VE Day Themed Bake Off : The Traditional Cornish Cream Tea

The second round of the family Bake Off was held last weekend. My niece was the leader this time and with VE Day in mind the remit was 'A Traditional British Dish". I chose to do a Cornish Cream Tea. Traditionally this is served with a slightly sweetened bread roll called a split. Step one was therefore to get baking the splits.

I use my mum's recipie for this. Below is a picture I took a while ago straight from her book. She frequently made these when we were children and my Gran also always had some on the table when we went to stay. Note that they are made according to this with plain flour. 

Flour along with many baking products has become a bit of an issue in the UK due to it's shortages on the shop shelves. There have been two suggested reasons for this. One is that many people are doing a great deal more baking and the other is due to a lack of packaging being produced. I decided to buy a 16kg bag of flour from Amazon and have been able to share some of this with my friends either when they have called to the farm for eggs or when I have delivered eggs to their doorstep.

The next requisite is clotted cream which I was able to add to my click and collect supermarket order.

I also had a small amount of homemade strawberry jam left from last summer.

The judging is done virtually by photos so presentation and looks seems to be key. I therefore set the atmosphere for the afternoon tea.

How the cream and jam are served is another issue and one that causes many arguments. Which comes first, the jam or the cream?

Devon and Cornwall vary over this.

My sister and I have husbands who love to wind us up over this but then off course neither of them have Cornish blood running in their veins like their dear wives.

There is only ONE way.

Jam and then cream. How would you get the strawberry on top otherwise?

Tomorrow I will give show you the other entries and tell you the judges' decision.