Cream Tea

When I was in England I had many interesting experiences - although the one that comes to mind now is not a description of one of the delicious teas I went for, but instead my attempt at baking. I decided to make a batch of shortbread toblerone one day, because they're straightforward and don't require too many ingredients. The cookies did turn out delicious in the end - but from baking in Celsius, to trying to figure out which type of flour to buy at Sainsbury's (there were at least 5 different types and I wasn't too sure about, for example, the difference between self-raising flour or plain flour, but I had a good idea that I didn't want either bread flour or cake flour) the experience was a bit more complicated than when I bake at home.

When Jo and I made scones for our Cream Tea, we had a sort of reverse of this experience. In London, at one of my visits to Fortnum and Mason, the famous tea shop, I bought a beautiful little book called Tea at Fortnum and Mason. As you may have guessed, this book is full of delightful tea recipes. This cookbook uses weight instead of volume for measurements (for example, 250 grams of self-raising flour. As in the kind of flour I didn't buy when I baked cookies in London). Luckily we were able to put our brains together (and find an online converter) to switch these scone recipes into more familiar measurements. A scale would work as well - but unfortunately we didn't have one on hand. On that note, it's only six months until my birthday if you're wondering what to get me...

Cream Tea is tea taken with scones, clotted cream and jam. Really brilliant, actually. It's not as easy to find clotted cream in Toronto as in I'm going to guess it is anywhere in England - but my local Loblaws does carry a brand called English Double Devon Cream. Not quite as delicious as the clotted cream in England, but a worthwhile substitute if you're interested in trying it here in Canada.

We made both sweet and savoury scones for our Cream Tea. The process for both is similar, so we were able to start the dough in two separate bowls but work through the steps at just about the same time.

Scones

85 g of chilled, unsalted butter, cubed = just over 1/3 cup, or 6 tablespoons
250 g self-raising flour, sifted, plus extra to dust = 2 cups
1 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp golden caster sugar
150 ml buttermilk
1 medium egg
A little milk
Clotted cream and strawberry jam, to serve

1. Preheat oven to 425 F or 220 C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the baking powder and sugar.
3. In a separate bowl or large measuring glass, beat together the buttermilk and egg. Next, make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and use a knife to stir all the ingredients together to make a soft dough.
4. Tip out the dough and lightly knead it on a floured board and then roll it out to a 2.5 cm thickness. Stamp out rounds using a 5 cm cutter (a water glass works well for this if you don't have a cutter) and transfer the scones to the baking tray. Brush the tops with milk.
5. Bake in oven for about 15 minutes until well risen and golden. Cool until warm on a wire rack. Serve with clotted cream and jam.

Cheddar Scones
40 g of chilled, unsalted butter, cubed = just under 1/4 of a cup, or just about 3 tbsp
275 g self-raising flour, sifted, plus extra to dust = 2 cups and 3 heaping tbsp
1 tsp baking powder
75 g Cheddar Cheese, grated = 3/4 cup
200 ml buttermilk
1 medium egg
1 tsp Hot English Mustard (we used Keen's Mustard Powder)
Pinch of salt
A little milk
Butter and grated cheese to serve
1. Preheat the oven to 425 F or 220 C. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the baking powder and the cheese.
3. In a separate bowl or large measuring glass, beat together the buttermilk, egg and mustard with a pinch of salt. Next, make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and use a knife to stir all the ingredients together to make a soft dough.
4. Tip out the dough and lightly knead it on a floured board and then roll it out to a 2.5 cm thickness. Stamp out rounds using a 5 cm cutter (a water glass works well for this if you don't have a cutter) and transfer the scones to the baking tray. Brush the tops with milk.
5. Bake in oven for about 15 minutes until well risen and golden. Cool until warm on a wire rack. Serve with butter and a little extra grated cheese.

Our scones turned out a little more dense than we would have liked, so we've looked up some suggestions for how to improve on this. To make light, airy scones you must avoid over-beating the dough when you combine the wet and dry and do not over-knead on the floured surface (this is where we probably went wrong). The dough should be rolled to high thickness before cut into circles, for lighter scones. Finally, when cutting the scones out, do not twist the cutter or the scones may not rise evenly.

This photo captures why our scones turned out too dense - over-kneading.

Tea in the garden

We served our scones with darjeeling tea. I bought the tea leaves at the Borough Market in London from a man who taught me the proper way to brew and serve tea - I probably should have taken notes, because I don't remember all the details. Darjeeling is a light and thin-bodied tea, and therefore perfect for afternoon tea.

Happy Tea Time!

Caroline and Jo