Clotted cream is so easy to make at home. Please don't think that I'm saying that clotted cream is only easy for experienced bakers to make. Clotted cream is really easy for ANYONE to make, regardless of your kitchen expertise. You dump cream in a pot and put it in the oven. When it emerges, you have clotted cream. It's like magic!!What is Clotted Cream? Aren't Clots a Bad Thing?
If you are in the United States and have never heard of clotted cream, don't feel bad. I hadn't heard of clotted cream until a visit to a local restaurant, The London Tea Room. Clotted cream is a topping typically served on scones at high tea. I think of it as a cross between butter and whipped cream.UPDATE (01/15/10): Reader Marian sent me this important correction:
I looked at their [The London Tea Room] site. They offer AFTERNOON TEA and CREAM TEA, not HIGH tea, which is a totally different animal. Don't feel bad -- most Americans don't know the difference, including (alas!) some tea rooms. The first two are white collar experiences; a high tea is a blue collar meal, probably no scones at all, but a variety of meat dishes, puddings, cakes, etc -- VERY filling, and designed to satisfy the factory worker or farm laborer as soon as he gets home and is too hungry to wait for the fashionable dinner hour of 8 pm.How Did This Clotted Cream Recipe Compare to Store-Bought Clotted Cream?
I bought some English Luxury Clotted Cream and tasted mine alongside it. The texture was the same (like butter, but a bit creamier), however mine had a slightly sweeter, much fresher, and richer flavor. It was worlds better. There may be really amazing store-bought clotted cream options out there, but they are not readily available in St. Louis. The quality of your clotted cream, however, will depend on the quality of your heavy whipping cream, which brings me to my next section...
The Difficult Parts of Making Clotted Cream
There are two difficult parts to this clotted cream recipe:
- Finding heavy whipping cream that isn't ultra-pasteurized. Clotting will work better with an unpasteurized or pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) cream. I didn't try making the recipe with an ultra-pasteurized cream so I can't say for sure whether or not it would work, but I suspect it wouldn't work well. For more information on ultra-pasteurization, check out the FAQ from the New England Cheese Making Society (I know we aren't making cheese here, but the information found there is very helpful in explaining the problem with ultra-pasteurization). It is also best to look for heavy whipping cream with as high a fat content as you can find. I used a local brand, Pevely, that had 40% fat.
- Waiting. The clotted cream was in my oven for so long that it shut itself off. This has never happened before, and I learned from the experience that our oven shuts off automatically at twelve hours.
I got the recipe for clotted cream from Sustainable Table. As I said above, there isn't much to it. There is only one ingredient: heavy whipping cream. Use as much as you would like. I used two pints (4 cups) - be sure to see my notes above about about not using ultra-pasteurized cream. The clotted cream can be stored in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. Use it to top scones, pancakes, toast, or in my case, high tea cupcakes (post coming soon).- Pour the cream into a heavy-bottomed oven-safe pot. The cream should come up the side of the pot somewhere between one and three inches.
- Cover the pot and put it in the oven on 180 F.
- Leave the covered pot in the oven for at least 8 hours. My four cups took 12 hours (until my oven automatically turned off). You'll know it's done because there will be a thick yellowish skin above the cream, as shown above. That skin is the clotted cream.
- Let the pot cool at room temperature, then put it in the refrigerator for another 8 hours.
- Remove the clotted cream from the top of the pot. The cream that is underneath it can still be used for baking.
I had a great British imported brand that I used to put in gift baskets. It's particularly yummy used with lemon curd on scones. Also fantastic straight from the jar on a spoon.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this can be made in a slow cooker.
ReplyDeletePerhaps on low but check the temperature because the High setting is at just about 300F. Here in Australia people use what is called thickened cream on scones (say scone like gone) with jam.
DeleteWow, I've eaten clotted cream several times, but never knew exactly what made it clot. The slow cooker idea is intriguing... may have to try that.
ReplyDeletePoor Americans with little or no clotted cream! It is amazing stuff!
ReplyDeleteAlso, you are a genius for deciding to make it!
I think I have to make scones now!
does it take sugar? at all?
DeleteNo sugar...just cream. Have made it a couple times in the oven. Takes ages, but really is worth the effort.
DeleteIf the clotted cream is only the top part, how much clotted cream did you get in the end?
ReplyDeleteHi Stef,
ReplyDeleteOMG(as the kids say) your clotted cream post brought back really delicious memories. I went to culinary school in London and haven't had clotted cream since I lived there (mmm scones...)By the way I've been a fan of your blog since you did an interview with Kathy of vere chocolate (where I was the chocolatier). I loved the vere inspired raspberry cupcakes with lemon & chocolate that you made!
Erika
http://thepastrychefathome.blogspot.com
I tried making it a couple of times at home but it never seems to come out right. I used to eat it a lot when I did my grad school in England.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, I went shopping yesterday to Fresh Farms super market which is located in Chicago on Devon st and they were sampling it there. The gentlemen that was sampling it said that different nationalities call the cream by different names. They had it spread on bread, some with honey and some with strawberry jelly. I bought a plate of the cream and am going to buy scones. This brings back a lot of memories. The company that makes it has a website, www.atourfoods.com.
I've always wondered what clotted cream was and now I know. I'm eager to try making it. However:
ReplyDeleteI'm a little embarrassed to admit this...I found step 5 to be confusing until I read other clotted cream articles. At first I thought perhaps you meant that you should skim off the thick top skin and discard it and use the rest. But now I realize that there is a liquid part left at the bottom and the thick clotted cream is only on the top. You didn't mention that it separated so I expected the whole thing to have thickened and was confused when you said to remove the top part.
Maybe you could add a bit more explanation in step 5 for us clotted cream dummies?
Anon - Sorry for any confusion. Glad you've got it figured out now.
ReplyDeleteOn September 24 Michele wondered if clotted cream could be made in a slow cooker. That was my thought, too. Did anyone try it and did it work? Also, do you have a recipe for English scones?
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Debbie - I haven't tried it. If I hear of anyone who has or I get a chance to to try it, I'll let you guys know. Here is a link to my scones: http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2009/10/high-tea-cupcakes-orange-cranberry.html.
ReplyDeleteIm in St. Louis also, and have just recently started my food blogging experience. Is Pevely whipping cream unpasteurized? Also, the cream that is left at the bottom, is that considered heavy whipping cream still, or has it chemically changed and be considered something else? www.oneilslab.wordpress.com - The Lab - An Experiment to Taste
ReplyDeleteSt. Charles!
A slow cooker has a cooking temperature on low of 200 degrees F.(high is 300 degrees F.), a bit hotter than the 180 in this recipe. So I think it is likely not to work well.
ReplyDeleteThat said, if someone tries it and find it works well, please let us know.
