like cake, pie or ice cream. Sometimes a dollop on pancakes, especially when those are sugared up like pastries, rather than buttermilk sour, like biscuits.

So, after thoroughly reading some recipes that claim to be proper British scones, two for sure posted in the UK, while they look like our biscuits, these recipes have both sugar and eggs. Here, someone might put in a little sugar, especially to use them in lieu of shortcake or for other sweet uses, but it's not standard, and I've never heard of using eggs. OTOH, I only really know the West, and things are very different, often opposite, in the South, and while I know they traditionally have used soft flour for biscuits, I don't know if they do sugar or eggs.

A blog called curiousculinaire, or something similar, said, "British scones are denser, slightly drier, and more crumbly than biscuits. They typically contain much less butter than biscuits as well." I've seen pictures of scones with clotted cream that did look crumblier. Good biscuits are very moist.

Butter and flour in UK scones vs. USA biscuits:

Conversion: Standard American cup of AP flour is listed at 120-125g. 1/2 cup is 8 TBSP of butter and which is about 115g depending on the water content.

UK: 350 g flour 85 g butter

UK: 3.5c / 500g flour; 1/2c sugar/ 7tbsp/94g butter

UK: 250g flour; (50g caster sugar (4TBSP); 50g butter

CF: Trailrunner: 5tbsp butter; 2c flour

CF: AnnT: half cup butter; 2c flour

CF: Amylou: 8tbsp butter; 2.5c flour

Sally's Baking Addiction: 1/2c (113g) butter; 2.5c flour

The Kitchn "Southern": half cup butter; 2c flour

Southern Living: 1/2 cup butter; 2.5c flour

Joy of Baking had a much flatter biscuit with both sugar and eggs, and probably much more like a UK scone. Some American recipes do have a spoon of sugar, especially if they use buttermilk, but nothing like the amount used in the UK recipes I've read.

The variation in the amount of flour for USA biscuits is probably mostly in how one accounts for working flour which gets absorbed. It seems pretty commonly 2 cups of flour plus flour for the pastry board and half a cup of butter. The UK flour to butter ratio seems fairly equivalent. The outlier is Trailrunner's recipe, which is what I usually use for cut (not rolled) biscuits, which has significantly less butter and a lot of buttermilk.

As to denseness, the aim for biscuits is lofty, but many are pretty dense. There's an old ditty about the tribulations of army life which includes the verse, "Oh the biscuits in the army, they say are mighty fine. One rolled off the table and it killed a friend of mine." Understood to mean it was like a rock or grenade.

Definitely no eggs in a genuine British scone imo. Scones are not meant to be rich. A very little sugar and a very little fat. They should be light, soft and a little crumbly. The enjoyment comes not from richness but from freshness and texture contrasting with and complementing the jam and cream. (Which, btw, we don't put on bread). The dough is soft and springy and is gently rolled and cut out. No kneading.

Definitive scone recipe https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/apr/22/how-to-make-perfect-scones

Floral, that's a biscuit!

I’ve never seen nor heard of a scone recipe with eggs in it 😬 Some people put in a little sugar but many or more don’t. They’re not meant to taste sweet because the toppings provide the sweetness. Lightness is a quality much prized in scones.

I believe y'all. The recipes I found on a casual search had a lot of sugar (multiple tablespoons), and most had eggs—as did Joy of Baking, but the author is originally Canadian with a British parent and says she grew up with British as well as Canadian food, though she lives in the USA South, and could acquire American biscuits if she so chose. The English sites, inc. BBC, weren't just granny in the back, but seemed to have some legitimacy. But I totally believe you! I wouldn't know one if it bopped me on the nose. Floral's Guardian link, similar proportions to many, really is drier with less butter, but not so far divergent as to disqualify it from biscuithood.

What we can all agree on, I think, is the American ”scone”, is somewhere between baked goods of other descriptions, in it's own little category.

Deffo no eggs in a scone. For me, the difference is that a scone is light and crumbly whereas a biscuit is flaky. Is that wrong?

Kind of. Biscuits aren't usually crumbly, and light is a goal not always achieved. Again, a bit moister and more fat, which shows up most in the crumb, I think. ”Flaky” doesn't really hold for most, and is usually only used for laminatrd buscuits, which are the least common homemade, AFIK, though gaining in popularity to compete with Pillsbury resdy to bake. Seriously, the more pictures I see of British scones, and the more recipes I read, especially with y'all saying no to the sugar and egg which I found so many of, the more I'm convinced it's really just a slightly dry biscuit. The scones look exactly the same as a cut biscuit. I rue the 10,000 miles separating us, since the obvious thing would be to have brunch or tea and compare. I think the biggest difference is the clotted cream.

It would be wonderful to see you here!!! I must have made the laminated kind.