Empress Tea Scones – The Best Scones Ever!
Today I’m sharing a the best scones ever recipe – the scones from the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria.
Yesterday I shared my Valentine’s Day High Tea Party with you and I promised today I’d share this incredible Empress tea scone recipe to go along with it.
Trust me when I say they are the most delicious scones you’ve ever tasted!
You can make this scone recipe with or without raisins so I made half without raisins.
These scones are best with English clotted cream and strawberry jam.
These are my favorite brands of jam and clotted cream: Bonne Maman strawberry jam and Double Devon Cream.
This is the scone recipe from the Empress Hotel that I adapted to make less than the 35 scones it calls for in this recipe.
I baked a few batches to get it perfect as this recipe was for such a large amount of biscuits.
Empress Tea Scones
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups flour plus more for dusting
- 1/3 cup cold butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons baking powder
- 3 eggs
- Pinch of salt
- 3/4 cup raisins
- 3/4 cup whipping or heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 deg F
- Put flour in a large mixing bowl and crumb the butter into the flour with your fingers until it resembles small peas.
- Add sugar, baking powder, 2 slightly beaten eggs, and salt and mix together with a fork until just combined.
- Add raisins.
- Pour the cream in and knead in to the dough.
- Using a rolling pin, roll dough out on floured surface until 1 inch thick. Using a large circular cookie cutter dusted with flour, cut out the scones and place on ungreased baking sheet. (Note: you could use parchment paper but do not use a silpat – it makes the biscuits flat).
- Leave the scones to rest for 5-10 min.
- Beat one egg and brush just the top of the scones.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, until just golden brown.
I hope you enjoy these scones for a high tea or just any day of the week!
Make sure to pin it for later!
click in case you missed:
Valentine’s Day High Tea Party
Valentine’s Day Big Heart Cookie
Thank you for taking your time to share this recipe! Gonna give it a try:)
Thanks Melinda! Hope you like them!
Hugs, Jamie
Thank you, i love scones.
Me too, Marlene! Thanks!
Hugs, Jamie
Good flavour & texture but with 3/4 cream & 2 eggs, mixture was rather too wet. Best to have at least 1/2 c more flour.
Also, very important to sift flour, baking powder, salt & sugar together completely first, THEN add the butter to blend well before mixing in the cream & eggs mixture.
Thank you for the scones recipe God bless
Thanks Norma! I hope you like them.
Hugs, Jamie
Those look so delicious! I would love for you to share over at the new Let’s Party! https://themarkandjanshow.com/2018/01/31/lets-party-6/ … we look forward to seeing you there!
Thanks so much, Jan!
Hugs, Jamie
Jamie,
I am just now following you so I’m not sure if you use salted or unsalted butter in your recipes? Also, can I assume this is unbleached all purpose flour in the scones?
Hi Mary,
Generally if I use salted butter I don’t add extra salt but I think I used salted butter AND a pinch of salt in this recipe. And yes, unbleached all-purpose flour 😉
Thanks for being here!
Hugs, Jamie
Hi there, a question and a comment: The Hotel tea towel recipe you show calls for 400F oven temperature. Wouldn’t taking it down to 350F affect the scones? Also, I know that people use “high tea” and “afternoon tea” interchangeably these days, particularly outside the UK, but high tea has traditionally been used to designate a full “supper” taken at a “high” kitchen table as opposed to the afternoon tea taken at a tea table and that only consists of 3 tiers of savory and sweet items as opposed to a meal taken after a full day’s work. It was a class thing obviously. So, high tea is an evening meal and afternoon tea is the dainty repast we all aspire to in our fantasies.
Hi Dagmar, I’ve made the scones many times at 350 deg F but I know most scone recipes call for 400 deg F. It might be my oven on convection? I’m not sure.
Every time I go for high tea, it’s always called high tea so that’s why I named them that. Canada is also a part of the British Commonwealth. High tea also gets more searches on Google for keywords. Thanks for your information.
Hugs, Jamie
No, the tea towel clearly says 350, as does the recipe Jamie has given.
Not sure where you got the 400 from, but the towel agrees with Jamie’s 350!
The flavor is good. I followed the recipe exactly.
Do you use cold butter or slightly softened butter?
Hi Melissa,
Cold butter is best!
Hugs, Jamie