A 10-year scone sampling project

I admire dedication to a project, and if it involves food all the more so. This one features baked goods, making it rank even higher in my appreciation. Sarah Merker, from Isleworth, recently completed a 10-year quest to sample scones at every possible National Trust location, ranking each on her blog.

Mercer ate the baked goods at 244 sites across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. While she did have some favorites, she noted that the real key to an excellent scone is freshness. “It takes a lot to ruin a fresh scone,” she added. “As long as the scone has been baked that day, you can hardly ever go wrong.”

The project, which Mercer started with her husband in 2013, became a way to honor him after he died from cancer in 2018. “He’d been there for so much of it and obviously I have memories of doing it with him,” she said. “So, for me, it was really important to finish it for him as well – I wanted to make sure I got to the end.”

Mercer isn’t alone in enjoying scones – there are over 1,400 online scone recipes in the EYB Library and many of them have a five-star rating. My favorite recipe is a bit untraditional, Cream scones by Diana Henry, which she says she created after a visit to The Model Bakery in California.