I tried doing this in a slow cooker and I think it worked. I've never had the real thing, but it did look like the picture above and it tasted great. I tried it twice using two different methods. I put 4 C. cream in a crockpot on the 10 hour setting (I don't know what temp that is) and after two hours it had formed a layer on the top (it was a little brown on the very edge so I didn't use that little bit). I turned it off and took out the inner pot to let it cool. I then put it in the fridge for 10 hours. A nice thick layer had formed on the top and I skimmed it off and used it. It made about a cup of clotted cream. The rest of the cream had thickened a little too with this method, however. I tried it again with 4 C. cream (the kind you talk about using in your recipe) and put the cooker on the warm (or auto) setting-the setting it normally switches to when it is done cooking). It took longer than 12 hours for the whole top to form a thin layer. After cooling it did not produce as much as the previous attempt, but the rest of the cream under the layer was the normal consistency.
ReplyDeleteMarie - Thanks for sharing your experience! I'm glad to hear that it worked!
ReplyDeleteHiyas Just watched a programe on clotted cream the woman making it was from Devon England she sells her butter and cream. She makes her cream by simmering it in a water bath on the hob and not in the oven. Also noticed alot of questions about which part of the cream is used over here in the uk we use the top as well as the underneath it should all thicken up and be able to be used. Especially nice with fruit scones and jam!
ReplyDeleteI made this Tuesday while I was at work. I actually cooked the whipping cream for 11 hours and I had a hard time finding the right type of cream. I then made scones the following morning and we had them, warm, with the cream. I can't wait to make this again! Thank you. The first time I had clotted cream was last summer at a tea room with a friend. We didn't even know what it was, but we couldn't stop eating it!
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, it's not even remotely close to proper clotted cream, (maybe an inferior substance that is marketed as such by a supermarket) but a nice substitute if you can't get the real thing - which is actually made from full fat milk and not cream at all.
ReplyDeleteOne minor gripe, is that 'real' clotted cream is not a 'branded' item and just because it comes from the UK does not make it so. We have a number of those and most of them pretty dire.
Thanks for the recipe though, it did make a stout cream and even had a light crust, which well with fresh strawberries.
My mother had a milk cow when I was a little girl. She would put the milk in the refrigerator and a thick layer of cream would rise to the top. We would scoop it off and put it on our biscuits. Sometimes Mother would collect it and we would churn butter from it. Is that what you are calling clotted cream or would you still cook it a little?
DeleteYou cannot make clotted dream from milk - that would be clotted milk? When it says clotted cream it describes exactly what it is "Clotted Cream" Full milk is 3.25% Milk fat content and has only traces of cream as the milk processors have extracted the cream which is the valuable part. As for the origin of the recipe or method, I could not find any evidence that anybody claimed UK rights to it as I am am sure it has been around for centuries. Having said that it is well known that it has been made at least as early as the Fifteenth Century (evidenced by Formulary books) so we all know where it did not originate. Dinkum?
DeleteThanks for posting this recipe. I have access to full-fat unpasteurized cream from a farm, and have been looking for a way to duplicate the clotted cream I had at a tea room once. I bought a jar of "Devon cream" from a store (for $8) but have wanted to try making it myself. However, I know that different cows make different "flavors" of milk (thus, cream, cheese, yogurt, etc.) so we'll have to see how it tastes. I haven't been thrilled with the way my butter tastes compared to store butter.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this, I might have a go! I make scones regularly - they go down very well with my Dutch in-laws who are unaccustomed to home baking as ovens are only just making it into Dutch kitchens. Most traditional dutch cooking is done on top of the stove (I hesitate to use the word 'cuisine' as I don't think it merits it).
ReplyDeleteI will get around to completing my food blog and posting my scone recipe on it at some point. I also want to address the great Raising Agent debate. which is better, baking powder or 2:1 bicarbonate of soda to Cream of Tartar? I mix my own, every time. I can always taste baking powder in the finished product, I'm not sure why.
And I'm pleased to report that I managed to notice your temperature was Fahrenheit before a terrible accident happened. There's me, a silly old European, thinking "180C? I could cook a chicken at that heat!"
Other silly old Europeans reading this blog might like to note that 180F is 82.22222 Celsius.
I found out recently, on Food52.com I think, that most baking powder has aluminum, which is what you taste, but you can buy Rumford aluminum-free baking powder (Kroger has it). So why didn't I ever know this before? Live and learn. Rumford seems to work just fine and I don't worry about that aluminum taste anymore.
DeleteSo, here we are almost a year later in the middle of the Dutchlands happy to announce that we have evolved and added the oven to our cooking methods. Now it's time for the Brits to learn how to cook above the stove. I think as soon as you taste the baking powder you might have just used too much. Even a few grams too many can ruin the entire flavor experience. Did you find a solution? You could also try making the baking powder react with a few drops of vinegar before using.
DeleteI found a recipe for clotted cream that does not involve the oven. You basically put the lightly pasteurized cream into a coffee filter above a bowl over night. What is left in the filter is the clotted cream. I have never been able to find lightly pasteurized cream before so I have never had a chance to try this.
ReplyDeleteCrock pot temperatures vary due to many variables (see article at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080109140202AAfyGME). However, I grew up knowing most crock pots are about 180 deg F (low) and 200 deg F (high). Remember, a crock pot is a slow cooker, not designed to cook fast, which means a lower temp. The comment above (and the first 1 on the above page) suggesting 200 (low) and 300 (high) are erroneous.
ReplyDeleteI am in my seventies, but when I was a child in New Zealand my relatives, who lived on a dairy farm, used to make clotted cream every day. All that they did was to put a huge iron pot full of their rich jersey milk, onto the fuel stove at a low temperature and leave overnight. The thickened cream would rise to the top and be scooped off to be eaten with fresh bread and jam at breakfast.
ReplyDeleteThe lowest setting on my oven is 200 degrees F. Is this low enough?
ReplyDeleteI think that it should be below boiling point (100C or 212F). This might work but you could try setting the oven a little below the lowest measurement on the oven control knob.
ReplyDelete@ #8
ReplyDelete"To be honest, it's not even remotely close to proper clotted cream, (maybe an inferior substance that is marketed as such by a supermarket)..."
This is indeed a real clotted cream. It is only made a little differently. The way it is normally made is by heating up the full fat milk, causing the cream float to the top, which then forms clots after sitting for several hours. She is merely taking the cream by itself, heating it up, and allowing it to form clots.
I suggest you do research before making such insulting claims.
You are wrong. If you are talking about Full milk from the udder, then it is possible but wasteful. You will be left with only a small yield of clotted cream and lots of leftover spoiled milk that has had all the minerals and vitamins destroyed by the prolonged exposure to the naturally contained Lactic acid in the milk. Milk is just what is says it is MILK. You cannot clot milk or milk fat into "Clotted Cream" miraculously. All the old and new food science books recommend clotting the cream by heating separated cream with high fat content 40%.
DeleteClotted dream has been made as early as the fifteenth century and it might not be clear who can lay claim to the process but so we all know where it did not originate from.
