Back on the first Sunday of the Sydney Royal Easter Show (April 10), Kiana and Angela came into the studio for their afternoon show with their arms full, carrying fresh, warm scones made by the CWA ladies. Why? Well, besides the scones being iconic and delicious, they were tackling an age old debate on their show – should you put the jam or cream on your scone first?
Except it didn’t seem like much of a debate. Everyone in the studio that day appeared to agree that the jam should go first because ‘if you put the cream on first the jam would slide off’. I was the only one who wasn’t so sure. Their argument sounded logical but it just wasn’t my experience.
In Devon in the UK, a Devonshire Tea calls for the county’s famous clotted cream, slathered on first before being topped with jam. Could the originators of the Devonshire Tea really be wrong? While a version of the ‘Devonshire Tea’ is available in cafes all over Australian, you never see clotted cream and the cream is almost always on top of the jam.
To be honest, this isn’t a debate I felt very strongly about until I finally sat down to a CWA scone a few days ago and got chatting to Chris, who was mid scone and also mid intellectual crisis. I found our conversation so enlightening I asked if I could record it. Forgive the interjections from your very unbiased reporter.
And just like that, we ended the Great Cream Tea War – sitting there on plastic chairs in the CWA tea room at the Sydney Royal Easter Show 2022. If this conversation goes down in history, let it be know: the scones were very good.
