Some scones are flattish and crumbly. Some scones are tall and almost flaky. Some biscuits – we’re talking US-style biscuits here, as in ‘biscuits and gravy’ are flattish and crumbly too. Some – the best sort in our opinion – are ... yes, you guessed where we’re going with this, didn’t you? They’re tall and flaky.
If you’ve ever wondered what the difference is, you aren’t alone.
A surprisingly number of food writers dodge the question, instead doing the written equivalent of a conversational mumble. Kitchen science/history guru Harold McGee, for example, in his excellent culinary reference guide , spends several paragraphs on American biscuits, and then says only that “English scones are similar to American biscuits in their simplicity, basic composition, and floury taste.”
Baking expert Shirley Corriher is blunt – biscuits are her thing, while scones, she writes in her book are “a dry crumbly mess”. Now we’ll beg to disagree – Corriher makes amazing US-style biscuits (those lucky enough to attend a class she gave at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival a few years back got to try biscuits made with , and they were towers of light, layered buttery goodness) but a good scone is delightful too.
Cream is the secret to from Anneka Manning
Anneka Manning's cream scones Source: Alan Benson
The two do have a lot in common – both are made from a chemically-leavened dough; both incorporate tiny pieces of butter or other shortening into flour to create a dough; both are rolled out and cut into shapes.
The differences lie in the details beyond those common factors.
Chef Casey Wall, co-owner of Melbourne's Rockwell and Sons, says the difference between biscuits and scones is a question he gets asked a lot. The answer? "Different leavening agents. Also biscuits are rarely sweet in themselves, although can be served with sweet condiments," the Carolina-born chef explains. (Biscuits often use baking soda, scones are often made with baking powder - although these are not hard and fast rules). Rockwell and Sons serves their biscuits (which leading southern American chef one said were "the best biscuits he'd ever had", Wall recounts) for their Wednesday night fried chicken dinners.
The liquids used can vary, as can the shapes the dough is cut into. Biscuit doughs are often wetter than scone doughs. Scones usually include eggs and sugar (although not always). The dough for biscuits is often laminated – that is, layered, to create the deliciously flaky interior – while a scone dough is rolled or patted out and cut, with no layering (although from Matthew and Sadie Evans is an exception, using layering for a "really flaky version"). Biscuits, as Wall says, are mostly served with savoury dishes, while scones can be sweet or savoury. (For a detailed comparison of two typical recipes, take a look at by Food52 writer Emma Larerruque.)
Even within the world of biscuits, there are variations. McGee says American biscuits come in two main types – one with a crusty, irregular top and a tender inside, and another with a flat top and flaky interior. In fact, there seem to be many variations, but with a lean to a biscuit made with a wetter dough in the south.
Now, if you guessed that the image at the top of the article is of a biscuit, you’re correct. are what Matty Matheson makes in It’s Suppertime (catch Matty cooking roast chicken with biscuits and gravy Saturday 1 September, 5.40pm on SBS VICELAND). Here, Matheson does a layered biscuit. When the dough is laminated (the initial dough is cut into pieces and stacked, or alternatively folded on itself, to give multiple layers), the spaces in between, he explains, “are gonna crack and break and bake, and it just puffs up and you get a crispy, crunchy, airy, fluffy biscuit”.
Baking writer and pastry chef Cindy Mushet, in , explains what happens. Both biscuits and scones, she writes, get their tender texture from the little bits of butter incorporated into the dough (usually by cutting or rubbing in – either way, the important thing is to keep the butter cold). As the butter coats the flour particles, it discourages gluten strands from forming, leading to a tender dough. Some slightly larger butter particles, on the other hand, stay distinct from the dough; in the oven these little bits of butter melt, leaving behind little spaces in the dough – “otherwise known as a flake”, she says. To achieve those spaces the oven must be very hot, so the dough sets quickly, and the spaces are retained.
Matty's layered dough creates flaky golden biscuits. Source: SBS VICELAND / It's Suppertime
The key to light biscuits and scones is minimal dough handling. Or as Matheson says in true Suppertime style, if you “really mash it … you get flat f**king biscuits. The less you do, the more you get out of it.”
Another tip – if you are making round scones, or biscuits, don’t twist the cutter. It’s likely to affect the edges, creating an uneven scone and preventing a full, flaky rise in the oven.
If you want to make a great scone, here are our top 10 tips:
You can also brush up on your scone technique with SBS Food’s baking expert, Anneka Manning, in her . If you'd like to give biscuits a go you can make , or try for biscuits with pulled brisket and milk gravy. Or you can try from Matthew Evans, which he describes as a cross between an English scone and an - another, quite different member of the biscuit family. "The result is a scone that is more flaky than most; so flaky, in fact, that sometimes they puff so much they fall over when baking." Who'd say no to that?
