Jam And Cream

In my blog post, The Battle of the Cream Tea, I explored a major issue in scone serving etiquette – in what order do you put the jam and cream on the scone? The answer is if you’re from Devon you put cream first then jam and if you’re from Cornwall you put jam first then cream. The rest of us can chop and change to suit our tastes 🙂

Inspired by this delicious dilemma, I thought I would take all the guess work out of the scone saga and simply combine the jam and cream. I added chia seeds for the fun of it but also to thicken and stabilise the mix. My version is heavy on cream so you can play around with the proportions and add less cream or more strawberry jam if you like. You can also try different berries and fruits.

Whipped Cream with Strawberry and Chia Jam

Ingredients
for the jam
1 cup fresh strawberries, roughly chopped
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon icing sugar
2 tablespoons chia seeds

for the cream
2 cups cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons icing sugar

Instructions
Place the strawberries in a bowl and crush with a fork.
Stir in the lemon juice, icing sugar and chia seeds.
Allow to set for 5 minutes.
Using a wire whisk, whip the cream, vanilla and sugar together until stiff peaks form.
Fold the strawberries through the cream.
Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 2 hours.

I’ve solved one culinary conundrum and now to begin another! A traditional partner for jam and cream is British scones, but the recipe below is for American biscuits. If you’re not American, biscuits are cookies but for Americans, biscuits are a type of scone. There are some differences between American biscuits and British scones but for me there is not much difference once I cover them in lots of butter, jam and cream. That’s right – butter! The original Cornish teas had butter which was spread on the scone first followed by jam and cream.

To add to the conundrum, the biscuits below are not rolled and cut or patted into shapes. Instead, the dough is dropped onto a baking tray. That’s why they are called drop biscuits 🙂

Drop Biscuits

Ingredients
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup cold buttermilk, additional buttermilk may be needed
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup (115g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 220C / 425F.
Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.
In a medium sized bowl, stir together the buttermilk, honey and butter until small clumps form.
Add the buttermilk mix to the flour mix. Using a wooden spoon, stir until just combined and the batter pulls away from the sides. If the batter doesn’t come together, add more buttermilk a bit at a time until the batter can be scooped up easily but is not too wet.
Using a standard sized ice cream scoop, drop batter onto baking trays. You should get about 6 per tray.
Bake for 10 – 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve with butter or jam and cream or both.