Three years ago I was in the UK at a Royal Garden Party. It's great to read Facebook and see these memories pop up. It seems like so long ago and a lot has happened since then. It will be an afternoon I will never forget!
While on a Cunard cruise last year we attended high tea. There were a lot of Brits on the ship and we sat with some really nice ones our first day at tea.
I didn't know there was a controversy to preparing a scone. They explained it all to us and I must say, I like the clotted cream on the bottom and a drop of jam on top of the cream. I guess that makes me a Devonian.
I got an email from the Canadian Monarchist Society that explained it perfectly:
THE GREAT JAM & SCONE CONTROVERSY
Normally, we do not use space in Royal Roundup or League Ecomms to treat entirely trivial subjects; however, since cooking is up there with gardening as a hobby, especially in these times, we thought everyone could stand a dash of fun - a controversy where argument rages on the incendiary issue of whether on a scone jam tops cream or cream, jam.
We hasten to say that, for us, the misnamed and absurdly priced “High Tea” served at so-called grand hotels, or for that matter the slightly more authentic twee Teas offered on the streets of Vancouver Island communities, are welcome to join the Royal Chefs in diplomatically declining to take a side - and merely to say “top with jam and clotted cream.” One might omit the “clotted” as clotted cream is not so easy to find in this country.
The League would far rather emphasize the Canadian Crown, anyway - take a favourite sweet base (beaver tails, anyone? a butter tart? a wedge of pouding chomeur? or a square of Saskatoon Berry buckle? whip cream with maple syrup and - voila - Scones à la Canadienne....if you really want to go overboard, crumble a few of the famous Dare Maple cookies on top.
We suggest that making your own scones your way would be a fine family activity during isolation, We’d love to say “forward them to Dominion Headquarters for judging” but we think a diabetic coma is probably not productive for the administration of the League. So, please share them with a shut-in, a fire hall, emergency workers, the vet down the street - they will appreciate your gift - and probably not critique your method!
Royal Correspondent Hannah Furness reports solemnly on this issue of our times (20 May) The Palace recipe follows.
They unite the nation in good times and bad, bringing joy when it is most needed with the comforting traditions Britons have known all their lives.
That is, perhaps, until now.
For the Royal Family has inadvertently entered into that most vicious of debates, sharing a recipe for scones which unmistakably saw chefs use cream before jam.
The recipe, used by the Royal Pastry Chefs for the Queen’s garden parties, plumped for the Devon method of scone consumption: cream first, and then a blob of jam.
The scones of Cornwall, a fierce rival, traditionally use jam and then cream.
Fans of the Devonian method have hailed their victory, claiming the Queen for their side and the royal recipe as evidence the debate was settled once and for all.
The list of ingredients also included eggs - a further divisive topic among home bakers, some of whom consider them essential to the scones’ fluffiness but others deem superfluous. Mary Berry uses eggs, while Delia Smith’s plain scones go without.
The royal pastry chefs have now shared their own recipe, celebrating this year’s cancelled garden parties by offering the public the opportunity to recreate their best-loved treats at home.
The description had perhaps attempted to avoid controversy, conceding that sultanas were “optional” and saying only that the finished scones should be served with “jam and clotted cream”.
But the photograph - of a scone spread with cream, topped by a blob of jam - left no room for misunderstanding.
If the Queen’s admirers were, naturally, delighted to have the recipe, the unexpected statement on jam vs cream did not go unnoticed. “Shame you put the jam and cream on the wrong way round, these would have looked perfect!” one Instagram user told the Royal Family account. “Jam first,” said another. “The Duke & Duchess of Cornwall would, I hope, be appalled by the photo.” “Got it wrong again,” sighed a third. Others took heart. "I don't think it can get any more official than that, can it?” said one Devonian devotee. "One cannot argue with the Queen."
The recipe was shared to mark this year’s garden parties, which have been cancelled under coronavirus lockdown.
The Royal Family Instagram account specified that each year, guests at garden parties consumed more than 27,000 cups of tea, 20,000 sandwiches and 20,000 slices of cake.
The jam-or-cream debate is well-known to the Royal family, with the Prince of Wales, who also holds the title of Duke of Cornwall, once quizzing a small boy with a jovial "have you got that the right way round?" after seeing him eat a scone with cream first.
As the Duke of Cambridge made his historic visit to Jerusalem in 2018 - the first official royal visit - his arrival was marked with a pile of freshly baked scones at his hotel.
"We heard that there's a big debate in England about whether you put the cream or the jam on first,” said the hotel’s director of operations. “So we'll leave them to the side and let the Prince decide.”
Darren McGrady, a chef who worked for the Royal family from 1982 to 1993, has previously insisted that the Queen “always had home-made Balmoral jam first with clotted cream on top at Buckingham Palace garden parties in the Royal tea tent and all Royal tea parties”.
ROYAL CHEFS’ RECIPE
-500 g Plain Flour-28 g Baking Powder
-94 g Butter
-86 g Sugar
-2 Whole Eggs
-140 ml Butter Milk
-100 g Sultanas - a type of raisin (Cover in hot water and leave to soak for 30 minutes)
-Preheat oven to 180 C (~355 F)
-Mix the flour, baking powder, butter and sugar together in a bowl, until a crumb is formed
-In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and buttermilk together
-Add the liquid to the crumb mixture
-Continue to mix the dough, until it is smooth
-(Optional) Add the sultanas, and mix until evenly distributed
-Remove the dough from the bowl, flatten the dough and cover
-Leave to rest for approximately 30 minutes
-Roll out the dough to a thickness of 2.5 cm and cut to desired shape
-Rest the scones for another 20 minutes
-Gently egg wash the top of the scones
-Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until golden brown
-Cool before serving with jam and clotted cream
If anyone wants me to convert the grams and ML, I've opened up messages and I'll be glad to convert for you. When we grew up it was still pounds tablespoons, teaspoons and cups. In the 1970's Canada went metric. Thank heavens I have a measuring cup with both and a scale that you can adjust!
Is a whole egg and English thing? I don't have the raisins or buttermilk, but I did learn how to turn regular milk into buttermilk. Of course I had to look it up on Google to make sure I have the measurements right.
BTW, I told Lexie I am older than Google. She was shocked! Google is only 21, I beat that by half a century!