I don't think that putting cream in a coffee filter would produce clotted cream. You might get thicker cream but I am sure it is the heating that gives its special taste.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recipe. I am making "tea" gift baskets for Christmas this year and a jar of homemade clotted cream will be a unique item to add. In spite of the real vs not real clotted cream debate, this tastes great and I'm certain everyone will enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to find this recipe, as I've been dreaming (literally) of making my own clotted cream and scones (pronounced 'scuns' as far as I've been told? ) I've had it before, I believe we ordered it from king arthur's bakery and fell in love with it. Here in Idaho I've only found it one place for $3 an ounce. Yikes! One ounce is not anywhere enough for one person let alone my family of 6.
ReplyDeleteI will be trying this as soon as I make it to the store to buy cream! thank you!
It is pronounced exactly like con as in you can not con me into making you some treats and the add an S in front of con. Plural the same with the normal added S at the end
DeleteI read you post again and want to add this: Scuns will work if you are Scottish which would be pronounced S + "coons" as in raccoons pronounced with a short oo
DeleteWe have a local dairy that produces low-pasteurized cream. Is that different from "whipping" cream? I'd like to try it next Monday for a tea.
ReplyDeleteAnon - So sorry for the delayed response. Hope I'm not too late! The cream should work just fine!
ReplyDeleteI am Australian and have tasted clotted cream whilst on holiday in England and the recipe from England who originated the recipe has two ingredients of 700ml double cream and 25gram of butter. These two ingredients are is also used in butter cake which is one of the world's dreamy tasty cake.
ReplyDeleteSo I think it is possible that your printed clotted cream recipe needs 25gram of butter added to it and prepare the same as in your article.
Hannahe
You can buy unpasturized cream at local farmer's markets. They sell raw milk and raw cream. When you heat it at 180 degrees it will be safe to eat. It is already safe if purchased from a reputable local farmer, even though it is labled "Pet Quality - not for human consumption.
ReplyDeleteI picked up unpasteurized cream from a local dairy, but it was very small, so I didn't have enough to bake it in a pot/small pan. I'm trying this out in a muffin pan instead. Should I cut the baking time i half for that?
ReplyDeleteAnon - I'd just check on it. I still think it would take more that half of the time, but maybe not the whole eight hours.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see all the comments which refer to clotted cream as a uniquely British delicacy. Not that long ago it was an American staple. My Dad grew up in rural north Louisiana in the late 1940's. Most families with children owned a cow for the milk and Dad's daily chore was milking. His mother would put the whole milk up to separate to make drinking milk, cream, butter and buttermilk. The trick was to keep my aunt out of the house until Granny was done - otherwise someone would steal the clotted cream to eat it with a spoon :) Then no one else could have it on their breakfast cereal or biscuits. I'm told that several hickory switches were involved in discouraging her but it was the thought of not fitting into her prom dress that finally ended the thievery.
ReplyDeleteThis^
DeleteI have had no experience with clotted cream, but wanted to try this for a tea party I'm having in a couple of days. Since I couldn't find any heavy cream except ultrapasteurized, I stirred 1/3 c. Fage (my favorite Greek yogurt) and 1/4 c. kefir -- both plain nonfat -- into 4 cups cream 2-3 days before baking. When 8 hrs. baking time had elapsed, the cream didn't look quite done but I needed to go to bed. So I turned off the oven leaving the cream pot inside. The next day I continued with refrigerating. To my surprise almost all the cream solidified, though the consistency was softer than cream cheese. Not quite sure what to expect. It is delicious!
ReplyDeleteGrace,
ReplyDeleteWhat you made was essentially a basic form of cultured cream. The 2 easily available forms of lactoculture are thermophilic (yoghurt) and mesophilic (buttermilk). I made creme fraiche out of buttermilk and UP cream the 1st batch and used some of each for a starter for the next for endless batches. You used yoghurt type bacteria, I'd imagine it got pretty thick? Prolly very tasty. Try doing the same then adding 25% fresh cream after culturing then chill, to reduce tang and add freshness
Another great way to do clotted cream is to use whatever your favorite method w/raw cream. Once made pack into 4oz canning jars and sterilize under boiling water. This way it can be kept in the fridge for quite a while. I've done this w/fresh spring cream and it was better months later than stuff from grocery store cream made fresh. Notice the stuff in stores often has dates for long times or none at all...
ReplyDeleteI was so careless and stupid that I set the oven to 180C. The cream was nearly burnt after 4 hrs. I’ll try again next week.
ReplyDeleteLiliane
Liliane - Don't beat yourself up. We all make mistakes. Good luck next time!
ReplyDeleteHi there,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this! I am planning to try it myself as I have an overabundance of heavy cream thanks to bulk shopping. I just wanted to add that one of the big differences (and I’d argue there are many, but this is the biggie) between American and British scones is the sweetness. American scones are much, much sweeter than what you will find in the UK. If you’re going to add jam and clotted or Devonshire cream, you might want to use a less sweet recipe. I use one from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook (sorry it’s not available to link) and usually just throw in extra fruit or even (shocking I know) a handful of chocolate chips if I’m not going to be otherwise dressing them up with other goodies.
Just my $.02 – thanks!
My friend in grade school's mom used to make clotted cream and I remember her mentioning that she'd add a drop of lemon juice after packing it in a jar. Anyone know about this?
ReplyDeleteI just made clotted cream with ULTRA pasteurized whipping cream. I was unable to find the non/lightly pasteurized kind so I thought I'd take a chance. IT WORKED! I had to use the full 12 hours (originally put it in the oven for 8 and then added 4 more when it didn't look right). Using it this morning w/ my scones to watch the DVR-ed Royal Wedding.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recipe! Can't wait to taste it on the scones!
Clotted Cream - I never thought that I would come across this on a website so long after I used to enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteI spent a number of years living in Plymouth Devon UK in the late 1960's when I was a cash strapped student. One of life's small luxuries for me and my wife was to enjoy scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream - lots - at a small local restaurant in Cornwall Street.
Many thanks for reviving the memories
I tried this for the first time, using Pevely's 40% fat heavy whipping cream. I followed the directions, putting it in a 180 degree oven. However, at 12 hours, it was still completely liquidy. I continued to monitor it, but even at 24 hours it was all liquid--no thick, yellow layer on top. I went ahead and cooled, then refrigerated it. This morning, it is thick, but I'm wondering if the taste if right, as it doesn't taste like what I recently had in England. I guess I'll try again, cooking it for less time, but am wondering if anyone else has had this experience?
ReplyDeleteI discovered clotted cream on my first trip to England, however I misunderstood what they were saying when they told me what it was.
ReplyDeleteImagine my British mother-in-law's surprise when I got back and asked her if she had any "coddled cream."
Had my first experience with Cllotted Cream this morning. Hence I am on this site looking for how it's made. This stuff is an outrageously tasteful treat.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm lasy - think I'll do a store-bought search before I try aking my own.
