![]() Sign in Dorset advertises traditional cream tea. ![]() In the Devon way, you spread your scones with cream first and then top the halves with jam in the Cornish way, you spread the jam first and then top with cream because, as the Cornish claim, “It’s the crowning glory of any scone!” Either way, clotted cream is an essential component of a cream tea (less formal than an afternoon tea and with no sandwiches or pastries), and it would be unthinkable to have a cream tea without it. It’s long been disputed, however, whether clotted cream originated in Devon or Cornwall, which county makes it better, and, of course, the order in which you spread it. Photograph Courtesy of The Devon Cream Company. Scones served the Devon way are spread with cream first and then topped with jam. The Abbey was plundered and badly damaged by Vikings in 997 A.D., and we’re told that local workers who helped with the restoration were rewarded “with bread, clotted cream, and strawberry preserves” made by the monks. Photograph Courtesy of Visit Devon, .Īncient manuscripts show that the monks of Devon’s Tavistock Abbey were indeed the people who created the cream tea. As a farmer’s wife in Poundsgate once said, “The separator saves a whole cow!” The clots that formed on the top were then skimmed off with a long-handled cream-skimmer, known in Devon as a “reamer” or “raimer.” By the mid-1930s, the traditional way of using milk brought straight from the dairy was becoming a rarity in Devon, because using a cream separator actively separated the cream from the milk, a process that produced far more clotted cream than the traditional method from the same amount of milk. Traditionally, clotted cream was created by straining fresh cow’s milk, letting it stand in a shallow pan in a cool place for several hours to allow the cream to rise to the surface, and then heating it either over hot cinders or in a water bath before a slow cooling. Originally made by farmers to reduce the amount of waste from their milk, clotted cream has become so deep-rooted in the culture of the southwest that it’s almost considered a tourist attraction. ![]() Photograph Courtesy of Visit Cornwall, .ĭairy dominates farming in these counties of England, which have a mild climate and rich pastures that make for the perfect environment for the local Jersey and Guernsey breeds to produce rich, creamy milk. Local Jersey and Guernsey cows are the stars behind the production of clotted cream. In 1993, Cornish clotted cream was granted the European Union’s “Protection of Designated Origin,” meaning it can officially be labeled as such if it’s produced from milk exclusively from Cornwall and it has the required percentage of butterfat. ![]() For it to be considered authentic, clotted cream needs to contain 55 percent butterfat-for comparison, the fat content of regular cream, sometimes called “single cream,” is only 18 percent-and come from Devonshire or Cornwall. ![]()
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