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scones

ejm's picture
ejm

scones

We were reading Nigel Slater's "Eating for England",

You are faced with a plate of scones, a pat of butter, a dish of jam and a pot of clotted cream. [...] You have either butter or cream, never both. At least not when everyone is looking. It is generally accepted that the jam goes on first, followed by a teaspoonful of cream. Others insist it is the other way round.

-Nigel Slater, "Eating for England"

And we suddenly neeeeeeded to have scones. Luckily for us, not everyone was looking: we had all three condiments on our scones. Butter first, next cream - maybe more than a tablespoon, THEN jam. Mmmmmm!!! Scones with butter, "cream" (made with yoghurt and goat's cheese) and black currant jam. What could be finer?

scones © ejm June 2010

The scones want to split in half; the crumb is very tender. The hint of nutmeg and addition of currants differentiates scones from our baking powder biscuits.

Recipes here:

  • scones
  • "cream", a reasonable facsimile for clotted cream made with yoghurt and goat's cheese

-Elizabeth

 

Comments

copyu's picture
copyu

needs nothing else apart from a small pat of butter, in my very humble opinion.

I've lived on several continents and islands for extended periods. 'Scones' or American 'biscuits' seem to be ubiquitous items worldwide...they DO vary a lot, however.

The ones that sit around all day in bakeries are really British 'rock (buns) cakes', with raisins or cranberries, or even chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.) NOT real scones, in other words.  

For fresh, hot, British-style scones, I'd say: if there's no Jersey butter, then jam and cream (in that order) make a fine substitute...that's just ONE opinion, though.

Thank you very much for the inspiration for tomorrow's breakfast! ;-)

copyu

 

ejm's picture
ejm

Ah, this is what I like about scones - and I do think that ours are true scones even though they were baked in Canada rather than the UK. I too have my own private rules about scones:

  1. the pronunciation: “scone” rhymes with “lawn” or “gone” and NEVER with “mown” or “stone”
  2. scones MUST have a bit of nutmeg in them
  3. they must be served warm

Macadamia nuts? Oh my no.

I'd love to have had Jersey butter but we had to make do with our regular old Canadian butter we always have. And while I respect your opinion, and would never tell anyone that they had to slather their scones with butter, cream AND jam, I do think that's the most fun. (But I'm afraid the jam must go on after the cream rather than before ;-))

-Elizabeth

maybaby's picture
maybaby

Elizabeth...I'm in Canada too...Hamilton ON.

I've found the President's Choice butter in the sticks very good and better for baking imho over the other 1 lb/54 g blocks.

I haven't tried their special butters because they only sell them in 225 g blocks and the cost is prohibitve.

 

I also make fake clotted cream. I use a couple of tablespoons of active organic yogurt such as the Liberte brand available at Loblaws/nofrills and mix it into 1 cup of whipping cream (heavy cream) and let it sit out over night covered with a dishtowel. Thickens up like commercial sour cream and is very tasty.

ejm's picture
ejm

We've done something similar to make fake creme fraiche using cream cheese and 10% cream. But on this particular day that we had scones, we didn't have any cream in the house and so divised the one with goat's cheese and yoghurt. While it doesn't taste like clotted cream when eaten on its own, it does work very well when combined with jam on scones. I'd be hard-pressed to say that it wasn't clotted cream.

-Elizabeth

Our recipe here: creamy cream cheese topping

jyslouey's picture
jyslouey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I came across a very good scones recipe from a UK TV programme called River Cottage using double cream (120 ml), one egg and 75 grms of very cold butter.  I have made different kinds of  scones using this same recipe but changing some of ingredients inside and they have been a success each time.  This is the scone recipe that I'll stick with from now on. The plain scones should be eaten with jam and clotted cream but since clotted cream is expensive and not easily found, I have opted to make them wiith different fillings so that they can be eaten on its own without the cream.  I've never used nutmeg and sultanas in my scones before but I think I'm going to give this a try

ejm's picture
ejm

River Cottage is a good show, isn't it? We also like Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage cookbook. I'm surprised he puts an egg in his scones though.

And nooooo!! Don't adulterate your scones with sultanas; sultanas are horrible in scones! ;-) Use currants or Thompson raisins instead.

By the way, plain scones with just butter are fabulous.

-Elizabeth

P.S. And while I'm on this purist thread, I've never seen scones shaped with a cookie cutter either. In my experience, they're always cut into triangles or diamonds with knife.

jyslouey's picture
jyslouey

I was taught to make scones with raisins when I was at school more than 40 yrs ago. (raisins, currants, sultanas or whatever, they all  taste the same to me  anyway).  They should be eaten plain with clotted cream and jam but since I don't have clotted jam, I thought I would just add a little extra ingredients.  I've only known them to be round and cut out with a cookie cutter (you can  of course  shape them by hand, i just didn't want to handle the dough to much for fear of melting the fat.   FYI, the typical scones  in Somerset  (where I worked one esummer in 1972) and served with clotted cream and strawberry jam are also round. 

ejm's picture
ejm

Well, there you go. I suspected that it was not uncommon to use cutters for scones. (It's possible that my mother used the knife to cut scones - also handling the dough as little as possible- to differentiate them from her baking powder biscuits, which were always round and NEVER had nutmeg in them.)

Do try the fake cream if you get a chance. It's really delicious. Not exactly like clotted cream but darn close.

jyslouey's picture
jyslouey

Thanks for the tip on fake clotted cream.  When you refer to cream chesse do you use Philadelphia cream cheese or do you use Marscapone cheese which tastes almost like cream? And the whipping cream is pouring consistency, not whipped, correct?

ejm's picture
ejm

Mascarpone would certainly work, but it's quite pricey. We use something similar to Philadelphia cream cheese. And yes, pouring consistency for the cream, not whipped. You can use 35%, 18%, 10% cream and get pretty much the same results.

-Elizabeth

Paddyscake's picture
Paddyscake

is something I have missed in life..drat! Looking at Wikipedia it looks thick and creamy like soft butter. The picture above looks more like a sour cream consistency. How is it truly? By the way, all look yummy!

Betty

ejm's picture
ejm

Yes, P, the first time we made it, it was on the thin side. But it was so good that we made the faux cream again. Here is what it looked like:

faux cream © ejm June 2010

And yes, it tastes really good. Not quite like clotted cream but with jam and scone, it's a not unreasonable facsimile.

-Elizabeth

Paddyscake's picture
Paddyscake

to die for.. good thing I haven't access to it readily. I would be in much more trouble than I am!

Betty