My husband and I just returned from a two-week stay in Kent with his folks and we treated ourselves to a cream tea just about every day. We knew we weren't going to find the wonderful clotted cream where we lived stateside so we lived it up! Imagine my delight when googling "how to make clotted cream" and stumbling upon your blog.
ReplyDeleteWe're down for this challenge! I think we might go with the slow cooker idea since it's been tested and seems to work. I'm so very excited!
I'm thrilled to say using the slow cooker idea worked for me. The end result was a bit stiffer than what we've had in England but the taste is virtually identical.
ReplyDeleteI used two pints of 40% fat heavy whipping cream - pasteurized (not ultra) that I found at Trader Joe's.
I set the cooker (Hamilton Beach Set & Forget purchased specifically to try this recipe) to low and in about four hours the concoction started to bubble a bit but there was a yellow-tinted skin on the top layer as described in the recipe so I shut the cooker off. I let the cream cool to room temp and then stuck it in the fridge.
It was in the fridge for probably 10-12 hours. I skimmed off the clotted top layer et voila!
My husband and I celebrated with clotted cream and French jam on croissants (another slight deviation from a cream tea but quicker than baking up a batch of biscuits).
I used the rice cooker for this. Poured in cream, set the cooker on warm for 12 hours, went to bed. In the morning I removed the inner bowl, covered it, put in fridge and went to work. When I returned home in the evening, the cream had set and was delicious. Make while asleep and at work? What could be easier? Oops, there goes my diet.
ReplyDeleteThis took me back to the early seventies when I was a stewardess for Pan Am. We usually had clotted cream with scones and jam on our London flights. I just loved it and was in luck since it was not particularly popular with our American passengers. Never knew how to make it til now, (thanks) but once I mistakenly left a quart of heavy cream out overnight and then stuck it back in the refrigerator worrying that it would probably sour. I was amazed to find that it simply thickened and remained fresh. It was not as thick as I remember clotted cream, but was much heavier than whipped cream and quite delicious with fresh strawberries. Pam
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting the recipe. I just yesterday returned from 2 weeks in Devon and Cornwall where I had a cream tea for breakfast almost every day. I just emailed a brand (Roddah's) in Cornwall who ship the stuff world wide but I am going to try your recipe too.
ReplyDeletePost #10- Scones are Scottish, not English!!! :p
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming the clotted cream need refridgeration after it's done.....does anyone know of a way to preserve it that would allow it to be gifted with baskets that might not be kept cool? I'm thinking glass jars/heat sealed.....but if someone knows a process, please share!
ReplyDeleteI live in India and I have never tasted the much talked about british clotted cream. But from all my research on it, it seems like there is a big fuss about what is an everyday bi-product of milk here in India. We call it Malai. Never having tasted devonshire cream, I am not sure if that is what it is. So i am going to give you a real simple recipe here, I'd appreciate it if you could try it and respond on how it compares to clotted cream.
ReplyDeleteHere goes...In india we boil milk before drinking or using it in food, always! Doesn't matter if it is pasteurized...boiling is tradition! And when you boil milk you always get Malai (or what i think is clotted cream).
So take a gallon of full fat milk (oragnic is better but any kind is fine if it is full fat)...put it in a large pan ( a deep, narrow pan is better for a thicker layer and simply give it a boil on your stove top. Don't Let it boil over, take it off the heat as soon as it comes to a full boil.
Now leave it outside to cool, don't move it too much. Once it reaches room temperature, you'll see a thin layer of skin forming on top. Without disturbing the layer, just put the whole thing in the fridge. You can leave it in the fridge overnight. In the morning the layer of skin would've thickened. It'll keep thickening in the fridge to a point. Once it is not thickening anymore, just take it off the milk. This layer should be what you call clotted cream. The rewmaining milk can be boiled again to give you more of the clotted layer. Or you can just use the milk to drink or cook as usual. Boiling milk also increases its shelf life.
Please let me know how this turns out, I need to know if Malai is indeed clotted cream. :)
it is. i was going to write the same post here today but you beat me to it by an year almost. clotted cream is just cream separated from full cream milk.its a staple in our house every morning with bread and i am a fan of malai (or clotted cream) since i was a child. if people followed this method they would save a lot of electricity and money. boil the milk at nite. get cream in the morning! :)
DeleteI am not sure you are right as clotted cream is baked and has a crust form on top. When I was a child milk used to be delivered in bottles. It typically had a layer of cream on top which is what you seem to be describing. The top of the milk cream is lovely and creamy and good over breakfast cereal but it does not taste the same as clotted cream.
DeleteHi Swati,
DeleteI am originally from India. I moved to the USA about 10 years back. The milk we get here in the USA is homogenized, which means it is churned well and passed thru fine seive/mesh before packaging. This process breaks the milk particles, and we never get "malai" here, even if we boil the milk. The only way to get malai on the milk is to buy non-homogenized milk.
Also, I have tasted clotted cream/Devonshire cream when I was in London. It doesn't resemble malai, and it doesn't taste like malai. The closest it looks/taste like is "makhhan".
There is a food product in Middle Eastern cooking called "qashta" that is made by skimming off the thickened layer from simmering milk. It sounds like it might be similar to "malai". That being said, while it is tasty, "qashta" does not taste like clotted cream. It is much less fatty.
DeleteHi, I am a Canadian and living in the north West of England....You must remenber that the word ''the'' is also used for what
ReplyDeletewe call supper, supper his use for what we call midnight or late night snak. I took me at least 3 years to figure it out.
'Tea' is the English word for what you have described and the hot beverage, 'The' is French for tea (I thought is only referred to the beverage, though).
DeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI am from India too and crave malai like crazy :)..Clotted /Devonshire is like malai that's 2-3 old when it starts to get that buttery taste.
I am going to try boiling whipping cream and hopefully that would be close to fresh malai.
It is next to impossible to get malai/cream from milk in US as it has only 4% fat.
With all due to respect, US doesn't know what it is missing with no full fat milk,cream, butter.
I tried clotted cream when I went to London in 1991...I've been trying to find it here in the US ever since! I'm definitely going to try this recipe...maybe in the crock pot. The rice cooker method is interesting, too! I'm also interested to know if it can be canned in jars.
ReplyDeleteI am italian and I've been in Cornwall recently. I can suggest you to try mascarpone cheese (usually used to cook the famous tiramisù) as substitute of devon cream, it's very similar and easier to find than unpastorized milk.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recipe! I used ultra pasteurized cream and it turned out great. Just don't put a cover on it in the oven.
ReplyDeleteThe test of its goodness came when I took it to work and gave it (along with some fresh baked scones) to a friend. He is from Coventry, England. He loved it.
