So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[belfastboy]

I think I first encountered scones in the early 80s, probably after I started college and, as I remember, when coffee shops started popping up. My first impression was that they were basically the same baking powder biscuit that I grew up on but with (usually) berries or raisins in it. Nice but nothing very special about them.

Aren't true English scones is more akin to what we would call an English muffin?

No, different animals. There are scones and then there are SCONES. But I guess that is true about anything baked. The trick is finding the good scones, the ones that are a semi pastry, moist even the next day and not the ones that taste like cardboard even fresh from the oven.

 

[Zombie_61]

rose water

I thought that was reserved for bagels that were subsequently going to be blessed by the Pope.

 

[belfastboy]

I thought that was reserved for bagels that were subsequently going to be blessed by the Pope.

It may be specific to Montreal bagels...but a key feature is they are boiled in water with a splash of rose water. But here in Canada, Montreal bagels are the standard by which all other bagels are judged.

 

[Turnip]

I thought that was reserved for bagels that were subsequently going to be blessed by the Pope.

I would say that appears at least to be quite unlikely…

 

[Zombie_61]

I would say that appears at least to be quite unlikely…

Why, the Pope ain't Kosher?

 

[Turnip]

No idea, I’m an orthodox atheist…

 

[Haversack]

Growing up, what I knew as scones were from my Scots grandmother. These were a rich batter griddle cake very much like a dollar pancake and eaten with butter, jam, and clotted cream. It was not until I became aware of the NZ comic strip, Footrot Flats, that I learned that these were called pikelets in the Antipodes. I don't remember when I first encountered what are currently called scones in the US as I generally don't care for them.

Recipe for Scones or Pikelets:
1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
Around 1 cup whole milk or 1/2 & 1/2

Should be like a thick pancake batter. Butter a griddle or skillet. About a tablespoon of batter per scone. Serve hot with a lot of butter.

 

[Harp]

Why, the Pope ain't Kosher?

Not really. Francis deviates from the script (as in scripture). A real papal bull in the theological china shop.

 

[GHT]

Growing up, what I knew as scones were from my Scots grandmother. These were a rich batter griddle cake very much like a dollar pancake and eaten with butter, jam, and clotted cream.

Quite so, and there is the most wonderful trivial snobbery surrounding scones. Should the word scone rhyme with "own?" Snobs will tell you that scone rhymes with "on."
Then you have the trivia of whether to put the jam (that's proper English Tony, jam not jelly,) whether the jam is spead on the scone before the clotted cream, or should it be the other way around?
One of the most indulgent experiences you could ever imagine is afternoon tea served at The Savoy Hotel in London.

Aren't true English scones is more akin to what we would call an English muffin?

Muffins come in a great variety of shapes, sizes and recipes. See here.
Muffins gave rise to muffin tops and that has become a derogatory slang term.
“Muffin top” is a slang term used to describe an accumulation of fat around the midsection, just above the hips. In tight-fitting pants, this extra fat may spill out over the waistband — “just like a muffin above the paper cup,”

 

[ChiTownScion]

Door-to-dooring by the Girl Scouts hasn't been done in our town in years due to parental panic. I miss it, because now I have to drive all around to find what store what they're selling in front of. Shortbread (or what in my day we called "trefoils") Is Life.

Every Feb./ March I lay in an order for a whole case of Thin Mints from my cousin's granddaughter. Her troop has a link where you order the cookies online now.

She's a really sweet kid and I love giving her the annual order. She refers to me to her grandmother as, "... that nice man who's your cousin." I can live with that: I've certainly been called worse.

 

[belfastboy]

View attachment 351519
Quite so, and there is the most wonderful trivial snobbery surrounding scones. Should the word scone rhyme with "own?" Snobs will tell you that scone rhymes with "on."
Then you have the trivia of whether to put the jam (that's proper English Tony, jam not jelly,) whether the jam is spead on the scone before the clotted cream, or should it be the other way around?
One of the most indulgent experiences you could ever imagine is afternoon tea served at The Savoy Hotel in London.
View attachment 351520


Muffins come in a great variety of shapes, sizes and recipes. See here.
Muffins gave rise to muffin tops and that has become a derogatory slang term.
“Muffin top” is a slang term used to describe an accumulation of fat around the midsection, just above the hips. In tight-fitting pants, this extra fat may spill out over the waistband — “just like a muffin above the paper cup,”

I have heard the posh pronounce it "skooon" as well. And a good scone recipe is held in secret and passed down through the generations.

