The Best Scones in Miami Come Around Just Once a Year

If you hail from the USA, if you consider a scone, you most likely image a large, crumbly, sugary cross between a cookie and a muffin, maybe studded with fruit and/or drizzled with a sticky glaze. If you are British, nevertheless, you already know what an actual scone is: a easy, healthful biscuit with only a trace of sweetness.

If you’ve got solely tried the American selection, you are in for a deal with if you get your fingers on the true deal.

Unfortunately, in Miami, it is unimaginable to search out one — until it is Presidents’ Day weekend when the Coconut Grove Arts Festival takes place and native baker Nicola Brown sells her wares to lift cash for charity.

Born within the north of England, Brown moved to Miami to lift her three daughters when she was in her 20s, however she has been baking for greater than 40 years.

“I discovered how one can bake on the younger age of 12 from my late mum, who used to bake scones for my sister and me once we would come residence from faculty,” she tells New Times. “It’s my remedy — enjoyable and calming. I really like doing it for others as a result of it’s so rewarding and therapeutic.”

Over time, Brown has developed her personal unique recipes, and in doing so she has earned a repute amongst locals within the know. Among her specialties: scones with freshly made jam and selfmade clotted cream; lemon pound cake; espresso cake; “Jamble Bars” (jam-filled shortbread); and double chocolate cookies.

“British baked items are distinctive, which is why mine have been so fashionable on the pageant,” Brown presents. “I don’t consider you will get a selfmade British scone in Miami like mine. The British scone isn’t the American scone. It’s softer and never dry. It doesn’t crumble — it actually melts in your mouth.”

Brown’s bake sale is not a part of the Coconut Grove Arts Festival, per se. Rather, every year because the flip of the millennium, her church, St. Stephen’s Episcopal, has hosted an artwork pageant adjoining to the primary occasion, on the identical grounds. Staffed by volunteers, the annual St. Stephen’s Art Show is, in Brown’s phrases, “the glue that holds the parish collectively.”

At first the meals facet boiled all the way down to a sizzling canine stand, with Brown and a fellow Brit promoting a small amount of scones in a St. Stephen’s classroom.

That was then. Now the annual introduction of St. Stephen’s English Tea Room is a serious enterprise.

“Now, we promote over 300 scones, muffins, and bars every year,” Brown says.

In her spare time, Brown hosts occasional non-public occasions at her residence, which she calls “Gratitude Teas,” the place she spreads “positivi-tea” and emphasizes the function of gratitude in our day by day lives.

“I get a lot pleasure out of my Gratitude Tea occasions — serving my mates and native girls’s teams,” she says. “At these occasions, we give attention to what we’re grateful for, not simply in the future a yr, however each day giving gratitude to our lives.”

Has she ever thought-about opening a year-round bakery or teahouse?

The thought has crossed her thoughts, she admits.

“My soul is glad right here,” she’s fast so as to add. “I really like the life in me that I really feel when right here on the British Tea Room. The heat of the daylight and the brightness of the sky energize me and permit me to really feel alive and wholesome, which provides me the vitality to reside a full life and unfold my positivity.”

If you occur to be within the Grove this weekend for the Coconut Grove Arts Festival Festival, you may think about stopping by for some positivi-tea — and a scone or two.

The British Tea Room at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. 2750 McFarlane Rd., Coconut Grove; Saturday, February 17 by Monday, February 19, from midday to five p.m.