We get questions about our scones just about every day. Who makes them, where are they from, what’s the recipe, are they fresh baked? Let’s take a quick behind the scenes look at our scone making this week.

Where are Little Woods Scones From?

Right here in our shop. We developed a way to make a nice big from scratch batch, and then we portion it out and freeze them as individual scones. All that gets put into a food safe freezer bag, and saved for later. Then we can bake just as many as we need for the day and if we run out, bake a few more. We used to have all kinds of issue with baking too many scones, not enough scones, and this has made it easy to get it right just about every single day.

So do we make them from scratch? Yes!

Do we bake them fresh daily? Yes!

Who makes the Scones?

Over the years several staff members have helped me make the scones, and each one has helped refined the process and the recipes. Currently Genasea and I work together to make sure we have a good rotations of flavors and types. It’s a lot of fun to collaborate in this way with new generations of tea enthusiests (it’s occurred to me that I’m officially over twice the age of most our staff! When we opened 13 years ago, I was a few years older than our youngest team member. I’d like to think the shop, and our scones, have grown up right along with me!

What is the recipe? A Secret. But not for long!

We are actually working on our very first recipe book (debuting 2027!) that will include a scaled down home kitchen version of our favorite scone recipes, cookies, and tea bar classics! So excited for this. Think coil bound midwest church style recipe book and you’ve got the right image.

Right now I can tell you the story of how it developed. We used to get our scones from Arcadia (RIP) Cafe/Bakery. They were delightful, cake style sweet scones. We loved them. Then Arcadia relocated, had major renovations, and lost some oven space and were no longer able to do custom orders for us to pick up a few times a week. So after a few months of not having scones and not seeing another good options, I embarked on a mission to reconstruct the scones from my memories.

When I was 19 I studies abroad in England and traveled to the place of my ancestors: Ireland! And there I discovered soda scones. Instead of being a drier, crumbly kind of biscuit, they were fluffy on the inside, loads of butter and cream, and a nice crispy outer layer. I tried about 12 different scone recipes over two weeks (or at least that’s what it felt like), took everything I likes from each, and developed our own version.

Over the years we’ve tweaked, refined, and improved from the OG recipe. I honestly am not sure how similar it even is!

Each week we look to our tea and spice shelves for inspiration. We showcase what makes our little shop special be incorporating our unique blend flavors into the scones – Like Hunter Spice and cheddar savory scones, or the Lady Grey white chocolate featured in the images above.

And that’s it. Our scone story. Our favorite tea treat made from scratch weekly and baked fresh daily!

Until Next Time,

Kristin M Roach