To be clear, I'm not talking about American triangle scones, which, after a decade of living in the US, still don't make sense to me. I'm talking about the British kind that's meant to be sliced in half, slathered with strawberry jam, then topped with a generous dollop of clotted cream.
This is known as the Cornish — and, in my opinion, the objectively correct — way to eat a scone, but not everyone agrees with this method of assembly (and more on what Cornish means later). Many Brits like to add cream to their scones before the jam, even though this is wrong.
I'm far from the only one with strong opinions on the matter. There's been a great British debate over the order in which jam and cream are placed upon a scone since the 11th century, when cream teas were first served in the nation, according to The Times of London.
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If you'll indulge me in a quick culinary geography lesson, the jam-or-cream debate comes down to Cornwall and Devon, neighboring counties on England's southern coast that are known for their distinctive scone-eating styles:
- In Cornwall, people eat scones with jam then clotted cream.
- In Devon (which just so happens to rhyme with "dead wrong"), people eat scones with clotted cream, followed by jam.
"In Cornwall the argument is that it is easier to spread the jam first and that you enjoy the cream more," a 2018 Times article explains. "In Devon, they say that the cream is a substitute for butter, that you get more cream on if you load it first and that when sharing a cream tea with a Cornishman it means you get first dibs on the cream."
If you watch "Escape to the Country," you'll be familiar with Cornwall and Devon, but for those who haven't (what are you doing?) here they are on a map:
I recently ignited the debate at work after making a batch of scones usingMary Berry's foolproof recipe. I asked a British colleague whether she also prefers the jam-first method.
"I don't know if I can forgive you for this," she wrote back on Slack. "Obviously it's cream before jam??"
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Obviously, it's not. For several, highly scientific reasons:
- Scones look better with clotted cream on top. You could have jam on toast any day, but clotted cream is for special occasions (if you eat clotted cream every day, hats off to you). The cream is the star topping — you want to show it off! It adds volume and flair, and can take a supermarket scone from sad to sophisticated in seconds.
- Clotted cream should not be treated like butter. Spreading clotted cream as though it's mere butter onto a scone before topping it with jam is a wasted opportunity. It's the culinary equivalent of wearing a gorgeous designer dress, then covering it up with a denim jacket you've worn to death.
- The texture is more pleasant. No one wants to sink their teeth into a glob of sticky jam; biting into a dollop of light-as-feather cream is overall a more preferable, even decadent, experience.
- It's not as messy. Hear me out, but when I recently tried a scone with cream then jam on the top it got all everywhere — it left a filmy, jammy mess all over my fingers (evidenced below). The other way around, this simply wasn't an issue. And if you put enough cream on top, your teeth won't be covered in stringy bits of strawberry preserves; the cream will simply blend in with your pearly whites. No one wants to look a mess at afternoon tea.
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5. It's the royal way. The late Queen Elizabeth II was a fan of a jam-first scone, and according to the royals' former chef Darren McGrady, it's the way they're served at Buckingham Palace garden parties. King Charles also appears to also be Team Jam.
6. Baking royalty also approves. The queen of baking, Mary Berry, is also a jam-first lady. "Personally, I would put jam on first, with cream on top," the former "Great British Bake Off" judge told Varsity, the University of Cambridge's newspaper, in 2017, when asked to weigh in on the debate."But do what you want," she added, ever a class act.
Looking to find others to validate me, Ipolled my coworkers on Slack and innocently dropped the question into a team channel knowing full well that everyone was about to lose it.
I didn't know that I would lose it the most.
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Forty-one people voted. Nineteen people (including myself), or 46%, said it's jam before cream. Twenty-two people, or 54%, said it's cream before jam.
The poll inspired a spirited discussion, with 22 replies in our thread. I clearly offended Team Cream devotees.
"Idk who's picking jam first, but you are chaos agents and really need to look at yourself in the mirror," one colleague in the Team Cream camp wrote.
"In my mind cream is similar to butter in this scenario, and you wouldn't put jam on your toast before the butter," another wrote.
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Another colleague boldly suggested an alternative way to eat scones: "I'm gonna throw a spanner in the works here. I actually put cream on the bottom half, jam on the top half, and then sandwich them together."
In theory, it sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution, a way for us all to come together. But I just don't see it.
As a fellow jam-first devotee said in the thread: "JAM FIRST THEN CREAM folks — really nothing else to discuss here. That is all."
Of course, I agree. But ultimately, Berry's right: You can do what you want.
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Just don't serve me a scone with jam on top.
