What scones cost in Malaysia
Most people here have met a scone in one of two places: a shop in Cameron Highlands, or a hotel afternoon tea. Both leave you with an idea of what a scone is and what it ought to cost, and a small pre-order kitchen in the Klang Valley sits outside both of them.
This page is about that gap, including the part where ours are dearer. If you came here wondering why a scone costs RM9 when you remember paying less, that is a fair question and it deserves a straight answer rather than a paragraph about passion.
What is a scone, exactly?
A small baked good from Britain, made with flour and butter. It sits closer to a soft bread roll than to a cake — barely sweet on its own, meant to be split open and eaten with jam, cream or butter.
Nobody here translates the word. It is a scone in English, a scone in Malay, and it is written that way on every shop sign in Cameron Highlands.
On holiday, in Cameron Highlands
Tanah Rata and Taman Sedia have a run of scone shops within a few minutes of each other, and between them they account for most of what Malaysians search about scones at all — the state of Pahang out-searches Selangor on the word.
They are sold warm over a counter, usually with strawberry jam made from the farms around them, and eaten within the hour. That is holiday food, priced and made for people walking past. It is a good thing to be, and it is not the same product as one baked to a date you chose.
At an afternoon tea
The other route is older. Afternoon tea came with the British and stayed on after 1957: the Eastern & Oriental in Penang has been serving it since 1885, the Majestic in Kuala Lumpur since 1932, and both still put scones with jam and clotted cream on the stand.
There the scone is one tier of a set, and the price is the afternoon rather than the scone. It also sets an expectation that scones are something you sit down to somewhere else, which is the habit a delivery box is quietly asking you to break.
What ours cost
RM9 to RM15 a piece, depending on what is in it. Delivery is worked out from the distance and added before you pay; self-pickup is free.
| Scone | Price |
|---|---|
| Original | RM9 · 80 gThe plain one. Butter, flour and time — nothing to hide behind. |
| Cranberry | RM12 · 80 gDried cranberries folded through, tart against the butter. |
| Earl Grey · Cream Cheese | RM15 · 75 gBergamot tea leaves in the dough, with a cream cheese centre. |
| Lemon · Cream Cheese | RM15 · 75 gBright lemon zest with a cream cheese centre. |
| Matcha · Cream Cheese · Cranberry | RM15 · 75 gMatcha in the dough, with a cream cheese centre and cranberry. |
| Box of Four | RM45Original, Cranberry, Earl Grey and Lemon, boxed in kraft. RM51 if bought separately. |
| Box of Six | RM75Six scones you choose, boxed in kraft. RM75, or what the six come to if that is less. |
Nothing is baked before it is sold
Every order here is placed against a collection day, and the baking happens that morning. A counter has to guess the day's demand and bake to it; we do not have that problem, and we also do not have the volume that makes a counter cheap.
The whole cost of a batch falls on the scones in it. That is the largest single reason the number is what it is.
They are made to be eaten this week, not this month
There is nothing in them to make them keep. Butter, flour, and an overnight rest so the butter re-sets before it goes into a hot oven for seventeen minutes.
A scone built to sit on a shelf is a cheaper scone to make and a different thing to eat.
The filled ones cost more
Earl Grey, Lemon and Matcha carry a cream cheese centre, which is why they sit at the top of the table. Original and Cranberry are the plain end of the menu and priced there.
So which should you buy?
If what you want is the Cameron scone, buy the Cameron scone. Half of what makes it good is the drive up, the cold air and the jam from the farm down the road, and none of that survives a courier to Petaling Jaya at any price.
What we can do is the part that is hard to get in the city: one baked the morning you collect it, in a flavour you chose, brought to your door on a day you picked. That is the whole of the offer, and it is what the difference in price buys.
How to eat one
Original and Cranberry want a few minutes in a hot oven or air fryer; Earl Grey, Lemon and Matcha want a fraction of that, so the outside warms while the cream cheese centre stays cold. If you are adding jam, heat it first and split it afterwards, not the other way round.
The full storage and reheating guide has the keeping times, the thawing, and the one flavour most people get wrong.
Baked to the day you collect.
Everything is pre-order, so pick a collection day and we bake to it. Pickup from Cheras, or delivery across the Klang Valley.
Read next: how to eat a scone — jam or cream first, and what stands in for clotted cream here.
The other half of the figure is the trip: what delivery costs across Kuala Lumpur is worked out from your address before you pay, not from a flat rate.