Until Thomas posted I had no idea that there was such widespread interest in clotted cream.
I thought it was something we had in Cornwall and Devon, that people enjoyed when they visited, and that we used to send from the local dairy using a “cream by post” service.
It seems though that cream is being exported and sold in some corners of the globe.
But maybe not all.
So I pulled out the best guide you could want to cookery from Devon and Cornwall – Marika Hanbury Tenison’s West Country Cookery.
You see, I knew it explained how to make your own clotted cream at home. I’ve never tried it, but my godmother (who gave me the book many years ago) did, with great success.
And here’s how you do it:
“Pour two litres of full fat milk or cream into an enamel bowl or a pyrex dish that can be placed over a flame. Leave to settle in a cool place for 24 hours.
Place your bowl or dish over a very low heat, and wait patiently for a ring of bubbles to appear. Do not, on any account, allow it to boil. When those bubbles appear, carefully remove your pan from the heat and leave in a cool place for a further 24 hours.
Use a slotted spoon to carefully skim the crusty cream from the top of your pan, and put it in a bowl. Refrigerate until needed,
The buttermilk or skimmed milk that remains after skimming can be used for baking or for making soups or sauces.”
I can easily pick up my clotted cream from the shop just around the corner, but I’m still tempted to have a go …
Fleur in her World 
You learn something every day! Luckily I can get this in the supermarket too, but I’d love to see you give this a try – it sounds really simple, but I bet it is a bit more tricky than that.
Hi Fleur! Oh yes, clotted cream is a BIG thing amongst connoisseurs! I have American friends who studied at St Andrews and they fantasize about clotted cream all year long and wait for an opportunity to go back to the UK and have some! And here in Paris, the food section of W. H. Smith’s on the rue de Rivoli (by the way, THE meeting-place of all Parisian anglophiles and expats!) has just started selling clotted cream. I don’t know what it’s worth when it comes in a jam jar, but I’m definitely going to try it out the next time I make scones!
I think of strawberries when I hear about clotted cream. A yummy thought.
Oh yum…drooling. I’m going to have to give this recipe a shot; it will be way too long before I’m back over in the UK.
I used to make a load of clotted cream in my (long lost) youth. I used two enamel bowls (one filled with water and the other sitting on top of it containing the cream) and, because I have one, placed them on top of the Cornish range to make the cream. However, because I could get hold of farm cream from the dairy, not milk, with a high fat content I could make good quality clotted cream with not too much buttermilk residue. The buttermilk was always used in cooking so there was never any waste! The trick is to let the fat in the milk/cream rise to the top so once you start DO NOT STIR!!
If I had too large a quantity of cream at the end of the process I made butter with the cream I didn’t need. I think you might end up with a cream which I would call ‘scalded’ cream and is just as delicious as clotted but you will end up with a lot of buttermilk at the end of the procedure if you use milk. I’ve still got my special cream lifter, a disc with holes in it and a handle to hold it by looped over the top, if you want to borrow it! I think it’s about 70+ years old but it does the job as they say! 🙂
If you can get hold of Channel Island milk it will have a higher fat content and that’s what you are after when you want to make cream.
Wow – that doesn’t sound TOO difficult to make – I must have a go sometime!
Although I love to cook, I think the process sounds a bit daunting. I think I will continue to buy mine when I need it.
My grandparents have just been on holiday to Devon and sent us some clotted cream in the post, which was a lovely surprise. Dave always has his with strawberry jam, but I am a heathen and prefer either nutella or lemon curd.
Wow! I never thought about how it is made – but I knew it must be.
I am now dreaming of raspberry jam and scones! Yum!