Scones with Plum Jam and Clotted Cream

Radio Four last week were tweeting about making the perfect scones. Scones are something I never feel like I have mastered. My Mum makes amazing ones, she has even shared her recipe with me but to no avail. I could just never get them to rise properly. When I saw that Radio 4 had come up with the perfect scone recipe I just had to try it especially as my plum jam needed testing out.

Mr VST and I cycled for two hours on Sunday and there happened to be some clotted cream in the village shop where we stopped for a drink. I thought it was a sign so I bought it and when we came home I went to make some scones. 

The first problem I encountered was having no milk. Well I did have some but it was frozen and I didn't want to wait for it to thaw properly before making scones. I decided that I would have to mess with the perfect scone recipe and use soya milk curdled with a teaspoon of cider vinegar in place of the milk, like a non-dairy buttermilk.

The recipe worked well even with my amendment. The scones were light and melted in the mouth. They went well with the clotted cream and plum jam too and it didn't seem to matter whether they were topped the Cornish way....

...or the Devonshire way.

You may be able to tell from these photos that the plum jam was rather runny which is why I reboiled it and added some lemon and liquid pectin, sadly you now have to slice the jam rather than pour it!