Clotted cream project

Well, I promised I'd make clotted cream and I did. On the whole it's perhaps a bit too much effort to put in, but it was interesting to try it out.

So I bought 2 litres Jersey gold top. This is milk from the famous Jersey cows. I've seen them, they are pale brown and very friendly. They also produce a wonderfully creamy milk - 5.2%.

So step one was to pour the milk into a shallow pan. The pan had to be stainless steel, pyrex or heat proof porcelain. The pan should be shallow, but still deep enough to go into a bain-marie. What's of importance is the surface - the larger, the more clotted cream allegedly.

So on Friday morning, before going to work, I used my large pyrex dish. It could only take 1 litre. Oh, well, that leaves one as backup. The milk had to be left to stand "overnight" which in my exprience is about 12 hours.

12 hours later, I placed the metal plate from the pressure cooker in a shallow casserole, then placed the pyrex dish on that. I poured water in the casserole and set it to boil on the lowest setting.


The recipe was not very specific on how long to do this - it depends on the depth of the dish the milk is in. I guessed that my dish was on the deep-ish side and opted for 2 hours of "just under simmering". Fairly quickly after placing it on the hob, it developed the familiar yellowy crust.


After two hours, the dish is to be stored in a cool place "overnight". I covered the pyrex dish with plastic foil and then it's lid and then put it outside, it's still as cold as a fridge outside. To be on the safe side, I placed a large log on top of the lid, in case some of our wildlife should get interested.

The next morning, the cream was to be skimmed off. Well, I skimmed it off and there wasn't much at all - about half a decilitre, barely enough for our two hot cross buns this morning.

It tasted OK and looked OK-ish too. But for the resulting amount it was a lot of effort, I think. I also think the temperature wasn't high enouth, I shouldn't have used the metal plate in between. And maybe follow the alternative recommendation of adding some double cream to the milk, it might yield more.

Hot tip on eating - use scones, not hot cross buns. The hot cross buns are too spicy and it makes it impossible to taste the flavour of the clotted cream.