It's National Cream Tea Day and this time we end the age-old debate once and for all: How do you eat yours? It's that time of year again when National Cream Tea Day asks the age-old question: cream then jam or jam then cream? Since we last posed it, momentous events have happened in the world; the UK is on its way out of the European Union, a former reality show host was elected as US President, Australia caught fire, and Brit Prime …
Did you miss an icon, or are you from an area with pronunciation unfamiliar to me?
shone = Shh-on, stone = St-own
also as mentioned above Scone = Sc-on, unless it's a place of venerated granite and then it's Sc-ooon, as in "Oooo, that's a nice bit of granite you've got there!"
As far as cream teas go, butter, then jam then cream, on a Cornish split. Battered and deep-fried optional, and only if you make it into a sandwich, otherwise the jam and cream try to escape in the heat!
I was waiting for someone to post this...
As a Brit living in Canada, I nearly fell off my seat when I realised that our neighbours to the south pronounce "Shone" to rhyme with throne, rather than to rhyme with gone!
So the real question is as to whether Scone rhymes with throne or with gone.
And the real answer is, obviously, [redacted].
This post has been deleted by its author
What was she (or even her tummy) taught?
This got me thinking of belly dancers for only the 732nd time today.. and whether the motion could be utilised to propel sweet morsels towards a waiting mouth, nestled in a handy chin rest.
(But jam first. And if scone has the consistency of stone, then it rhymes with it and may be shot from a catapult. Also indicates the use of the wrong flour or not enough raising agent.)
To quote the American fast food chain Carl's Jrs, "If it doesn't get all over the place it doesn't belong in your face."
I can accept the goggles though since there's few things more annoying than getting an eye poked out by a freshly waxed patch o' thatch.
Next we'll be debating the Devon vs Somerset Cider Wars as fought out by yokels over centuries. I'll nail my colours to the mast as Devonian, having married a Somerset lass, and this is still the subject of much debate at home (over a glass or three, of course)....
Noting could beat addlestones cider fresh from the pump
Or addlebrains as we engineers called it... ahhh the stories... the bodges.... the outright disasters all caused by an innocent fermented liquid served to a bunch of government employed hammer wielders
"err professor... your device appears to be sinking"
"Its supposed to"
"But we havent opened the valve to flood it yet"
oggle goggle oggle goggle
"Best we ajourn back to the pub for more cider before anyone notices ..."
Having been "honorary Cornish" for some time (escaped now), I took to putting jam on one half of the scone, cream on the other half, slapping them together and eating like that. This way I can innocently and simultaneously annoy both the Cornish and the Devonish. And eat some lovely cream scones...
But, that’s a dangerously high scone to cream ratio!
The reason for everything you do, when eating a cream tea, is to maximise the amount of cream you can consume without engendering excessive unfavourable comment from those around you. Thus the jam debate is easily dismissed. A smooth layer of jam on the scone helps the massive dollop of cream on top to stick. Whereas if you do it the other way round, you struggle to get a good even layer of jam and the construction has become too rickety for spreading.
Leave the jam out of it. Personally, I consider jam to be a savoury thing that has no place in anything remotely cake-like.*
No, wait – hear me out. Think about it – jam goes in sandwiches, which aren't generally considered a dessert. I like to have apricot jam with bacon and/or sausages. The Americans (bless them) seem to like it with peanut butter. Just because it has sugar in it, that doesn't mean it can be used in a dessert-like context. I believe the acidity of it spoils the taste of a perfectly good sponge cake, messes with the sensations derived from cream (in whatever order), and generally just gets in the way of whatever sweet thing it is that I really want to eat.
In summary: scone first, then cream, then other half of scone.
*Including doughnuts. I'm not with Bob Marley on this one.
I've never quite understood the reasons for making vegetarian (or for the tiny minority, vegan) equivalents of meat products. Why would someone choosing not to eat meat still want the taste of meat? Especially those with an axe to grind over "murdering" animals. (We'll leave the argument over whether "meat replacements" actually taste like meat for another day)
You spread the CC like butter with a knife and dollop jam on top with a spoon like a Devonian.
I'm half Devonian but I lived in Plymouth for several years (PP, PSW, UP and townie) which meant that I sometime got ambivalent thoughts about the subject. After enough self flagellation with a huge pasty (top crimp of course), I soon recovered.
