The history of scones is believed to have originated in Scotland. The name “scone” is said to come from the Dutch word “schoonbrot,” which means “beautiful bread.” Scones have a long and interesting history that dates back several centuries.
Originally, scones were not the sweet, buttery treats we know today. Instead, they were simple unleavened oatcakes or griddle cakes made from barley, oats, or wheat. These early scones were baked on griddles or stovetops rather than being oven-baked.
As time went on, the recipe for scones evolved, and they became more commonly associated with Scotland and England. The Scottish version of scones was typically round and made with oats. They were cooked on a griddle or in a pan and then cut into triangular sections, which were known as “bannocks.” These bannocks were the ancestors of the modern scone.
In the 19th century, with the advent of baking powder and modern ovens, scones began to be baked instead of griddle-cooked. The addition of baking powder allowed scones to rise and become lighter and fluffier. The ingredients were refined to include flour, butter, milk or cream, and a leavening agent like baking powder. This marked the shift from the traditional oat-based scone to the more recognizable wheat-based scone we know today.
Scones’ popularity spread beyond Scotland and England, and they became a common teatime treat across the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries. The addition of raisins, currants, or other dried fruits, as well as sugar, transformed scones into the sweet delicacies that are commonly enjoyed today, often served with clotted cream and jam in the classic English afternoon tea.
In the United States, scones have also become popular, with various regional and cultural variations. American scones may be larger, sweeter, and have a wider variety of flavor options, such as blueberry, cranberry-orange, or chocolate chip. Today, scones continue to be beloved treats enjoyed for breakfast, brunch, afternoon tea, or as a delightful snack with a cup of tea or coffee. Their history reflects centuries of evolution and cultural influence, making them a delightful and enduring part of baking traditions worldwide.
The standard scone is a simple and versatile preparation that can be customized with various additions, such as dried fruits, nuts, or chocolate chips, to suit different tastes.
Here is a basic recipe for making standard scones:
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup milk (plus more for brushing on top)
1 large egg
Optional: 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or other flavorings (e.g., almond extract, lemon zest)
Optional: Additions such as dried fruits, chocolate chips, or nuts (about 1/2 cup)
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well combined.
Add the cold butter cubes to the flour mixture and use a pastry cutter or your fingers to work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. The butter should be well distributed but still in small pieces.
If you’re adding any optional flavorings or additions, mix them into the dry ingredients at this stage.
In a separate small bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, and optional vanilla extract (or other flavorings) until well combined.
Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet mixture into it. Gently stir the ingredients together until just combined. Be careful not to overmix; the dough should be slightly crumbly but hold together.
Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured surface and shape it into a round disk, about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick.
Use a sharp knife or a biscuit cutter to cut the dough into wedges or rounds, depending on your preference. Traditionally, scones are cut into triangular shapes.
Place the scones on the prepared baking sheet, leaving some space between them.
Brush the tops of the scones with a little milk to give them a nice golden color when baked.
Bake the scones in the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes or until they are lightly golden on top.
Remove from the oven and let them cool slightly before serving. Scones are best enjoyed fresh and can be served with butter, clotted cream, jam, or any other toppings of your choice.
This standard scone recipe provides a classic and delicious base that you can experiment with by adding various flavors and mix-ins to create your own unique variations.
Settled in the Village of Berrien Springs (Population 2043, including students) Andrews University is the flagship educational institution of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and is made up of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business Administration, School of Education, School of Health Professions, and the School of Architecture, Art & Design.
The University is named after John Nevins Andrews (1829–1883), the biggest thinker in the 19th-century Seventh-day Adventist Church. He was also the first sponsored missionary that the Church sent overseas. J.N. Andrews’ example of careful thought and compassionate action in Christian life is something we have taken to heart. Our motto is “Seek Knowledge. Affirm Faith. Change the World.”