As an FYI - your oven probably has a 'Shabbat' or 'Shabbos' setting that allows you to override the auto-shutoff and keep the oven on for longer periods of time. Some will let you determine the temp and others have a single setting - but that setting would be fairly low (close to 180-200)
ReplyDeleteI am one of those poor Americans who is really missing out on clotted cream. I studied abroad last year in England and discovered how amazing it is. Thank you for posting this recipe. Can't wait to make it!
ReplyDeleteOK! I made this! I live in FL and unless you go to a farm, you can't find anything but ultra-pasteurized heavy cream, so that's what I used. I don't own any oven-save pots, so I put 1 qt of cream into a glass bread pan, which came about 2" up the side; I left it uncovered and put it in my oven, set just below the 200F mark. It took about 13-14 hours; I pulled it out before I went to bed. The top skin was slightly yellow, and sort of hard, but I could see the liquid separated at the bottom so I figured it was done and stuck it in the fridge. This morning, it looked pretty firm in the fridge, so I dug in with a spoon to see. The top crust is hard, but not crispy, and attached to that there was a 1cm-ish thick white cream, and looots of runny cream underneath, which looks just like regular heavy cream, so I will just re-use it as such. I think the more surface area you give the cream to cook, the more clotted cream you will get, and I won't build it up so high next time I make it.
ReplyDeleteNow for the taste...I have never had clotted cream before, or anything akin to it, so I have nothing to compare it to. The flavor is good, it tastes like cream basically, and then I chewed, and it was basically like eating a very smooth/soft unsalted sweet cream butter....I don't know if that's the way it was SUPPOSED to be or what...I definitely would NOT eat it as-is, but I can see how it would be good on a scone or other sweet biscuit. I'm going to serve it on a marmalade treacle tart today and we shall see how it is then!
Lovely post, thank you for sharing! I've always made clotted cream on the counter overnight in a jar with a cup of buttermilk, a couple of tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and a couple of tablespoons of sugar (cause I like it a little sweet) - but I didn't know you were supposed to heat it. Actually, I think I've been making creme fraiche and didn't know it. Not really sure of the difference. :) Ha! Anywho, I'll try yours. It sounds divine! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post and all the comments! I just returned to the US from a week in London, where I had clotted cream for the first time. It was just delicious. I am checking to see if any of the stores in my area sell it... perhaps the natural foods grocery... but I know I haven't seen it before, so I doubt it. I'll be trying to make it if I can't find it. I'd like to treat my kids to a little taste of what I had while I visited there, and this is probably the one they'd most enjoy.
ReplyDeleteAs for questions about the taste... I thought it was the consistency of butter, but instead of tasting like unsweetened butter, it tasted like heavy cream. Think of sipping a spoonful of heavy cream- and then think of eating a spoonful of solidified heavy cream. There you go.
Lovely thread here. Linking the clotted cream with the Indian malai, would be what my mother, from Sussex, England did with milk to be kept overnight before we had a fridge. She scalded it, ie. brought it to the boil and then immediately poured it into a jug, which she covered and put in the larder. In the morning there was competition to see who had the skin of the milk on their cereal. This was, of course, a thin layer of clotted cream, and had a distinct flavour that told you it had been scalded. Clotted cream was devised to preserve it without a fridge. Apparently the process arrived in the West Country via Phoenician traders from what is now the Lebanon, where it is also still known. When we used to go on holiday in the West Country, it was possible to buy clotted cream from farmers who had it in huge eathernware bowls, and it had a similar flavour. Modern clotted cream is prepared by heating the pasteurised cream in the plastic pots in which it is sold. It is nice, but lacks that flavour. I usually make it (when I do) by getting Channel Islands* milk, stirring in some extra Channel Islands cream, and then heating it on a waterbath on the stove top. I think I will try the slow setting on my oven after reading this.
ReplyDelete*This is milk from Jersey or Guernsey cows, not from the islands themselves.
I'm from Devon, and learned how to make clotted cream from my grandmother, and have a couple of suggestions to make. Firstly, ideally you should make clotted cream with a high-fat unpasturised milk, not with cream - although this might be difficult to get hold of in the US. Second, you shouldn't boil the milk/cream - you want to scald it at between 80 and 90 degrees Centigrade. We scoop the clots off the milk/cream as it cools and leave it in a shallow tray to cool for several hours. The cream in the pictures looks a bit too white to me (and the white stuff in jars in the link looks like it's made by someone who has never seen the real thing - I'm not sure if they will ship abroad due to import regulations, but if so try http://www.langagefarm.com/cream-by-post.htm). Ideally you should have a golden buttery yellow colour and consistency of soft butter with a darker yellow crust on top. In Devon we serve it in place of butter on scones with jam on top.
ReplyDeleteRe post number 36, back in then UK they were eating this yummy substance before this nation was ever discovered..lol!
ReplyDeleteIt looks yummy in the picture, I don't have time to make it so it is Whole Foods imported for me once in a while but I just overdose when I return to UK.
Thank you for sharing
I am crazy about cream teas and unfortunately the little glass pots of Double Devon do not do it for me. I am unbelievably excited for at this moment my cream is at the 8 hour mark! I live in Canada so it's very difficult to find just pasteurized cream let alone a higher fat content. I ended up making a short trip across the border to pick up some 40% heavy whipping cream. My mother and I are crazy little anglophiles and will most definitely be enjoying this atop delicious scones with jam while watching some wondering British TV. Just lovely. Thanks for the great recipe and gorgeous photos documenting the process.
ReplyDeletePlease note Cornish Clotted Cream is nothing Like Devon Clotted Cream, The Cornish Clotted Cream is very rich. Hear os a web site you may be intrested in.. www.roddas.co.uk
ReplyDeleteMy partner and I are looking into making Cornish Clotted Cream so stay tuned for more up dates
A Cornishman in the USA
I actually have access to milk from Devon cows from a local farm. It is raw milk. I let the milk sit in a bowl for a couple of days and then skim off the cream on top. I usually make butter and buttermilk from that but decided to just use the cream as clotted cream. I made scones and used the cream with homemade mango preserves. Absoultely fabulous! Good thing I ran out of scones!
ReplyDeleteThe old fashioned and traditional way to make clotted cream is to scald it. Having made a great deal of it, ( 40 trays of 20 lbs at a time), to get your traditional taste it needs to be made in a metal dish that is floating on boiling water. I will confess that in the dairy we always used double cream that had a butterfat content of 48%. This method would mean that you don`t need to measure, only make as much or as little as you require.
ReplyDeleteTo reiterate..you need a metal pan that will float, preferably two inches deep. Fill the pan about 3/4 full with double cream. Make sure that the vessel with the boiling water is big enough to fit your floating pan. When you are ready to start cooking, float the pan on the boiling water. Using a temperature probe, keep checking the cream temperature, in the middle and about half depth. When the temperature is at 83c(200f) remove the floating pan and leave to cool. When it is cool enough refrigerate, put it in a fridge and cool to less than 5c. If you can keep it covered and at less than 5c, it should keep for about a week. Scalding to 83c will pasteurise the cream and do remember not to stir the cream whilst cooking. Good luck in finding cream that is as near to 40% butterfat or higher. This method should drastically reduce the cooking time.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI bought "Heavy Cream" And whipped it until it was nice and thick. I spooned it into a pyrex casserole dish (only thing i had) and the mixture was about 1 inch high in the dish. After around 8 hours it was completely liquid, with some curdly stuff on top. It looked disgusting so I dumped it down the sink. Should I get the results described above if I whip my own cream? What could I have done wrong????
