Mon Petit Mardi

 Scones and Cream

When in Australia visiting Tuesday's dad we discovered scones and clotted cream. While my mouth says it was the find of a lifetime, I am not so sure that I can say my waistband would agree.

I have been going through some pictures and got a craving for scones. I looked at loads of recipes and settled on two that sounded easy to prepare, looked yummy, and had good reviews.

Here is the one I made (and it turned out great!)

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English Cream Scones

Servings:  16 small scones

Ingredients:

 2 Cups All Purpose Flour ( I used unbleached). The recipe recommended using a scale for accuracy. They say it makes a big difference so I did weigh out the 9 ounces.

1 TBLS Baking Powder

4 TBLS Sugar (I used the "less" refined)

1/2 tsp salt

5 TBLS Cold Unsalted Butter (I used salted as it was all I had on hand) cut into cubes

3/4 Cups Heavy Cream

1 Egg - slightly beaten (oops forgot to beat in advance)

1 tsp Vanilla

2 TBLS Sugar to sprinkle on top (I skipped this step as I thought that there may be a bit much sugar in these anyway. Traditional scones are really not very sweet)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Place flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and butter into a bowl (if you are among the blessed to have a food processor put ingredients into there and pulsate in 3 second intervals until it looks like coarse meal) and with a pastry blender (2 knives will work too) mix until you achieve coarse meal texture. I never really got to a texture that I personally would call "coarse meal" but this was close.

In a large bowl stir in the heavy cream, beaten egg, and vanilla. Mix by hand until it forms a slightly sticky moistened dough ball. If you have a stand mixer you can also mix on the lowest speed with a dough hook for a few minutes.

I strongly suggest at this time you remove your wedding and other rings. 

Don't ask, just trust me!

Flour your working surface and grab enough dough (about 1/4 of the dough) to form about the size of a baseball and gently roll it into a ball. On the flowered work space flatten the ball until your disk is about 3/4" high with the center slightly higher then the edges. At this point you can sprinkle the tops with sugar if you are going that route.

Cut each of the circles into 4 pieces. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, or on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake 15 minutes until the bottoms are golden. Remove and cool on a wire rack.

And this is what we ended up with!

Strawberry & Cream                                              Lemon Curd and Cream

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Clotted Cream

1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

1 TBL Confectionery Sugar

3 oz. Cream Cheese 

Soften cream cheese, add sugar and mix with hand mixer. Add heavy cream and beat until soft peaks form. Do not over beat or you will have whipped cream instead of clotted cream. The consistency should be like very thick cream, not fluffy.

These have been taste tested and family approved. I will try them out on company very soon.