Authentic British Scones

Authentic British Scones 

This post gives you a simple and classic recipe for British scones at the end of the page – whether you fancy plain or fruit ones. It also shares a bit about the background and tradition of scones.

Few things feel more British than sitting down with a pot of tea and a plate of scones with clotted cream. Scones are the key part of a proper cream tea or afternoon tea, and we usually enjoy them with a good dollop of jam and a thick spoonful of clotted cream.

 

Clotted Cream Tea

Cream tea is the name given to a light meal enjoyed all over the UK. It refers to a meal consisting of a pot of tea with some scones, jam and cream. ‘Clotted’ cream tea means that the meal includes clotted cream, as opposed to whipped cream, which can also be used in a cream tea.

Normally, the scones are served whole and are broken at the table by hand. The jam and cream are served separately in their own pots or containers.  

Cream tea may make up part of afternoon tea, or may be served on its own at any time of the day.

Clotted cream teas are normally served in Cornwall or Devon, in the South West part of the UK.

 

Cornish Clotted Cream

I have been going to Cornwall for most of my life on holiday and there they have an extra special type of cream called English ‘clotted cream’.

‘Clotted’ cream may sound disgusting to some of you ( 😃 ), but nothing could be further from the truth.

Real Cornish clotted cream is just divine, and you really cannot beat some good old British scones with clotted cream. They are made for each other.

Clotted cream is found mainly in Devon and Cornwall in the ‘West Country’, as it is called.

Rodda’s in Cornwall is the largest commercial producer of this product and really if you get the chance to try it, then please do.

It is the real thing. You will love it!

How to make clotted cream?

You make clotted cream with a special process that creates a thick cream with a very high-fat content. Here is a link showing how you can make your own clotted cream.

Proper clotted cream is delicious and the perfect ingredient for a proper English cream tea.

Here in Ireland where we live, we do not have easy access to clotted cream so (against the advice of Rodda’s of course!) we have used whipped cream in our photographs.

A useful tip – if you just have a single or double cream available and need to turn it into a thick spreadable cream, try using your Nutribullet. It will whip it up in no time!

NutriBullet Pro – High-Speed Blender

[Whipped cream is in fact what you will find in most cream teas across the UK.]

In Ireland, scones are also part of the staple diet and are often found on the menu in cafes and restaurants. Over here they tend to be rather more solid than this recipe though, and are normally served with just butter and jam.

Arguments about Scones:

How to pronounce scone

There are a number of things about scones that cause utter disruption across the UK. One of these is the pronunciation of the word ‘scone‘.

Does it rhyme with the word ‘gone’ or ‘bone’? If you google this subject you will indeed find that scone pronunciation remains a very contentious issue. The general feeling is that both pronunciations are correct. But some argue that whichever scones pronunciation you use is geography-related, depending on where you are in the UK. Others think that it is class-related.

I myself believe that it is probably a combination of both. I was born in the South and studied in the North but tend to use the ‘gone’ version.

Jam or clotted cream first?

Another disagreement, as mentioned in the Rodda page, is whether you put the jam or cream on first. In Devon they put the cream on first, whereas in Cornwall they do the opposite. We think the Cornish jam first option is more logical.

And we know that The Queen used to follow the Cornish example, so that should settle the matter 😃!

How to eat scones?

I must admit to having mistakenly confused the reader with some of these pictures, which show the scone sandwiching the jam and cream.

ETIQUETTE ALERT: Beware, this is NOT how to eat a scone!

Firstly, you break the scone in half by hand. Then you add the jam and cream on top of each other to each half, before eating the two halves separately.

Like this:

What type of jam to eat with scones and clotted cream?

The type of jam you use in your cream tea is really up to you. We often use strawberry jam but really you can use whatever you prefer.

This British scones and clotted cream recipe always reminds me of sitting in the café at the beautiful Lamorna Cove eating a cream tea whilst watching the rain pouring down the windows.

It was just one of the things we would do on a rainy day down in Cornwall. And rainy days, believe me, we had enough every August 😃!

English Scone Recipe

You can choose, with this Cornish scones recipe, to make plain scones or fruit scones. I have used a mix of dried fruit in some of the scones in these pictures.

I think raisin scones or sultana scones are a bit more interesting than a plain scone, and add something more to the scone, as they can be quite bland on their own. Using a mix of fruits keeps it a bit of a surprise as to what you will get!

And, of course, in the end, the jam and the cream are how you make a traditional English cream tea the icon that it is.  

I hope you enjoy trying this easy recipe. If you do, then please let me know how you get on in the comments section below!

How to make Authentic British Scones

Want to make your own afternoon tea? |Reading this post below will give you more Afternoon tea recipe ideas:

Like this recipe? Try some of my other baking recipes here:

Cornish Scone Recipe

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