The National Trust Book of Scones: 50 Delicious Recipes and Some Curious Crumbs of History Hardcover – July 1, 2017

This lovely little book says it has "50 delicious recipes and some crumbs of History." It has yet to disappoint. From the first recipe for "Plain Scones" with its companion article about Tintagel Old Post Office (built over 100 years before Chris Columbus sailed west) to the concluding "Hot Cross Scones," (Mottisfont) this is a fascinating page-turner. Our fam has settled on the Pumpkin Pie Scones as an Autumnal favorite Saturday morning breakfast.Sadly, the correct pronunciation of "scone" is left unsettled.

Can't wait to try out these recipes. REMEMBER ... recipes written for international bakers. Weights and measurements are in grams and millimeters.

The recipes look excellent, and the stories about the provenance of the scones are very interesting. I can’t wait to try a few of these and share them with my friends.

While hunting the web for some scone recipes with which to get started, I stumbled across Sarah Clelland's National Trust Scones blog. Basically, Clelland spends her days traveling to various National Trust sites in the U.K., learning their history, and reviewing the quality of the scones in their tea shops. Naturally, when I discovered she had a book of the best scone recipes she's found so far, I had to buy it. I am a firm believer in supporting this sort of quality investigative work. Many of the recipes in the book are for savory scones, a concept I'm not ready to embrace yet. But the recipes for sweet scones I've tried so far have all been pretty tasty. I will admit, though, that my favorite remains the classic Plain Scone from the Tintagel Old Post Office in Cornwall. It really is the best with clotted cream and jam. And is a scone really a scone if it doesn't taste good slathered in clotted cream and jam? Baker's Note: This book is written for U.K. bakers, so the oven temperatures are in Celsius, the dry ingredients are often measured in grams, and the liquid ones in milliliters. U.S. bakers who aren't in the habit of weighing their ingredients should be prepared to do some conversions. Fortunately, the recipes in this book are pretty simple--most only include 4-8 ingredients, so there just isn't that much conversion work to be done before you can start baking.

Everything looks so yummy and the history that goes with the scone "tour" is fascinating

The recipes I’ve tried so far have turned out absolutely delicious! The “curious crumbs of history” are quite interesting and adds to the overall appeal of the book. The book itself is hard bound and rather small in size, but chock full of scone recipes and lovely tidbits of information.

I am learning to make scones and this is a great book for that.

I got this to lend to a friend who is a hobby baker, and really good. She'd complained she couldn't quite get the real ENGLISH texture to her scones. This book seems to be doing the trick, and I look forward to testing her experiments! Plus it's a beautiful book, and benefits a worthwhile organization.