Monniblog

Don’t you hate it when you buy a bunch of obscure (or at least not typical to your household) ingredients for a recipe, and then plans change? This is how I ended up with buttermilk, mascarpone cheese, whipping cream, and half-and-half in my fridge even though I’m lactose-intolerant. (Most days if I only consume a little dairy I’m fine and my body will process it. But if I know we’re going to have pizza, or go out for ice cream, I’ll take a lactose pill.)

Batch of Cranberry-Orange Scones

So I decided to use the buttermilk to make scones, but SO said scones require clotted cream. It was the weekend and 1 am. Yes, this is usually what time I decide it’d be a good idea to bake. I was planning for breakfast, which meant I didn’t want to go buy Devonshire Cream whenever we woke up before we could eat. So I started searching the web for how to make clotted cream.

It actually sounds fairly simple, but it just takes a long time. You need to heat heavy cream for ages until it separates, then you cool it off for a long time, and skim the top off. This version has you “baking” it in the oven, which is helpful if you don’t have a stovetop thermometer for this recipe.

Because we didn’t really have enough time—8 hours in the oven and then 8 hours cooling—I decided to search for alternative versions. We made a mock Devonshire Cream recipe that called for whipping cream and mascarpone cheese. I think the universes aligned and realized how many random dairy products I had in my fridge. It tasted great.

And the scones we made were Cranberry-Orange Scones based on this recipe. I wanted a recipe that used whole, frozen cranberries because I had a bag in the freezer from Thanksgiving time, and the unwanted buttermilk. I also added the zest (grated rind) of 1 medium-sized navel orange. It required 2 extra minutes of baking, but the end result was fantastic!

Baked to perfection