She’s a scone-tender Oronon baker on a quest to salvage the reputation – and proper pronunciation – of an English treat

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he scent of butter hangs heavy in the air of Megan Bromley’s kitchen as she works her “assembly line,” measuring flour, adding baking powder, cream and eggs, kneading and finally cutting the dough into eight triangular scones as she readies them for the oven.

Bromley – who is known as English Meg, scone mistress of Orono – has it down to a science.

“I’m kind of an automaton,” Bromley says as she moves gracefully through her kitchen, a gauzy vintage apron over her jeans and T-shirt. “I don’t think I could have anyone help me.”

It was only natural for Bromley, 27, to take up scone-making. For starters, she grew up in a family of bakers. And she’s an Anglophile through and through – she even married a Brit, Gordon Bromley, whom she met at university in Scotland. The back of their car is covered with bumper stickers of the Union Jack. A collection of teapots lines the stairway in their Orono apartment. Though she grew up in Virginia, Bromley’s voice has a slight English lilt to it, and when she says scone, it rhymes with con, not cone.

While it would be nice to say Meg’s secret recipe was passed down from Gordon’s great-great-grandmother in Surrey, it actually came from an American cookbook – one of many she keeps in an antique oak Hoosier in the kitchen. She wanted to make something special while visiting her mom at Christmas a few years ago, and she found herself drawn to the scones.

“I made cream scones and that was the start of something big,” she said, smiling.

When the couple moved to Maine so Gordon could pursue his doctorate, Meg started baking more at home – much to her husband’s delight (Meg says he can eat for five). Inspired by the sense of community she felt at her hometown farmers market in Falls Church, Va., she thought she’d give Orono’s a try. That way, she could meet new people and make all the sweets she wanted without having to eat them all.

The scones were a given, and she named her business after her nickname in Scotland. At university, friends would call each other by their major and first name, such as “chemistry Joe” or “anthropology Sally.” Since Meg studied English, she was “English Meg.”

She got the name right, but the day before her first market experience, it seemed like everything else would go wrong. She and her mom had bought a chalkboard for her price list but the chalk wouldn’t write on it. Her tent was a disaster. And she fell asleep to the sound of rain falling on her roof.

“I kept saying, ‘Why did I do this? I must be the stupidest person alive,'” she said. “I thought no one was going to come.”

But she was wrong.

“I went and set up and sold out that morning,” she recalled. “It was such a blissful experience.”

It wasn’t always bliss in the kitchen, however. She forgot to add the baking powder to her scones once, which left the “awful smell of burning flour” in the apartment. She burned two dozen muffins (she also sells cookies, muffins and biscotti). She’s botched other batches, as well, which adds up because of all the butter and heavy cream she uses.

“They must think I’m the fat queen when I go to the grocery store,” she said, laughing.

But that’s what makes Meg’s scones taste so good. They’re decadent, crumbly, moist and delicious.

Just ask Nora White of Orono. She tried her first scone when she was 16 months old and liked it so much she ate the whole thing. If her dad is eating one, Nora, now 2, will demand a bite. And when her parents say “farmers market” Nora replies, “Scones! Scones!”

“She couldn’t really talk, and she said ‘scones,'” Nora’s mom, Kari, recalled, laughing. “She said a few words here and there, but that was one of her first.”

Nora prefers cranberry-orange scones while Kari is partial to white chocolate macadamia. Meg’s best-sellers are a maple-glazed walnut variety and the old standby, traditional cream scones.

“I know who the purists are because they want the plain ones,” Meg says as she brushes heavy cream on a batch fresh from the oven. “I started selling them as ‘plain,’ but once I called them ‘traditional’ people thought they were in for something better. These have the most fat of all the scones.”

They’re also the most fleeting. Regardless of flavor, they’re best fresh from the oven and their appeal diminishes rapidly after they cool. That’s why the night before market Meg stays up late baking 13 batches of scones and gets up early to bake three more. She also makes scones to order, but insists that they don’t ship well.

“The nice thing about scones is they’re a precious thing,” Meg says. “Once they’re past their peak, they’re gone.”

They’re so precious that Meg used to charge herself when she ate one – the money went into her business cash box. And though she saves a scone for Gordon every time she bakes a batch, they’re a rare indulgence for her.

“For me, it’s product,” she said. “It’s like having little Hondas all around me. I’m not tempted.”

Scones are serious business for Meg, who spends her days as an activities coordinator at the nearby Dirigo Pines retirement community. She relishes the challenge of developing new flavors and coming up with unique products. More important, she enjoys the camaraderie of the market and the connection she feels with her customers.

“It’s one of the best things I’ve done in my life in terms of taking a chance,” she said. “I’m a lot gutsier now, more inclined to talk to strangers and enter into new situations.”

One new situation she’d like to enter into is a tearoom where she can sell her scones. It’s one of the things she misses most about Scotland.

“It’s just something that doesn’t exist as much over here,” she says.

But thanks to Meg, good scones do. And as Nora White proves, she’s introducing a new generation to the delectable treat – and teaching them how to pronounce “scones” the correct way. And she’s doing her part to dispel the myth that they’re dry, hard, cough-inducing bricks.

“I just don’t waste my time on cookies from the supermarket or Chips Ahoy,” Meg said. “I save my fat for things that are worth it and frankly, scones are worth it. They’re a treat.”

English Meg’s scones are sold in batches of eight for $10.50. For information or to obtain a brochure, call 866-3362 or e-mail EnglishMeg@yahoo.com. Meg also has a booth at the Orono Farmers Market from May to November. Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.

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