Brad,
ReplyDeleteDon't whip the heavy cream. Just pour it straight from the carton/bottle into a casserole dish or other container and set it in your oven at 180F with a lid on it. After about 8 hours a lumpy yellow crust should form on top. This may look not too appetizing but that is exactly what you want. It tastes divine! I used 2 pints and it took my cream 11 or 12 hours to form enough of the yellow crust (usually covers the whole top of the cream). Then you take it out, let it cool to room temperature (takes mine about an hour) and then shove it in your fridge. Do NOT mix the skin-like layer on top with the liquid cream on the bottom. After about 8 hours, take it out of the fridge and use a spatula or spoon to skim the crusty yellow skin off the top. There's your clotted cream!
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteGosh, I feel sorry for you guys not having clotted cream on hand whenever you fancy it! I grew up in Devon, England where clotted cream is on sale in all the supermarkets, farm shops etc. We would not only have it on scones with strawberry jam (jelly???) but also on pies and puddings, ON ice cream, IN ice cream, on its own with fruit etc etc etc. The possibilities are endless! Locals to the South West of England would also have it on thick door stops of white bread, spread thickly like butter with a sprinkle of sugar on top. Delicious!!! Sadly I have now moved away from the homeland to the North of ENglad and clotted cream is much more difficult to come by, hence looking for a recipe to make my own!
Rachelle x
PS - The yellow crust is the best bit but the runny white bit is good too, and when having it on scones, spread the cream first then dollop the jam on top. This is the Devon way! The Cornish do it the other way round which is just wrong (and causes arguments between Devonians and those pesky Cornish!)
A simplar quick recipe if you dont have a lot of time would be the recipe I came across in the Joy of Baking website:
ReplyDeleteRecipe:
4 ounces mascarpone
1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 or 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
Zest of lemon or lime (optional
Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat until the mixture holds its shape and looks like softly whipped cream. Use right away or cover and refrigerate the cream until serving time.
Makes about 1 1/2 cups. Preparation time 15 minutes.
Thanks for the recipe! Unlike some other lucky commenters, my attempt with a crock pot + ultra-pasteurized was in vain. I finally found a lightly VAT-past., non-homogenized organic, 100% pure dairy brand to work with, so I'll give that a shot tonight. (StL is my hometown, and I now live in CoMO, but even that 2-hr distance seems to be enough to make Pevely not a readily-available option.)
ReplyDeleteHave you tried Global Foods in Kirkwood? They almost certainly have at least one or two shelf-stable clotted cream choices, but there are also a few refrigerated sections with some foreign-looking dairy specialties, so it might be worth a shot to see if they carry fresher premade options to compare to your homemade results. (Actually, I'm sure the homemade stuff is great regardless, but I'll personally use any excuse to go international-foods-shopping. Science!)
ps, it was only at this page, after browsing several of your other recipes via Pinterest, that I realized you were in StL! I'm definitely a skimmer, and neither "The London Tea Room" nor the actual words "St Louis" at the start of the post caught my eye. It was "Pevely" that jumped out and made me do a double-take, then a tiny happy dance.
Hah! Always fun to hear from a fellow St. Louisian. Love Global Foods!
DeleteThis is the best recipe I've seen online so far! Thanks for the great pictures and for everyone's follow-up comments. It makes a big difference to have a visual of the end product in mind. Just finished my first batch, which turned out well but a bit different than expected. I'll be trying it with scones and jam in the next day or two.
ReplyDeleteThe clotted cream layer on my batch was much dryer than I expected, like store-bought mascarpone or philly cream cheese. Stef's pictures show the clotted cream has a runniness to it, like warm butter or mayo. Also, mine has a very faint tan color and smells and tastes very faintly of browned butter (a good flavour IMHO). Stef's picture shows bright white clotted cream. Underneath the clotted layer I found what looked like and smelled like cooked skim milk (slightly gray/tan). Did I leave it in the oven too long?
What I found confusing about the process:
-- A thin skin does form on top of the cream while warming in the over, but it may appear like no thick layer of clotted cream has formed. I'm not sure how Stef got that layer to form in the over, but it never happened for me, even after 12 hours in the oven. However, a solid layer did form after another 10 hours in the fridge.
-- The skin on my cream was a light caramel color, not yellow. I think I left my batch in too long while waiting for yellow to appear, hence the cooked-milk flavor.
Next time I'll reduce the time/temperature and see what I get!
Hello - for those of you that may be confused about the Indians discussing Malai versus Clotted Cream...
ReplyDeleteBoth Malai and Clotted cream are milk fat.
There is some difference in consistency and taste between Malai and Clotted cream.
The process of obtaining Malai and Clotted cream are different.
Malai cannot be obtained from pasteurizes milk because the fat is so finely dispersed that it does not separate. The film on pasteurized boiled milk is not the same as Clotted cream or Malai. This is why the recipes for clotted cream calls for heavy cream.
Malai is fat that rises to the top when non-pasteurized milk from the cow or buffalow in India is boiled and cooled prior to use.
To all the native Indians that love Malai, clotted cream is a great substitute, but if you were lucky enough to own a cow or had a source that provided unadultrated milk, you know what I am talking about.
This clarification is not a downgrading of clotted cream for I will be attempting to make it myself. I do not crave Malai, but occasionally do miss it!
Oh my goodness, I was thrilled to find this recipe! I went to Fortnum & Mason for afternoon tea while in London in December, and have been craving clotted cream ever since! fichsjello, you are so right about scones here in the US being much sweeter than those in the UK. I think I will have to make them myself to get them that way. Haven't tried making the clotted cram yet, but I am going to save this recipe. Thanks so much for posting it!
ReplyDeleteI spent a day pouring it through a coffee fiter per FN. Nothing. Did this number last night with a quart, and BAM, a cup and 1/2 of good solid cream. Making scones tomorrow. Son coming home from honors high school for a week. Turned into a tea junkie there, but he will be surprised this weekend. Making chocolate ice cream with the rest of the liquid and some good whole milk. Can anyone say, "screw the diet, momentarily."
