Tea and Scones

I love drinking tea. It not only tastes good, but it has so many health benefits. Black, white, and green teas all contain antioxidants, which are extremely important for protecting your body from cancer, among other benefits. They also contain some caffeine, which is a good booster in the late afternoon. :)

I love herbal teas too. I drink chamomile when I'm nervous, peppermint for pain or if I have an upset stomach, raspberry leaf for general health, ginger for dizziness...the list could go on and on.

And what goes better with a good black tea than scones? After trying many different recipes, and deciding what we liked best, my sister and I made this recipe. I won't make any claims that it's the best scone recipe in the world...but it is good. ;)
Note: this recipe was made for high altitude! You lowlanders, make changes accordingly.

Basic Scones á la Barton

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
heaped 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
scant 1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons butter, cubed
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and place a baking sheet in it. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spices, and salt. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the sugar. Mix together milk and sour cream in a measuring cup. Add to bowl and mix to form a soft dough. With floured hands, turn dough out onto floured work surface and use your hands to shape it into a thick 7-inch round. Cut the round into eight wedges. Using oven mitts, carefully take the heated baking sheet out of the oven. With a spatula, transfer the scones to the baking sheet. Bake in the upper part of the oven until browned and well-risen, 10-12 minutes. Cool the scones on a wire rack. Serve with butter, clotted cream, or strawberry jam.

I have not made this yet, so I don't know if it actually works, but here is a recipe for making clotted cream (since everyone seems to agree that you can't buy good clotted cream at the store).

"Don't start with milk or your yield will be too small. Start with cream. Raw, unpasteurised cream gives the best results. I can't give you a recommendation for raw cream in your area but in California Claravale's raw cream is the best contender for the job that I have found. Organic Pastures version works too. You can even make an ok version with pasteurised cream (I tried Straus Organic), but raw is definitely the best thing to use.

Set aside several hours, this is a long project. Pour a pint of cream into your largest, non reactive, clean frying-pan. I use a large All-Clad fry pan, you need the largest surface area you can get. Put over your lowest heat setting, I use 'warm' on my ancient electric stove. If you use gas, I am guessing you will need a diffuser. After about an hour, a crust will have formed on the surface. Scrape it off with a non-slotted spoon into a bowl, keeping the crust facing upwards. Repeat 3 or 4 times until most of the cream has thickened and been scraped into the bowl. Refrigerate over night. The next morning you should have a thick, gloopy, knobbly-surfaced cream which you can spread onto a freshly baked scone." Recipe from this blog The comments on the original post also give some good advice.

Enjoy! And let me know if you like the recipes. :)
May God bless you all richly this week,
Rachel