Based on my own exhaustive investigations over many years, the correct temperature to enjoy a scone is 'straight from the oven'. However the heat is liable to melt the cream and it's not called "melted cream", right? Thankfully the jam has a high thermal coefficient thanks to it's sugar content and so spreading that on first helps delay the situation where cream is too runny to stay on the scone. I rest my case m'lud.
I'm very much on your side here. Of course, it has to be proper butter. None of this lo-fat spread stuff!
And the pronunciation has to be with a short 'o' otherwise it's no longer the fastest cake in the world (in the same vein... What's the fastest drink in the world? Milk, because it's pasteurised before you can see it!) Coat, the one with crumbs in the pockets.
Unsalted butter of course. Applied before the scone is properly cooled.
Then the jam (if you can wait that long)
Then the cream
Washed down with Worcestershire-brewed pear cider (aka perry) from Clive's Fruit Farm, although his Wobblejuice cider when on draught is an acceptable alternative; none of that West Country playboy stuff.
Scalded indirectly by steam or by a water bath so the clots form at the top (a bit like a Turkish Bath near the House of Commons...?)
I remember, as a child we used to get clotted cream sent via post from my uncle when he visited the couple in Devon that looked after him as an evacuee during the war... what a treat.
And, as someone has already mentioned, it's now a weekly treat thanks to it being available in the supermarkets.
We got it once a year from my granma in Plymouth, back when it took 8 hours to drive there… A few years ago I found my local American-British store was stocking it here in Germany. And why not? It's damn fine stuff!
Oi! El Reg, where's the scone with jam and cream icon?
I definitely prefer a scone with sultanas and even a little dried peel, the cream can go in there any time it likes. I'm in Spain so decent Asturian or Galician cider is OK, unfortunately no clotted cream here in the shops but a friend was a farmer in the UK many years ago and she makes us clotted cream ( not that easy) that looks and tastes as good as I remember.
Clotted cream isn't actually that difficult to make it just takes time - cook double/heavy cream for 12 hours at 70C for 12 hours, let it cool to room temperature, chill for 8+ hours in the fridge, and then separate the thick clotted cream on the top from the thin liquid (whey?) left behind. Whip it all together to blend in the crust, add some of that liquid if its too thick, homemade clotted cream.
Only problem is that's 3 days until you can have your scones, buying a tub of Rodda's is far easier :)
then separate the thick clotted cream on the top from the thin liquid (whey?) left behind.
It's buttermilk, just use it to make the scones.
Only problem is that's 3 days until you can have your scones, buying a tub of Rodda's is far easier :)
But for those of us who live in uncultured parts of the world where clotted cream isn't available in the shops, making your own is the only option. Doesn't take 3 days, though. The initial cook works very well if done in the oven overnight.
Having grown up in Cornwall, may I suggest blackberry jam (or jelly if you don't like pips) as an alternative to strawberry? All the better if you picked the blackberries yourself in the last few days of the summer holidays before going back to school.
Another Cornish alternative - thunder and lightning. In this case the cream goes on the scone and then you drizzle it with either treacle or golden syrup.
Ah... nostalgia. We used to have a huge garden on a massive hill with loads of fruit trees and 50ft of blackberry hedge. So Mum made jam (and pies) all the time. I really miss homemade blackberry jam! Blackberry and Apple jam is also bloody gorgeous.
Nowadays I put raspberry jam on my scones.
I must say ever since I stopped for a cream tea (Cornish implementation) on a bike ride in the Forest of Dean and was violently sick afterwards after giving it some welly up the hills, I haven't been able to eat one since. This was about ten years ago. So I'll just have the chocolate cake please.
* I know this wasn't the fault of the scone-rhymes-with-stone, but still.
This how I do mine
Cut a scone in half, on one half I put clotted cream and then jam, and on the other half I put jam and then clotted cream... Why you may ask... because I'm not a fan of putting the top half back on the scone... it just squirts out the sides when you bite into it. My way you get to honour both methods whilst getting twice as much jam and clotted cream.
I'm a frickin genius. :)
If I've been good then I get jam with a thick dollop of clotted cream in the middle.
If I've let things slide a bit (and after 3 months of lockdown who hasn't) I get a thin scraping of cream with a smidge of jam on top.
As for scones, Mary Berry has a foolproof recipe and method that my wife swears by. Same for her yorkshire puds.