Andrews University is honored to be ranked as one of the top 15 Christian universities and the highest ranked Adventist university in the country in the 2024 Niche Best Colleges report. pic.twitter.com/FQb7czeHoL
Pres. JW Taylor greeted Julianna Magan, her parents, Andy & Cindy Magan, & sister, Clara, at Sutherland House on Aug. 19. Julianna, a transfer student, & Clara are great-great-great-granddaughters of Percy T. Magan, 1 of the 2 major founders of the Andrews Berrien Springs campus. pic.twitter.com/2wqcgUQBdl
100 years ago, the Supreme Court made it clear in Pierce v. Society of Sisters: raising children is the responsibility of parents, not the government.
100 years later, the Trump Administration remains committed to protecting parental rights. pic.twitter.com/yduXdLShty
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) June 1, 2025
“…O chestnut tree;, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bold? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
We sweep through the world’s three major time zones; updating our understanding of the literature at the technical foundation of education community safety and sustainability in those time zones 24 times per day. We generally eschew “over-coding” web pages to sustain speed, revision cadence and richness of content as peak priority. We do not provide a search facility because of copyrights of publishers and time sensitivity of almost everything we do.
Our daily colloquia are typically doing sessions; with non-USA titles receiving priority until 16:00 UTC and all other titles thereafter. We assume policy objectives are established (Safer-Simpler-Lower-Cost, Longer-Lasting). Because we necessarily get into the weeds, and because much of the content is time-sensitive and copyright protected, we usually schedule a separate time slot to hammer on technical specifics so that our response to consultations are meaningful and contribute to the goals of the standards developing organization and to the goals of stewards of education community real assets — typically the largest real asset owned by any US state and about 50 percent of its annual budget.
1. Leviathan. We track noteworthy legislative proposals in the United States 118th Congress. Not many deal specifically with education community real assets since the relevant legislation is already under administrative control of various Executive Branch Departments such as the Department of Education.
We do not advocate in legislative activity at any level. We respond to public consultations but there it ends.
We track federal legislative action because it provides a stroboscopic view of the moment — the “national conversation”– in communities that are simultaneously a business and a culture. Even though more than 90 percent of such proposals are at the mercy of the party leadership the process does enlighten the strengths and weakness of a governance system run entirely through the counties on the periphery of Washington D.C. It is impossible to solve technical problems in facilities without sensitivity to the zietgeist that has accelerated in education communities everywhere.
Michigan Great Lake Quilt
Michigan can 100% water and feed itself. Agriculture is its second-largest industry.
The ISI is a nonprofit organization founded in 1953 by Frank Chodorov and William F. Buckley Jr. to promote conservative and libertarian ideas on American college campuses. ISI educates students through publications (e.g., Modern Age, The Intercollegiate Review), campus lectures, honors programs, and fellowships that emphasize free-market economics, limited government, traditional values, and the Western intellectual tradition.
Independent of political parties, it has influenced generations of conservative leaders, including judges, journalists, and policymakers. Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, ISI remains active in countering perceived leftist dominance in higher education
“The expansion of higher education has been paid for by the taxpayer,
and the taxpayer has been rewarded with the systematic destruction
New ISI chapters and new Collegiate Network publications reflect a growing demand for thoughtful, principled conservatism. Discover the work happening across the ISI community at the link below.https://t.co/F1tmk1741Tpic.twitter.com/XqCn1lSITY
William F. Buckley Jr. and Russell Kirk were the twin pillars of post-war American conservatism, yet with distinct emphases. Kirk, the traditionalist, rooted conservatism in moral order, permanence, prescription, and the “permanent things” of Western civilization—famously outlining it in The Conservative Mind (1953). Buckley, the fusionist, built National Review to unite traditionalists, libertarians, and anti-communists under a practical political banner, emphasizing individual liberty and anti-statism.Though Kirk criticized libertarian excesses and Buckley occasionally chided traditionalist “reaction,” they admired each other deeply. Buckley called Kirk the conservative movement’s “benign patriarch”; Kirk praised Buckley’s role in making conservatism intellectually respectable and politically viable. Their friendship and mutual influence forged the enduring traditionalist-libertarian synthesis of modern American conservatism
“The seeming infinitude of internet content renders it transient: just one more funny video, just one more brightly-colored photo from family vacation, just one more horror story on the news, just one more passionately-written think piece.” pic.twitter.com/i71OLQmOqJ
We examine the proposals for the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code; including our own. The 2026 National Electrical Code where sit on CMP-15 overseeing health care facility electrical issues should be released any day now. We have one proposal on the agenda of the International Code Council’s Group B Committee Action Hearings in Cleveland in October. Balloting on the next IEEE Gold Book on reliability should begin.
