Welcome back to How I Cook+!
This week, I’m writing to you from Cornwall. We’re staying in a little town called Gwithian near St. Ives. I’m here with my family for a few days before we head off to Glastonbury and my lovely Nanny (last grandparent standing…) has very kindly offered to show me (and you!) how to make her classic sweet scones.
Now you can pretend to be extremely British and have afternoon cream tea just like we do. It’s great, do it.
Happy baking,
B x
I rarely check out the stats page of my substack dashboard, but sometimes it can be pretty handy. This is where I can find all the data about where you lot are in the world, how much you read on substack etc etc. What I have learnt is that just 41% of you live in the UK (my gut is telling me it’s more than that, and some of you are withholding your location from Substack, respect). However, this does justify my writing about Devonshire cream teas today, as most of you have probably never had one, and oh boy are they a joy.
Having grown up in the south of England, these were a relatively regular treat. A hot cup of tea (Yorkshire gold, milk, no sugar) plonked down in front of you, swiftly followed by a small plate of freshly baked scones with thick, rich clotted cream and tart raspberry jam. This is the very lady who would deliver it.
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This is my Nanny (Grandma), and this glamorous woman has been making scones for me and our family our whole lives, and she’s bloody good at it. She’s turned out thousands of the things over the years, savoury, sweet, with fruit, without, for the kids, grandkids, church, the W.I., all that jazz. She’s also very kindly allowed me to share the recipe today with you lot! It’s a simple affair, but the devil’s in the detail.
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WHAT IS A CREAM TEA?
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A cream tea is a little ritual, a post-midday snack served in tea-rooms that dates back to the 11th Century. The practise of serving bread with cream and jam can be traced back to a Benedictine Abbey in Tavistock, Devon. Whilst us Brits have been eating this combo for literal centuries, the name “cream tea” didn’t surface in pop-culture until the mid 20th century in a book called “Picture of Millie”, a crime novel about a girl drowned at a west country sailing resort. Funny how these phrases come about…
The cream tea itself all starts with the sweet scone, a bite-sized baked good, somewhere between a cake and a biscuit that serves as the perfect vehicle for the rich cream and tart jam that are served alongside a classic cream tea. With about 20 minutes and some butter, self-raising flour, milk and sugar you can whip up a batch of scones. They might be one of the easiest bakes around boasting a delicate, short texture with a rich crumb and a fairly neutral, buttery flavour. You’ll want a pot of english breakfast tea alongside your plate of freshly baked scones. It’s all about the simple pleasures.
Down in the West country, a fierce cream tea-based rivalry exists between the counties of Devon and Cornwall. Not only do they feud over who created the thing, but which order the cream and jam hit the scone. The Devonian method dictates that cream must be liberally spread onto the scone first and the jam is then spooned on second. The Cornish method is the complete reverse, with the jam landing on the scone first before a spoon of cream is dolloped on top second. Honestly, it all tastes the same once it hits your mouth, but I reckon I’m with the Cornish crew I think… Jam first, with an adorning blob of cream. Can’t beat that.
SAVOURY OR SWEET?
You can use this recipe to whip up a round of cheddar scones, too. These were a cornerstone of our birthdays growing up. If you fancy a savoury twist on these, half the sugar and add 60g of sharp mature cheddar. When you go to bake the scones add a little extra grated cheddar to the top and slide into the oven for 13-14 mins. I adapted Nanny’s recipe a couple of years ago with the addition of chives, aleppo pepper and sharp mature cheddar. They were delicious… I’ll give the recipe someday.
BUTTER
It’s of paramount importance that you use good quality butter for this recipe. Scones really do rely on the butter for their flavour, the small amount of salt and sugar simply work to enhance the rich, caramelised dairy flavour. Nanny uses salted butter in her recipe to keep things simple but if you’ve only got unsalted, add a pinch of fine sea salt to your flour when making the recipe.
CLOTTED CREAM
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An otherworldly dairy-based experience. If you’ve never tried proper clotted cream, get your ass in gear. What is it? Clotted cream is a thick, rich cream made from fresh whole milk that has been gently heated over a long period of time, often in a water bath, to remove moisture. during this process, little balls of fat or “clots” form on the surface of the cream giving it an almost butter-like appearance. Below this layer of fat sits a nutty, ever so slightly caramelised, sweet, rich cream. It’s a seriously indulgent food with a fat content of around 63% (for context, average double cream sits at around 48%). Perfect for smearing onto freshly baked scones, a cornish classic.
If you’re in the UK, Rodda’s is the one you’ll probably be able to pick up and it’s really, really good. They crank out 25 tonnes of the stuff every day, so they’re doing something right. You can make it at home if you can’t find it down the shops, just grab the highest quality, full-fat milk or cream you can and follow this recipe.
JAM
For me, it’s very hard to beat Bonne Maman raspberry jam. It’s pretty sweet and if you were to ask any real jam-head they’d say it needed a fat squeeze of lemon juice, but I love it. A nostalgic treat, smeared onto white toast or on a warm scone. The pips are best bit, don’t get the smooth variety.
You can of course make your own jam for your cream tea, the classic being raspberry or strawberry flavour. It can get quite expensive making your own strawberry or raspberry jam, unless you grow your own fruit. If I were you, stick to the scones and scoop up a jar at the shops.