ReplyDeleteI read this post before and want to try the clotted cream. Previously found a post were someone had taken the bottom of the clotted cream and re-baked it and got additional cream. Can someone confirm that? I couldn't find it this time. Seems a shame to throw that away if you can use it to make additional clotted cream. I thought someone had posted here that they made their scones the night before and froze them. Would like to get their recipe or if anyone has ever frozen their scones. How did they compair when thawed to the fresh baked? I found this scone recipe from Mad Hungry Lucinda Scala Quinn via http://www.marthastewart.com/349992/not-your-coffee-shop scones. I have made the scones twice and everyone loves them. When will I make them again? You can watch Lucinda's 2010 Holiday show and how she made her scones for a Christmas brunch along with additional recipes. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteWell, first attemp not a success....I didn't pay attention of the degrees....I put 180 C, it burned after an hour!!! clued in after an afternoon, wondering why!!! LOL
ReplyDeleteI have spent a total of 6 months in the past year and a half on a British cruise ship. My favorite question to ask the British/Australian/New Zealand women was "Do you know how to make clotted cream?". To my surprise, not one of them knew, but told me that they bought it ready made. Now I am thrilled to find out how easy it is to make it, and will be doing so!
ReplyDeleteI recently went to London, and feel in LOVE with Clotted Cream. I used this recipe, but sadly could not find non ultra pasteurized cream anywhere! Turns out it is illegal to sell it in California! I ended up using ultra pasteurized....it tastes the same as the stuff from london....but has a completely different texture
ReplyDeleteWow, an awesome St. Louis based food blogger? I'm hooked
ReplyDeleteI live on a dairy farm...we pasteurize our own milk and use it. We pasteurize in a silver 'bucket' home pasteurizer. When it is done we cool the milk down by running cold water through the pasteurizer and then put the bucket in the refrigerator to cool completely. When it is all done the cream settles on the top. We get a VERY thick and spreadable cream on the very top. Is this clotted cream?? We also get the thicker 'whipping cream' under that...then the milk. I would really like to know if someone has a clue, if this can be classified as clotted cream. The milk is heated, then cooled, then we scrape the cream off the top to just use it in cooking, or making butter, or whatever.
ReplyDeletewhat you mention is clotted cream! :)
DeleteHelp!!! I did this last night on my lowest oven setting of Warm, and when I took it out this morning it was bubbling, like a little boil.... is it ruined? It also had some patches that look burnt... can I remove those and use the rest, or is this batch ruined?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recipe - this worked beautifully for me, having found pasteurized heavy cream at Whole Foods (Massachusetts USA).
ReplyDeleteAlso made strawberry-ginger jam to go with the cream and home-made scones.
I'm finding I need to put the cream on the scones first - then the jam. The cream is quite stiff and can't be spread over the runnier jam.
The cream is like a substitute for butter, therefore it goes on first.
DeleteNot necessarily! Cornish Cream Teas have jam first then a dollop of cream. Devonshire Cream Teas are the other way around. I prefer the Devon way but the Cornish have a right to have it their own way!
DeleteIf you leave the cream at room temperature for a bit (like most tea shops do), it's easy to play with!
Mmm......my flatmate and I are rather obsessed with British/Celtic foods and we discovered a food store in Erie, Pennsylvania sells clotted cream in the international section. Lemon curd and clotted cream on pancakes with Yorkshire tea is truly an amazing combination for breakfast.
ReplyDeleteI made butter for a potluck dinner a few weeks ago and thought I had accidentally made clotted cream when the cream was at the stage right before the butter separates from the buttermilk.
Also, if you microwave the clotted cream first, it becomes quite spreadable.
Thank you so much for the recipe! I left the whipping cream in the oven on warm for 11 hours and a layer had formed on top but it was still really runny. Since I was running late to work and the dish was too hot to put in the fridge I turned the oven off and left the cream in there intending to call my mom from work to put it in the fridge when it cooled off. Of course I forgot and when I got home 9 hours later, the cream had clotted beautifully. After putting the dish in the refrigerator for a few hours I'd say about 90% of the cream clotted with very little liquid left over. It had a much more buttery sweetness than the Luxury English Clotted cream that I'd purchased.
ReplyDeleteThis is from the MilkDelight.com Web site (verbatim): "Clotted cream is also an important part of cream tea, plopping a dollop or two into a cup of tea, and cream tea is often the drink preferred with scones and jam." :-0
ReplyDeletePlease tell everyone that this is NOT TRUE!!! Clotted cream goes on the scones and definitely NOT in the tea!:-)
Ugh, silly MilkDelight! Cream does not go into tea!!! So gross! Regular cream is too heavy that it masks the flavour of the tea, I can't imagine clotted cream in tea. Cream is for coffee. MILK is for tea. Milk is much lighter and will allow the subtle flavours of the tea to come through. This info comes straight from a tea sommelier.
DeleteCan clotted cream be made in the slow-cooker or is the oven the only way to go?
ReplyDeleteIt really depends on your slow cooker. I tried doing mine overnight and it just burned the cream--even on low, it just got too hot. Some people report success with it though. If you want to try it, I would recommend doing it when you can keep an eye on it or check that it doesn't go above 180 F. The oven method, using fancy local cream, not ultra pasteurized, has worked for me.
DeleteJust saw this on Pinterest. I love this post! I adore clotted cream, with scones and jam - my best memories from England. But it's sooo expensive. This is a really easy and much cheaper alternative, and if you say that it even tastes better, then it must be perfect! I am definitely trying it! Thank you for the great idea!
ReplyDeleteI found a farm that has unpasturized whole milk from Jersey cows. How much clotted cream should I get from a gallon of milk? I'm having a tea party for 31 people in a few days and think I will probably need 8 cups of clotted cream
ReplyDeleteWoah, a whole 12 hours in the oven to make! :O Think it might be cheaper to just buy it haha
ReplyDeleteFound this site whilst looking for another recipe. So interesting! Can't wait to try to make it when I get back to the UK. In the meantime, here's a link for British food products including clotted cream:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.englishteastore.com/british-store-cream-tea.html?gclid=CIKk7pbmvbECFcUZQgodKUoAEA
If you're like me (lots of intention...equal amount of disappointment with my concoctions), maybe this onsite resource will suit. Thanks for all the good suggestions for making at home!
Just made some! Wondering how long it will keep in the fridge!
ReplyDeleteJust a comment (though someone else may have covered this): the way to remember the difference between a cream tea and high tea is to remember that "high" does not refer to class; it implies that it's high time we had something to eat. (Thanks to Miss Manners, by the way, for this mnemonic.)
ReplyDeleteNope! High refers to the table at which it is eaten. A low table (coffee table, garden table, etc) was were ladies would enjoy their afternoon tea. High tea was a higher table like a dinner table that the working class would have their tea on when they came home from work.
DeleteDid a little research and both ppl who posted about slow cooker temps are correct. Older, pre-2000 slow cookers, the low and high will end up around 209 degrees F. The difference b/w low and high is not the temperature, but the time it takes to get there (so the low will get get to 209 in 8 hours and the high will get to 209 in 4 hours, something like that).