That's a third way then. Though not actually one I've ever heard.
"Scone" pronounced to rhyme with gone I have heard, often.
"Scone" to rhyme with tone, a bit less so. Down my way it was people trying to sound posher than what they were said it like that.
But to rhyme with gown - nope, never. Unless you mean "own" which does rhyme with tone/bone/phone etc.
The majority of times the e appears on te end of the word it alters the sound of the preceeding vowel so it matches its name (eh, ee, eye, ow, you)
so if it was meant to be scon thats how it would be spelt, its got an e on the end for a reason :)
Look online, there are ways to make it. Amazon will also deliver it in 1kg pots (and smaller if you only have half a scone).
What is amazing to me is how few countries actually have cream. The Germans translate 'sahne' to cream, if you check the actual product it is 'whipping cream' in its unwhipped state. They dont have single cream, double cream, extra thick double cream or clotted cream. I was able to demo to a German that with clotted cream you can stand your knife in it, then you can turn the pot upside down and the knife stays in the cream that stays in the pot!
but surely it depends on the relative viscosities of the jam and the clotted cream? Whichever is more viscous should be spread on first.
I usually have mine wit a pot of Earl Grey tea (brewed, not stewed) black, no sugar. So I will have to try out the suggestion of cider as an accompanying beverage.
(Technical icon as 'viscosities' is quite a big word for a Saturday.)
As for the correct way to pronounce "scone", if I ever meet the Queen, I'll ask her.
Cut scone in half. Jam on one half, cream on the other. Order of coverings is whichever is closest goes on first. Slam the two halves together, and eat while starting a conflict [*] amongst the other patrons as to whether it's said like "sk-own" or like "sk-un".
* You know it's getting bad when people start putting their tea cups down with sufficient force to make the waitresses visibily wince, and start raising voices. Who'd have imagined such drama in a tea room?
"sk-own" or like "sk-un"
Neither of these
No one has ever used those pronunciations. -own is a rhyme with "clown" or "down" except in the standalone word "own". English is like that.
It's pronounced "skon" or "Skohn" ( sk /əʊn/)
But "sk/un". Not even in Yorkshire, where that pronunciation form is common ( e.g. the number "wun" ).
It's equally valid to say "sk/ohn" or sk/on" and you are fully entitled to use which ever you prefer.*
*But the second one is right..
"No one has ever used those pronunciations."
What you've demonstrated is that writing stuff out phonetically in a way that normal people can read (because not everybody is familiar with IPA) is...actually quite difficult.
I've heard "s-cone" (rhymes with blown). I've also heard "skun" (rhymes with stun). And as you mention it, there's also "skon" (rhymes with gone). Origins? Perhaps regional. Tea rooms in the Cotswolds, and also around Bodmin/Padstow.
Fair enough. I forgot those. I'm getting rusty. I'd argue that "down" etc. might be the more representative though. (tbh I have no evidence, just my own experience). Either way it's probably not the best way to define the sound. I assumed, incorrectly that you were defining the pronunciation with that sound "sc/ou/n)
English is like that.
It's one of the reasons why the government's emphasis on phonics teaching is so misdirected, even if you don't know much about human learning and how we actually read this demonstrates it.
My family origins are in both Devon and Cornwall. When I was young, it was customary to serve clotted cream cool but not at fridge temperature. In this state, clotted cream is somewhat runny and jam should be spread before cream. Nowadays, people tend to serve clotted cream straight from the fridge and it will have the consistency of butter => cream first, then jam.
As for the Cornish, there were no signs of clotted cream in Cornwall in the 1960s and 1970s, until they noticed that several places in Devon were making good money selling cream teas. Twenty years later, the Cornish were claiming they invented cream teas.
I love both Devon and Cornwall, its difficult to choose which way is best to eat the cream so why not split the scone in half and do one half cream on top and the other half cream first? You dont really lose out unless you are skimpy with the cream....
Which leads to another thought... cream first, jam and then cream last ... now that IS an answer!
Growing up in Cornwall in the '50s, I came to prefer splits to scones. For a start, they hold more cream (and jam). Strawberry jam is OK, best if home-made from wild fruit, but blackberry jam or bramble jelly are best with clotted cream.
We used to have to fight the flies and wasps for the jam; whatever happened to all of them?
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