 

[belfastboy]

Growing up, what I knew as scones were from my Scots grandmother. These were a rich batter griddle cake very much like a dollar pancake and eaten with butter, jam, and clotted cream. It was not until I became aware of the NZ comic strip, Footrot Flats, that I learned that these were called pikelets in the Antipodes. I don't remember when I first encountered what are currently called scones in the US as I generally don't care for them.

Recipe for Scones or Pikelets:
1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
Around 1 cup whole milk or 1/2 & 1/2

Should be like a thick pancake batter. Butter a griddle or skillet. About a tablespoon of batter per scone. Serve hot with a lot of butter.

My base recipe for classic scones adapted from The Joy of Cooking: 1/2 recipe
1 cup flour
salt 1/2tsp
baking powder 1 tsp
2 tbl sugar
1/3 to 1/2cup cold butter cut into the flour
1 egg
2/3 c buttermilk or combo of whole milk and yougurt
then add 1 cup fruit of your choice. I prefer raspberries and a 2/3c of white choco. Bluberries and white choco, or cooked bacon and blue cheese, or ham and cheddar. Cooked spinach and feta. Or about any combo you can think of. They come out light and fluffy due to the buttermilk and with a nice crust.

 

[Haversack]

These are what I knew as scones, (to rhyme with bones), while growing up.

 

[Benny Holiday]

Mmmm . . . Dud somebody say pikelets?

 

[Edward]

These are what I knew as scones, (to rhyme with bones), while growing up.
View attachment 351607

Those look like pancakes to me.

Funny how language changes. In Ireland around the Causeway Coast area, an ice-cream cone is known as a 'poke'. In Belfast, a poke is something quite else.

 

[tonyb]

I’ve learned that it is now preferable, when requesting a meeting — business, social, whatever — NOT to suggest that we “hook up.”

 

[Turnip]

Treffen sich zwei Jäger…

 

[Touchofevil]

I had a sign on the front door that said “No solicitors, survey takers, political canvassers, religious proselytizers, door hangers.” I think I threw in another category or two but memory is failing. The missus thought the tone bordered on the hostile and made me take it down. (We have a well-functioning democracy in this household; I get one vote, she gets two.)

I am most annoyed by the guys who open with, “We’ve been working with some of your neighbors … ” Sure you have, pal, and I’ve been working on your mother.

Can I muster a little sympathy for the poor shmuck so in need of SOME KIND OF GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT that doesn’t involve outright criminality that he would put up with having doors slammed in his face several times a day? Yeah, I suppose I can. I’ve done things I’d rather not have had to myself, out of pure economic necessity, and I don’t think I’m projecting too much to suppose that’s equally true of at least some of these kids (they ARE young enough, mostly, for me to call ’em kids) knocking on my door.

We’re shopping for a new front door. The existing one looks a little shabby alongside the new garage door and the fresh paint on the house. When we get around to installing it, I’ll get a little sign on a post reading “no solicitors” to stick in the flower bed out front.

We have a couple of signs, one on the front gate. They don’t seem to work. I am usually sympathetic to the fact that they are doing a job and I am pretty darn polite. I am firm in that I am not interested and do not do business with door-to-door salesmen. It is when they become a smart ass or just won’t take “no” for an answer that goes bye bye.

 

[Touchofevil]

A long enough driveway tends to keep all but Jehova's Witnesses away from our door:

View attachment 351127

Nice! Beautiful property/sanctuary!
We only have a couple of signs, a gate, and me.

 

[LostInTyme]

When watching the "news" on TV, the incessant advertising for exact news I am already watching. "Breaking News" that is so trivial that it shouldn't even considered for reporting in the first place.