The quest for the perfect scone goes on

At John Lewis at Home today to partake in their free drink and cake of your choice offer. You know the one, if you have a John Lewis account you can apply for their membership card (ie loyalty card) which, amongst other things gives you a free drink and cake of your choice every month for 6 months.

In the past John Lewis scones have been very, very good but recently there has been a change, ever so slightly, for the worse.

Before embarking on the quest I thought I ought to devise some criteria against which to judge each offering. Each attribute will be given a score of 1 to 4 with 1 being lowest and 4 the highest. So here it is, with the John Lewis score alongside:

Physical appearance:
Size: has to be big 3
Shape: pleasing to the eye, top, bottom and sides 3
Colour lightly browned 2
Texture that craggy bit around the side to show it has risen 3
Breaking open tears apart easily 3
Smell must make your mouth water 3

Taste and flavour:
Crunch first bite impact 2
Churn how it breaks down when chewing 3
Crumb how well it holds together when putting on cold butter 2
Initial taste the impact of the first mouthful 3
Full taste how the flavour develops with eating 3

Giving a total score of 31/44. Another good benchmark. A very acceptable scone with was very pleasant to eat. Let down slightly by its colour and crunch. It was only crunchy where they had sprinkled a few sugar crystals;

There may be more and I'm open to your suggestions as to other criteria to include.

Apart from testing out my scone evaluation scheme the rest of the day was either spent running, working, on the allotment, cooking and walking. The shed on the allotment had it's first wet wether use today as a heavy shower curtailed activities for half an hour.