Orange Scones with Clotted Cream

The English have been responsible for many great inventions - television, jet engines, David Bowie - but the best, I think we can all agree, is Tea. I mean Tea in the sense of Afternoon Tea, High Tea, Champagne Tea, or - most importantly - Cream Tea, that post-lunch/pre-dinner event that involves a cup of milky Earl Grey, a scone, clotted or Devonshire cream, butter and jam. What a gorgeous idea. Thanks, England!




The best Cream Tea I ever had was in Maldon (I've written about this lovely place before), at Continental Coffee & Co., a tiny gem on Maldon's High Street. Giant, freshly baked scones with lashings of impossibly thick cream, homemade strawberry preserves, butter (because why not) and a mini pot of tea. In September 2010, I would go there to "get reading done before school started," which really meant having Cream Tea and people-watching and eavesdropping on old ladies' conversations about council tax and grandchildren.

Clotted cream hard to find outside of the UK. If you haven't had it, it's kind of like a cross between whipped butter and sweetened condensed milk. Pretty decadent - actually, the fact that it isn't readily available to me might be in my best interest. I've tried to recreate it here, based on a Joy of Baking recipe; it's not 100% accurate, but it was very, very tasty nonetheless.

Orange Scones with Clotted Cream

Scones
Makes 4 (or 2 giant ones)

1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter
±1/4 cup cold milk
1 egg yolk
zest of half an orange

Clotted Cream
From Joy of Baking

2 ounces mascarpone, room temperature
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

To make the scones: Preheat the oven to 400°F/205°C. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With a pastry cutter (or two knives, or a fork), cut the butter into the dry ingredients until you have a course, crumbly mixture and the butter is the size of peas.
In a small bowl, beat together the egg yolk, milk, and orange zest; add this to the dry ingredients and mix it all together with a fork. The dough should be sticky but still come together; you may need to add a tiny bit more milk. You can get fancy and roll this out on a floured surface/use a cookie cutter, but I just used my hands to separate the dough into 2 blobs (to use the technical term). Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, until the bottoms are golden brown.

To make the clotted cream: Whip together all ingredients for a few minutes until smooth and thick, like "softly whipped cream." This is most easily done with electric beaters, but you could also work up an appetite and do it by hand. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Now make yourself a mug of tea and generously endow one of your scones with cream and jam (I used huckleberry, but strawberry or blackcurrant would be very English). Pinkies out!