Scones, Jam and Clotted Cream

This post is a continuation of "What is a Crèam Tea?" If you missed it you may view it here.  I promised to show you the food that was served so here goes. Pictured are Ina Garten's  cranberry orange scones recipe. The link for Ina's scones may be found here.

The milk egg wash gave the scones a pretty golden brown appearance when they finished baking. Then a orange confectioners sugar glaze was drizzled over the tops of the scones.

The scones come together quickly and can be frozen and baked later. I baked mine completely then froze them. 

Finished scones.

Pound cake is a southern favorite.  The cream cheese pound cake recipe I used was my friend, Charlotte's grandmother's recipe.  Accompanying  the pound cake was homemade lemon curd.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

3 sticks butter softened

1 8oz. cream cheese softened

3 cups sugar

6 large eggs

3 cups cake flour sifted twice 

Pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp almond flavoring

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan or 2 loaf pans. Cream butter and cream cheese, add sugr, mix for 7 minutes( set timer) until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating after each until blended. Gradually add the flour, beating after each addition, until all is added and combined. Add the salt, vanilla and almond extract. Mix again. Pour in prepared pan. Bake for 1 1/2 hours. I would check it after one hour fifteen minutes because it might begin to brown too much. Check for doneness with a toothpick.

The raisin scones with walnuts cut in wedges is my favorite scone recipe that I served at the crème tea.  A bed and breakfast in Thomasville, Georgia, called the 1854 Wright House served these delicious scones and were very kind and generous to share their recipe with me. I have enjoyed this recipe for a long time. If you want to enjoy a nice bed and breakfast experience I recommend the 1854 Wright House. This recipe was just part of a delicious breakfast beautifully served in a lovely antebellum home.

The spring form pan is ideal for this recipe.

                                    The 1854 Wright House                       

                                     Raisin Scones with Walnut

2 cups flour                                        ¼  cup walnuts chopped

2 tsp baking powder                            2 eggs

1/2  cup sugar                                  ½ cup sour cream

1/3 cup  butter                                    1 tsp vanilla

½ cup white raisins

Beat together first 4 ingredients until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat  in raisins and walnuts. Beat together eggs, sour cream  and vanilla until blended. Add to flour mixture. Beat until blended….. do not over –beat. Spread batter ( it should be very thick)into a greased 10 inch spring form pan. Bake@ 350 for 25-30 minutes or until top starts to brown. Allow to cool in pan, serve cut into wedges.

I made plain scones from a Williams-Sonoma recipe found here. I put cranberries in a few scones just to taste. They were delicious served with Bonne Maman strawberry preserves and of course, clotted cream is traditionally served at a crèam tea in England but I served whipping cream.

You can see the sideboard in this picture with all the food. When I made this picture right before my guests arrived I had not put the whipped cream in the bowl yet.

My friend Nita, made her favorite tea pictured below, PG tips and served the tea from her white Wedgewood Countryware pattern. She bought all her china in Germany and the small shop where she purchased many of her pieces said Princess Diana had chosen this as one of her everyday patterns. This was the story she shared as each guest told the story of her teacup.

Her white cabbage leaf teacup is toward the back. I decided to contact everyone and write down the names of the individual china patterns. I would like to learn their names. When I get the pattern names I will post them on the "What is a Crème Tea?" post.

This darling teapot was a surprise gift to me. I wish I had made the picture before I unwrapped it. It was so pretty with the handmade tag wrapped in cellophane with a pretty bow.

Doesn't Maxine have beautiful handwriting? Many of you are familiar with , A Classy Flea where she purchased the little teapot candle.

I am having another crèam tea for my mother-in-law's friends next week!

Linking to, Seasonal Sundays , On the Menu Monday and Wow Us Wednesdays.

What is a "Brown Betty?"

Notice the teapot in the Downton Abbey picture.  After getting interested in tea, I began asking friends that drank tea quite a few questions. One of my tea-drinking friends mentioned the English make their tea in a brown betty and that she has one she bought in London.

So I learned what a brown betty teapot was. I had seen them but did not know they had a particular name or anything about their history. The reference below is from Wikipedia.

Sadler "Brown Betty" teapots

A Brown Betty is a type of teapot, round and with a manganese brown glaze known as Rockingham glaze.[1][2]

The original teapots came from red clay that was discovered in the Stoke-on-Trent area of Britain in 1695. This special clay seemed to retain heat better and so found use as the material for the teapot as early as the seventeenth century. These early pots were tall and shaped more like coffee pots. In the nineteenth century, the pots began to take on the more rounded shape of the modern Brown Betty. The Rockingham Glaze was brushed on the pot and allowed to run down the sides, creating a streaky finish as it was fired.

In the Victorian era, when tea was at its peak of popularity, tea brewed in the Brown Betty was considered excellent. This was attributed to the design of the pot, which allowed the tea leaves more freedom to swirl around as the water was poured into the pot, releasing more flavor with less bitterness.[3]

[edit]

See also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Betty_(teapot)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Betty_(teapot)

 Pardon the poor quality of the photos, but these were snapped while watching on television and had to be done very quickly. Downton Abbey takes place during the 1920s.

 Of course, this is an upstairs tea which is quite a contrast.

 This Brown Betty has a more rounded shape.

This recent BBC series features a new owner a few years later and a new staff living in the same 165 Eaton Place residence as the original Upstairs Downstairs.  Jean Marsh, co-creator, who played Rose, the parlor maid in the original series, reprised her role, this time as a housekeeper. You can read more about the new series and Rose here.  The original aired on Masterpiece theater in 1973-74. The series aired for three consecutive years from 1973-1976.

If you haven't watched Upstairs Downstairs, it is available on Netflix.  We watched Upstairs Downstairs in the seventies and have now watched all 68 episodes again as well as the new version.

This teapot looks more like the coffee pot shape Wikipedia mentioned above, so do you believe this is an earlier-dated Brown Betty? Feel free to jump in with any knowledge you have. I am not an authority just become intrigued with the customs of preparing and drinking tea and the customs that go along with it. It is quite interesting and complex.
I found a neat blog that expounds on the Brown Betty that you can view here. I think I have bitten off more than I can chew through blogging about tea! There are scores of books written on the subject. There are scores of blogs about tea. I now realize I was presumptuous to blog about tea because so many are more knowledgeable than I am. However,  I have a few more things I find interesting to share coming up.

 On a personal level, this is the teapot that my grandmother gave me when I was ten years old. She brought me Russian tea in it when I was sick. It is very special to me but as you can see it is broken now. I bumped the whatnot shelf it was on, and it fell off and broke. I was so sad my husband worked hours trying to glue it back together, but in the end, it was not possible.  It does have the brown betty shape.

But it is not an authentic brown betty. It would be more collectible before it was broken because it was made in occupied Japan.  Of course, it is valuable to me because it has sweet memories.

Do you have a brown betty? Did you know what one was before you read this post? Don't get the teapot confused with apple brown betty the dessert.

Next post: What is creme tea?


Linking to Seasonal Sundays, Tabletop Tuesday, Wow us Wednesday Open House Party Thursdays