My friend Naomi is about to leave Cornwall, as classes for her MA end. So it was essential she have a last cream tea.
Naomi was inclined to stop after the the first scone, so I thought I'd have to show her how it was done. You don't waste clotted cream*. Then I felt sick, but it was a proud job-well-done sort of gluttony. On the one hand, I've been eating cream teas since yay high, on the other (sticky) hand, I no longer eat dairy on a regular basis.
However, what really did me in was the scone. These scones were buttery and crumbly and thick enough to be sliced into three. The true cream tea... well, most traditional would be splits, not scones. Halved bread rolls in other words. Those are what you get at chapel dos**, made my women old enough to be my great aunt. In fact, they
were most people's great aunt.
Scones have taken over though as the cream tea base. My Aunty Gladys serves scones and that's as good as an authenticity stamp. And without the risk of them tasting like ink. But the thing you should know about scones and what The View cafe at St Mawes didn't get, is that the scone should be no thicker than a centimetre. The scone is simply something to hold the jam and cream. The scone is not the important factor - hence scone/split; no one really cares about the scone's successful coup. The jam and cream should be layered on with a spoon - no spreading with a knife like a pansy - dollop, dollop. And the dollop of cream reaches higher than the other layers, although if you imagine them spread out - imagine only, mind - then each layer should be about equal.
And of course, jam, then cream on top! I was
appalled to see The View cafe's sign, on my way out, exhibit the DEVON way of doing things - cream then jam - on a little swingy sign. No irony, I truly disapprove. Cream on top is only logical, because otherwise you'd get sticky lips. Cream feels smooth against your top lip and it easily lopped away with a tongue-stroke. Did I mention the smooth, cool feeling of clotted cream*** against the upper lip, inevitable when it reaches so high...
Sigh. My mother has made scones today, to use up some sour cream. This recipe makes scones so soft that if I were to shrink down to pisky size I would choose them as my bed. Yes, even though that would create a real being-eaten risk. But they are nothing, even well-jammed they are nothing like they could be, without that quilt of clotted cream.
*Henceforth the word "cream" will stand for clotted cream. I was well through primary school before I realised there were other types of cream.
**Think traditional farming families - synonymous with chapel folk
*** In hindsight, the word "clotted" can feel pretty good to say. It shouldn't apply to delicious cuisine, for in another context it would be a word my six year-old self would run away from. I do remember running as fast as I could away from a boy who went up to me and said
"Blood". The terrors of childhood. And what is more sensuous, debaucherous than the vampire? The traditional aristocratic type - red velvet gowns, creamy soft skin, around their lips clotted... I'm going to run away now.
