Foodbella: Clotted Cream. A Poor Name for a Tasty Treat.

This weekend we made some clotted cream. Don't be fooled by that unfortunate--yet technically fitting--name. It's amazing.

I thought the No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread was easy to make, but I don't think anything could be simpler and more satisfying than making clotted cream. See my comments after the recipe.

Clotted Cream

Ingredients:

• 4 cups Heavy Cream 

Instructions: 

• Set oven to its lowest temperature. Ours goes as low as 170F.
• Pour 4 cups of heavy cream into a 9x9 casserole dish.
• Place the casserole dish on the middle rack and set timer for 12 hours.
• After 12 hours, remove clotted cream from oven and let cool. 

• After cooling, about one hour, place plastic wrap over casserole dish and chill in refrigerator about 4-5 hours or until noticeable separation.
• Remove dish from refrigerator and fold over a corner of the "clotted" cream and pour out the liquid into a container to use as you wish.

left over cream from two batches of clotted cream.

• Scrape remainder of clotted cream into a butter dish or ramekin large enough to hold about a pint.
• Now you have wonderful clotted cream, which is traditionally spread over scones and topped with fruit jams or preserves. 

For printer friendly recipe, click here. 

We watched a few videos about making clotted cream, and they strongly suggested using cream that is NOT ultra-pasteurized. Apparently, it's not supposed to clot as well as the heavy cream made from grass-fed cows, and having a fat content of between 36-40%. Well, that's not to be found at most local grocery stores, so we just bought what was available to us, which is ultra-pasteurized.  When it first came out of the oven after 12 hours, the top layer of the cream looked like a very thin golden gooey cheese, but it was still very liquid underneath. We put it in the fridge and decided to go to Earth Fare to get some of the fancier cream because we were so sure ours would not clot. 

Ultra-pasteurized on the left and pasteurized on the right.

While the fancy heavy cream went in the oven, we took the ULTRA pasteurized cream out of the fridge and to our surprise, it was very nicely clotted! 

So, now we have two batches of clotted cream, and this morning Jason made some blueberry scones with clotted cream.

ultra-pasteurized clotted cream on the left. Fancy pasteurized clotted cream on the right.

Even though the clotted cream made from the Earth fare heavy cream looked slightly better than the ultra-pasteurized heavy cream, they both pretty much tasted the same to me.  I don't know why I was expecting it to have a sweet taste, but in all honesty, clotted cream tastes like unsalted butter, with a slightly nutty flavor and a silky smooth texture. It spreads wonderfully on the warm from the oven scones, and with the addition of some blueberry preserves...heavenly. 

🍴

Thank you for visiting.

Foodbella: The Easiest No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread

Don't worry. I don't have a long family story about this recipe. I will get straight to it. So easy, and so good. Has become our weekly bread bake. Crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside.

No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread 

PRINTER FRIENDLY

Ingredients

3 cups Bread flour (or all purpose)

1/4 tsp instant yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

12 oz (1 1/2 cups) cool tap water

• In a large bowl combine flour, yeast , sugar, and salt.
• Add 12 oz water, and stir with inverted end of wooden spoon until blended. (I promise, this helps it come together more easily). Dough will be shaggy and sticky.
  

• Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let dough rest 8-12 hours, at warm room temperature. We like to put it in our oven with the oven light on (do I have to specify that the OVEN IS OFF? Just making sure). You'll know the dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.  

                      

• After proofing, scrape the dough from the bowl onto a liberally floured work surface and sprinkle a little more flour over the dough.
• Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Do not knead it!
• Place upturned mixing bowl over the dough to rest while you prep the oven.
• Place a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, pyrex or ceramic) into the oven and preheat to 450F.
• Once oven is preheated, carefully remove the pot from the oven. Remove the lid and turn your dough out into the pot. (Don't worry about the shape, it will be fine). For easier handling of the dough, after proofing you can place the dough on top of floured parchment paper and lift the parchment paper into the baking vessel.
• Replace the lid and bake for 30 minutes with the lid on.
• After 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake another 15 minutes until loaf is beautifully browned.
• Cool on rack.
• Enjoy!

We've made about 3 loaves and they all look different, with different textures inside and out, but all amazing. 

                   

For a printable PDF link of recipe: click here.

The above instructions are what we followed and worked great for us, but you can find many videos on YouTube with varying instructions. It helps to see how to handle the dough and what it will look like after proofing.  So, here are two that we watched. 

The below video is in French with subtitles, but it's the first video we saw and the closest recipe we followed. Though, at the end, we did not want our bread to be soft on the outside, so we did not put it in a bag as he did. Otherwise, it's so easy.

Thanks for visiting, and let me know if you make this recipe. 

🍞

Enjoy!