FERC Open Meetings | (Note that these ~60 minute sessions meet Sunshine Act requirements. Our interest lies one or two levels deeper into the technicals underlying the administrivia)
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan
First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content. We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:
N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format.
Recap of the May meetings of the Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas. The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.
We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.
We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:
Codes & Standards:
While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO. Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”
Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles. The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235. Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful. A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.
Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:
Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:
NFPA 110 Definitions of Public Utility v. Merchant Utility
NFPA 72 “Definition of Dormitory Suite” and related proposals
Buildings:
Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction. UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.
This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid. Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies. Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.
Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids
District energy:
Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums. David Shipp and Sergio Panetta. Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.
Reliability:
Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.
Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points. Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.
Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter. The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts. For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain. It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades. Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions. Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.
Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.
Mike will update the campus power outage database.
Healthcare:
Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk. Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:
Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.
The Internet of Bodies
Forensics:
Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.
Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.
Ports:
Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports. Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.
A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT
Other:
Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,
Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development. Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno. Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)
Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing. All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.
Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles. Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.
Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons? Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:
Many large research universities have significant medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises. The leadership of those enterprises discount the effect of standards like this at their peril. It is easy to visualize that this document will have as transformative effect upon the healthcare industry as the ISO 9000 series of management standards in the globalization of manufacturing.
Standardization in the field of healthcare organization management comprising, terminology, nomenclature, recommendations and requirements for healthcare-specific management practices and metrics (e.g. patient-centered staffing, quality, facility-level infection control, pandemic management, hand hygiene) that comprise the non-clinical operations in healthcare entities.
Excluded are horizontal organizational standards within the scope of:
quality management and quality assurance (TC 176);
human resource management (TC 260);
risk management (TC 262);
facility management (TC 267), and;
occupational health and safety management (TC 283).
Also excluded are standards relating to clinical equipment and practices, enclosing those within the scope of TC 198 Sterilization of health care products.
This committee is led by the US Technical Advisory Group Administrator —Ingenesis. The committee is very active at the moment, with new titles drafted, reviewed and published on a near-monthly basis,
DPAS ballot for ISO PAS 23617- Healthcare organization management: Pandemic response (respiratory) —Guidelines for medical support of socially vulnerable groups – Comments due 16 October
Contact: Lee Webster (lswebste@utmb.edu, lwebster@ingenesis.com), Mike Anthony (mike@standardsmichigan.com), Jack Janveja (jjanveja@umich.edu), Richard Robben (rrobben1952@gmail.com), James Harvey (jharvey@umich.edu), Christine Fischer (chrisfis@umich.edu), Dr Veronica Muzquiz Edwards (vedwards@ingenesis.com)
Four years ago Mom made a surprise visit to the ‘Hyacinth Chen School of Nursing’. Was always her dream that young women, especially from poor families, fulfil theirs to become nurses. The students were ecstatic to actually see a lady they only knew as a painting on the wall. pic.twitter.com/LBHHCLVhKy
The American National Standards Institute — the Global Secretariat for ISO — does not provide content management systems for its US Technical Advisory Groups. Because of the nascent committee, inspired by the work of Lee Webster at the University of Texas Medical Branch needed a content management system, we have been managing content on a Google Site facility on a University of Michigan host since 2014.Earlier this spring, the University of Michigan began upgrading its Google Sites facility which requires us to offload existing content onto the new facility before the end of June. That process is happening now. Because of this it is unwise for us to open the content library for this committee publicly. Respecting copyright, confidentiality of ISO and the US Technical Advisory Group we protect most recent content in the link below and invite anyone to click in any day at 15:00 (16:00) UTC. Our office door is open every day at this hour and has been for the better part of ten years.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
