Is it really cheaper to make scones from scratch?

In our family we have a bit of an addiction to cream teas. Whenever we visit the West Country we seek them out; we have been known to fit in one each day of a holiday. We also enjoy making our own at home, especially when the weather is as miserable as it has been this weekend. I think it reminds us that summer will come again!

I enjoyed writing last week's post on the cost of baking Victoria Sponge from scratch so I decided to take the same approach with scones. I didn't buy the cheapest "value" scones, as these contained fruit and DD considers cooked dried fruit to be an Abomination, only tolerated under sufferance. The scones I did buy claimed to be made with butter, so this time I used proper butter in my baking.

The ingredients!

The recipe I used was similar to the one on the BBC website here, except that I used milk rather than beaten egg to glaze them. This time I coerced DD into helping measure the energy used. Following Angela's advice I baked twice the normal amount to save even more energy. I froze half before they could be eaten!

Mine are the scones on the left.

My scones turned out to be the same weight as the shop bought scones. Mine worked out at 8p each, and the shop bought ones were 16.7p each. The shop bought scones looked neater, apparently mine have "character", but the home made variety were much lighter. So now the only question is, cream first or jam?