ReplyDeleteStarting in 2000, it seems the industry ppl decided 209 was not high enough to kill off microbes and such and then really upped the temperatures so that both low and high were above boiling point (212) - not sure if the high gets up to 300 but I guess it's possible if you start at 212 and cook for 8 hours. If you do a search for "slow cooker/crockpot temperatures" you can see that people start complaining about how their NEW slow cookers are overcooking/boiling everything.
Just started my first batch of clotted cream in a (thankfully old) slow cooker I found in my parents' pantry and dusted off. Hope this info is helpful to someone else (since I read through this page and many others to figure out how to make clotted cream!
The whole thing is to reduce the amount of moisture in the cream to make it really really thick.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Devon, UK, my aunt had dairy farm and they would separate the milk from the cream. She would make clotted cream one of two ways.She would place the cream into shallow trays and leave in the dairy for a few days (this was England and the temperatures in Devon are perfect for this) and the cream would thicken.
If she wanted to make it quicker, she would 'scald' it by putting it into a saucepan and heating till it boiled then putting it into a shallow bowl where it would thicken overnight. Scalding it gives the clotted cream a metalic tang, which isn't unpleasant just different to the other way of making clotted cream.
Unfortunately I live in Australia where clotted cream is extremely hard to buy, due to extraordinarily stringent food laws, but it is such a joy to make my own. Mmmmmmmmm
My daughter wanted to do a tea party theme for her 5th Birthday, because we go to a few local tea houses in NJ for birthdays and mothers day. (NOTE: NJ tea houses are nothing like the ones in UK which I've been in before.) And I think this will be an easy thing to make for the 15 girls coming over to have 'tea' :) Also going to cook your scone recipe Can't wait!
ReplyDeleteThe recipe worked out great for me, but at first I thought it wasn't working.
ReplyDeleteI used 40% fat pasturized (not ultra pasturized) cream. My oven goes down to 170, so I used that. After 12 hours, I expected to see a thick firm layer like what is shown in the picture above (the one with the rubber spatula). When I put a rubber spatula at the edge of the pot, there was no thick firm layer, although the cream did seem like it thickened a little bit. It wasn't very yellow on top either, certainly not "crusty". I let it go another 2 hours. It was more yellow, but it still wasn't firm and thick or "crusty". I decided that it must need the chilling in the refrigerator to firm up.
I let it cool a couple hours in the oven and placed the pot in the fridge. The next morning, I did have a thick, very firm layer which was yellow on top and very creamy colored underneath.
I ran a knife around the edge of the pot to loosen the layer and used a skimmer to lift it off the rest of the cream. I placed it on a plate as it was so stiff, I didn't think it would go in a bowl without making a mess. I then cut it up and packed it in a few small sterilized jars.
I left one jar out to soften a little and made a batch of scones, and put the others back in the fridge.
My wife and I put lemon curd and the clotted cream on some English style scones. It was so good!
It definitely takes a while to make, but the actual time you spend working is very small. It is definitely worth the effort.
We couldn't find unpasteurized or regular pasteurized cream (the same experience as some of the other commenters) so we were forced to use ultra-pasteurized. Here's what worked for us:
ReplyDelete1) Cooking the cream at 180 degrees for 10 hours. At this point, the cream had at most a very thin scum on top.
2) Taking the lid off the pot and cooking it at 180 degrees for an additional 2 hours. After this, the cream developed more of a top layer, but it still was pretty thin.
3) Refrigerating for 8 hours. At the end of that, there was a hard layer on top that we skimmed off and that made an excellent clotted cream. It passed the test of a true Brit as well.
I am a Pakistani grew up in England and living in USA for the past 30 years. So I have fond memories of clotted cream in Pakistan (correctly defined by my Indian friends as "balai"). I have had both. To my British friend: Remember the English were in India for 400 years, and I am sure they "borrowed" a few things. If you can find an Amish farm buy the milk with the un-reduced cream boil it and let it simmer, cool and place in fridge or buy the clotted creamfrom from Whole foods. Thanks for all the wonderful posts, I am always open to shortcuts.
ReplyDeleteOne poster said they used a water bath in a pot on the stove and it all thickened. I'm wondering if you set up your crock pot as a water bath with a jar of milk/cream in it, would that work also? I'd rather not leave stove on all day or night, but the slow cooker is self contained and made for that sort of thing...
ReplyDeleteYummy! We have this here in Brazil, but we call "Nata". Our is like a really heavy cream whipped almost turn into butter, but a little bit less greasy. Is also softer than butter.
ReplyDeleteWe use for topping cakes (old school way) and "sonhos"... "sonhos de nata" are the best thing ever! Is like a doughnut, but without a hole and filled with a lot of clotted cream :)
Funny story: We don't have buttermilk here. I have no idea what buttermilk looks like. Sad. HAHA
Anyway, I'm in love with your blog! :D
Someone asked this question, but no answer.
ReplyDeleteI would like to make it and can it to give as gifts. Can this be done? If so what is the shelf life?
The sell in in the stores, however everyone I have see is from England.
What is the trick?
Thanks for this post! It is impossible to find cream that is not ultra pasteurized at the four grocery stores near me, so I just bought it and tried it out. Your warning scared my so much that I looked up what would happen. Someone suggested using 1/4 cup buttermilk to every 2 cups cream. I didn't have buttermilk, so I made some with milk and vinegar and added it to the cream after letting it sit. It worked wonderfully!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was little (about 1950) I would have oatmeal with cream at my grandmother's ranch. When they separated the cream from the milk and bottled it the top of the cream in the top of the bottle was so thick it had to be spooned out. Very much how I picture clotted cream. I think I will have to try this recipe. Sounds delicious.
ReplyDeleteWell, I tried this recipe putting 4 cups of pasteurized (not ultra) heavy cream into a large dutch oven and heating it for 10 hours at 180 degrees. It did form a layer at the top, but it seems to have come out a kind of golden brown color, like light toast. I'm not sure this is right. Is it ruined and if so, what did I do wrong?
ReplyDeleteDid you remember to refrigerate it overnight after you removed it from the oven? It's supposed to form a light yellow crust (this stuff is DELICIOUS!) and not a brown one... and thickens up to a spreadable consistency after it's been refrigerated.
DeleteUpdate. Having tried to skim the scum off the cream I can now authoritatively say, yes, it *was* ruined. It turned to butter, not clotted cream. I'm pretty sure it was because 10 hours was simply too long (or maybe 180 was too high). Either way, it was too much. I may try this again at a lower temp for a shorter time, but word to the warning: It's a good idea to keep a close watch on the cooking process until you know how your oven handles this.
ReplyDelete180F is a low temperature to cook on is this also possible to do at a temparature of 350F or 400F? plz send a reply to my mail bomisgamegek@hotmail.co.uk thanks in advance
ReplyDeleteI tried this the other day(with regular pasteurized whipping cream by Lucerne instead of heavy whipping cream) and it worked beautifully! I used a quart of whipping cream and was left with one full 16oz jar of clotted cream and another half-quart of cream left over(which I will use to bake scones).
ReplyDeleteThanks!