scones, shortcake and biscuits

[eloise_herisson]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Jennifer Boggess Ramon <boggles at e...> 
wrote:
>
> 
> What is the difference between a scone and shortcake?  (I mean real 
> shortcake, not the spongy things they sell in groceries, of course.)
> 


I always promised myself I'd stick to the main board. But....well, 
resolutions were made to be broken and anyway I'm intrigued!

A scone, to us, (at least, the kind you eat with clotted cream) is a 
kind of cake, sort of related to soda bread. You can taste the soda 
in them, or at least they give you that funny feeling on your teeth 
you get from eating soda bread. Although some recipes call for eggs, 
normally they contain just flour, butter, milk and baking powder 
(that's  a mixture of cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda, in 
case you call it something different)- oh and a pinch of salt. You 
can add dried fruit, or alternatively, cheese, so they can be sweet 
or savoury. Usually you roll out the dough and cut it into individual 
rounds, but mine tend to go flat, so I do what my mother always did 
and make one big round which I divide into six segments before 
cooking. They're one of those things which benefit from minimal 
handling
Ideally you eat them very soon after cooking as they go stale very 
quickly.

We also have things called girdle scones, which look more like your 
pancakes and are cooked on a griddle. In fact 'drop scone' is an 
alternative name for Scotch (please note, this is one of the few 
times you are allowed to use this word, aside from whisky)pancakes, 
which are pretty synonymous with what you just call pancakes - I 
think. (We use the word pancake on its own to denote a crepe.)

But you don't eat any of those with clotted cream. Well, I wouldn't!

But I don't understand your use of shortcake!
To me, shortcake is a synonym for shortbread, that *very* rich, 
buttery biscuit (British usage) particularly associated with Scotland.
I know you mean something different, but I've never fathomed what.

And what do you mean by 'biscuit', anyway? Or did someone already 
explain?

Eloise
Who was very confused, when she first lived in Tokyo, by the use of 
the term 'English muffin', when the pack clearly showed they weren't 
made in England and only realised later that Americans differentiate 
our muffins as English as we differentiate theirs as American-style!