Utah Scones

To most of the world, this is a scone:

Scones are an ancestor to American biscuits.  They are generally very dry, very dense, and, quite frankly, completely inedible.  Occasionally, you can get a scone at a county fair that is more like a buttermilk biscuit cut into a triangle, but for the most part, true scones are foul.  When thrown, they can inflict a great amount of damage.  If hurled at a car, they can shatter windshields and create major dents.  Hitting someone with a scone can hospitalize or kill them.  They are impossible to swallow and are better used as paperweights than tea-time accompaniments. 

I remember the first time I bought a scone.  I was in the airport, and walked by a Starbucks.  While I’m not a coffee drinker (I also think coffee is disgusting), I do particularly love the Starbucks Caramel Apple Spice drink.  I got one of those, and noticed these dainty looking triangular blueberry biscuit-looking things.  So, I order it.  I sat down and had a few sips of my drink, then pulled the scone out of its little paper bag.  I took a bite.  It was like biting into a 2 x 4 wall stud.  In addition to breaking two of my front teeth, and shredding the inside of my esophagus, it was so dry that I was dehydrated for two weeks and eventually needed to have my stomach pumped.  It was like pouring powdered cement mix into my intestines.  (It’s good to know that I don’t really get into hyperbole, isn’t it?)

I simply don’t understand why people eat these things. 

What made my first experience with scones all the more disappointing is that when I heard the word "Scone" I didn’t think of blueberries and sawdust held together with industrial-strength epoxy.  That’s because, from the time I was 18 until the time I was 29, this was a scone:

This fluffy pillow of golden-brown deliciousness is a scone.  Or rather, it’s what Utahans call a scone.  Made of a slightly sweetened bread-like dough (rather than a biscuit-type dough), Utah scones have a crunchy fried exterior and a light, fluffy interior.  The sweet versions are best served with whipped honey butter (as pictured above) or Strawberry Freezer Jam.  Utah also has a chain of restaurants called Sconecutter which uses an unsweetened version as a conveyance vehicle for sandwiches and other fast-food accoutrement.  As is true of everything that is deep fried, Utah Scones are incredibly delicious. 

Perhaps the best Utah Scone I’ve ever had is at the Star Cafe in Layton, Utah.  The perfect little dive cafe, the Star serves scones with its breakfasts or on the side.  I ordered an omelet with hash browns, and got two of these little beauties with my meal.  All for less than six dollars.  (Cue choir of angels.)  If you order one on the side, you’ll get a scone that is about the size of your standard dinner plate.  (Not an exaggeration, I’m afraid.)  They are perfectly cooked and served with honey butter.  They may shorten your life span, but I’m a firm believer that if you don’t have at least one Utah Scone a year, you’re not really alive anyway.

So, one might be able to see why, after coming from the amazingness that is the Utah Scone, I came away from my experience with regular scones disappointed.  I mean, if I wanted a nasty biscuit, I’d pull out my box of Bisquick, mix it up with some Elmer’s Glue, throw a few blueberries into it, cut the dough into triangles, and then bake it for 17 hours.  Then, in order to get it to the Starbucks scone consistency, I’d leave it out in the Sonoran Desert for a month.

I would be interested to know how Utah, of all places, come to call these lovelies "Scones."  Especially since such a large portion of Utah’s original population was originally British, and should know better.  I mean, with such a large Mormon culture, it doesn’t make sense that they purloined a term from British Tea-Drinking.  They should have called them Celestial Fry-Cakes.  Or Carnal Transgression Pastry.  Or Calling & Election on a Plate.  But to equate this culinary wet dream with a dusty, dry, hard, nasty, gross, overcooked biscuit? 

Tragic.