According to the National Archives, the Queen prepared drop scones for the President, using a family recipe. Later she sent the President a letter and enclosed the recipe, with annotations and a suggestion to use treacle in place of the caster sugar. When I first started testing this recipe, I couldn’t understand why the dough was more of a pancake batter, and not “scone-like” as I had imagined. Here in the states we think of drop scones like drop biscuits, instead of cutting out triangular shape scones for baking, we drop the dough from a spoon onto the baking pan. But “drop scones” in parts of the UK, in particular Scotland, where Balmoral castle is situated, are more like American pancakes than typical scones. Drop scones are thicker than American pancakes, and a little smaller. If you read the Queen’s recipe in the image above, note the use of “teacups” as measurements for flour and milk. Before Fanny Farmer we used teacups for measures as well. To figure out how much a typical teacup holds, I tested two teacups, an English made one, and a French limoge. Oddly, when I filled each (completely different shape) tea cup with flour and weighed them, the result for each was exactly 100 grams. By volume, the teacups were each 3/4 of an American standard cup. So “4 teacups” would be 3 American cups, and “2 teacups” would be 1 1/2 cups. European butter has a much higher fat content than standard American butter, so if you have European butter, you may want to use it, to more closely replicate what the Queen was making. Most recipes for drop scones I found add a little salt. I don’t know if the Queen used salted butter or not. Her recipe doesn’t call for it, but since I use unsalted butter, I added a little salt to the batter. A note on the cream of tartar. We happen to have some in our pantry, but many people don’t. Cream of tartar is a dry acid. It combines with the alkaline baking soda to create the leavening in the scones. Baking powder is just the combination of baking soda and cream of tartar with some corn starch thrown in, so if you don’t have cream of tartar, you can substitute both the baking soda and the cream of tartar with baking powder. Serve with butter, jam, or golden syrup (Americans sub maple syrup).
