And when I'm lazy, I usually just go buy some from Trader Joe's (like the one above). Buy some lemon curd, and clotted cream in those jars from Cost Plus, but I usually hate to wait the day it takes the clotted cream to cure in the fridge before you can open it, so i get mascarpone cream instead, tastes about the same. Brew up some herbal tea (I stopped drinking the real stuff about a decade ago). You've got a fine treat there.
I got hooked onto this stuff in my early twenties when I was working at a quilting store (that should be a post in itself, lol) where they had an afternoon tea room. The owner, though very NorCalifornian to the nth degree, grew up with parents from the UK, so she brought this tradition to her store. Of course, she used scone mixes since there was no real kitchen in the store, and "baked" them in a toaster oven, a high end toaster oven.
While these scones, the Trader Joe's ones, are good, I dream of piled high scones that won't fall apart when you cut into them to put all that luscious cream and lemon curd goodness into them while they're still warm.
So I found this recipe from Smitten Kitchen; a website I'm little obsessed with. I haven't tried the recipe out yet, but I completely trust it already (mostly because she got it from America's Test Kitchen, and they always know what they're talking about)
Dreamy Cream Scones
2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, preferably a low-protein brand such as Gold Medal or Pillsbury
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup currants (I used dried cranberries, and chopped them into smaller bits)
1 cup heavy cream
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425°F.
2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in large bowl or work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. Whisk together or pulse six times.
3. If making by hand, use two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips and quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few slightly larger butter lumps. Stir in currants. If using food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add currants and pulse one more time. Transfer dough to large bowl.
4. Stir in heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.
5. Transfer dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Form scones by either a) pressing the dough into an 8-inch cake pan, then turning the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, cutting the dough into 8 wedges with either a knife or bench scraper (the book’s suggestion) or b) patting the dough onto a lightly floured work surface into a 3/4-inch thick circle, cutting pieces with a biscuit cutter, and pressing remaining scraps back into another piece (what I did) and cutting until dough has been used up. (Be warned if you use this latter method, the scones that are made from the remaining scraps will be much lumpier and less pretty, but taste fine. As in, I understand why they suggested the first method.)
6. Place rounds or wedges on ungreased baking sheet and bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
And if that wasn't enough, how 'bout a recipe for making devonshire cream and lemon curd, huh, huh!
Lemon Curd
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking
8 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
3 lemons, zest grated and juiced
Place the ingredients in the double boiler over boiling water. Don’t let top pan touch the water. Cook and stir until mixture begins to gel or thicken ever-so-slightly. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate it to thicken.
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
3 lemons, zest grated and juiced
Place the ingredients in the double boiler over boiling water. Don’t let top pan touch the water. Cook and stir until mixture begins to gel or thicken ever-so-slightly. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate it to thicken.
This keeps, refrigerated, for about 1 week.
For clotted cream, this recipe came from the cup cake project:
I got the recipe for clotted cream from Sustainable Table. As I said above, there isn't much to it. There is only one ingredient: heavy whipping cream. Use as much as you would like. I used two pints (4 cups) - be sure to see my notes above about about not using ultra-pasteurized cream. The clotted cream can be stored in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. Use it to top scones, pancakes, toast, or in my case, high tea cupcakes (post coming soon).
- Pour the cream into a heavy-bottomed oven-safe pot. The cream should come up the side of the pot somewhere between one and three inches.
- Cover the pot and put it in the oven on 180 F.
- Leave the covered pot in the oven for at least 8 hours. My four cups took 12 hours (until my oven automatically turned off). You'll know it's done because there will be a thick yellowish skin above the cream, as shown above. That skin is the clotted cream.
- Let the pot cool at room temperature, then put it in the refrigerator for another 8 hours.
- Remove the clotted cream from the top of the pot. The cream that is underneath it can still be used for baking.
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