During January 2021, we set out to make a video about a Cornish Cream Tea. We generally make walk related videos for our YouTube channel, however for a change we thought it would be fun to make an alternative video based on a Cornish theme and decided to show us making scones from a reliable recipe and Cornish clotted cream, then devouring them - jam first!
We knew that Andrew makes a good scone and we were not worried about that aspect. However, we have never made clotted cream. Living in Cornwall, we just add clotted cream to our shopping trolley. It’s readily available and a nice treat.
However, when we muted making a cream tea on the channel, our American audience left comments looking forward to us making clotted cream. I guess we had not realised that Cornish clotted cream is not readily available everywhere and there would be some folks who would consider you should make it as part of a cream tea.
So where do we start? Our mothers!
Andrew’s Mum had vague recollections of her Mum making cream every week whereas my Mum’s family bought milk and cream from a local farm.
Unfortunately both of our Mums are from the swinging 60s and they spent far more time enjoying life, working and much less time in the kitchen than their mothers. Andrew’s Mum could remember shallow pans of milk being placed on the stove and slowly heated, and that it looked completely different to the product that modern dairies produce today.
My Mum produced a recipe book from 1930, my great gran’s. It is a compilation by the Women’s Institute (WI) of local recipes at the time and it includes a clotted cream recipe, it makes for very interesting reading. Set against an assumed knowledge of the cooking standards at the time, it even mentions that cream is best made over a stick fire!
We found a description of clotted cream in another of our old books, and it read the same as the recipe so we felt that we were on the right course, and we were up for the challenge.
Here we go…
The recipe asked for new milk so first we needed some unpasteurised milk, not available in the shops. My Mum has a neighbour, Roger, who is a farmer. She asked if she could have some milk from him but he has sold most of his dairy herd, keeping only a couple of cows to provide fresh milk for his family and some of the neighbours. He also explained that you really need a high fat milk and he knew another farmer, Steve, up the valley with a jersey herd. Jersey cows produce high fat content in their milk and, as it turns out, Steve supplies Rodda’s Creamery with milk. Steve came up trumps and 8 pints of full fat milk were in our possession. A tip from Roger and Steve - leave to stand 24 hours, allowing the fat to rise to the surface!
Milk delivered and settling, the next challenge was trying to interpret the instructions. ‘Put into shallow pans’ First thing that you notice is that there are no quantities but that’s ok we can put milk into shallow pans and leave to stand. We were cautious about moving the milk once it had settled, as instructed and our first method was to steam a small amount in a saucepan. The desired crust formed and we watched with baited breathe to see if there would be a ring as described in the book. The kitchen was filled with a delicate sweet, milky aroma, reminding me of when the children were babies. I was very cautious, worried that the milk would burn and anyone that has burnt milk will testify to the smell and look of the pan afterwards! As soon as we felt it was ready, we turned off the heat. Once cooled it didn’t look right, still very runny. But I am a tenacious sort and wanted to try again, so after a bit more instruction from Andrew’s Mum we were armed with a second method.
Our second method was to put some milk in a shallow pan directly on gentle heat and wait, as Andrew’s Mum had described. This time we waited longer and we saw the raised ring!! So does that mean our first efforts failed?
A third method was taken from YouTube: place a dish of double cream in the oven at 160° and leave for 12 hours, some say turn the oven off, others to leave it on for 12 hours. So this one was a bit of a gamble because we were using high fat milk instead of cream.
The results
Steamer method: We produced clotted cream using this method but the dishes were small and the yield was poor.
Whereas with the pan method, the gentle heat, worked very well, with the desired raised ring. Being a much larger area, we made a lot of cream.
The oven method was a disaster. It burnt and resembled a rice pudding, which upon reflection was always more likely to happen.
The taste and texture
Is homemade Cornish clotted cream better that its modern counterpart? Definitely
We asked our Mum’s what we should expect and they both said that the modern creamery clotted cream is not like the one they remember from childhood. They also said, that it would be much more yellow, with a crust and some liquid cream. And that is exactly how it turned out from the first two methods.
When you eat this cream, it is intensely creamy, it melts in your mouth. The crust is not crunchy but dissolves like ice cream. It is divine! And nothing like the clotted cream that you buy from modern creameries!!
In conclusion
Our clotted cream journey has been very interesting. The recipe from the 1930 WI cook book still works. Cooking the milk on the stove was easy and the result is identical to steaming. I think that there is a risk of burning the milk with the pan method while using a steamer reduces this risk but the pan makes more cream
But would I do all of this again? To the downside: it took 2 days while you wait for the milk to settle, cook it and leave it to cool, then skim it. It really needs to be used quickly once made. In an attempt to reduce our waistlines, our modern diets have swung drastically towards low fat milk, seeing fatty milk as bad. Sourcing full fat milk on a regular basis would be difficult, even though we live in a farming area.
However, I have never tasted cream so good and I have really enjoyed this journey. And I loved the milk on my breakfast cereal - it tasted so good, so good!
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