Growing up, Petra Daniell dreamed of a life in England. So, it's perhaps not surprising that she one day fell in love with an Englishman over cream tea. Seriously, how English can you get?
Little Petra devoured books like Enid Blyton's Malory Towers. She loved the high jinks and midnight feasts. Later, at the University of Reading, she was thrilled to be living in a hall of residence. On her very first night, she took a seat at a long table in the dining hall.
In fact, the dining hall was just a canteen. Only the picture of the Queen on the wall added some class. But who was this dashing young man seated next to her? Tucking into dessert, he looked at her and remarked: "I think it's trying to be apple pie."
"I was an easy catch," laughs Petra, remembering that exchange with the man she would eventually marry. "I was soaking up language like a sponge. Anything he said was incredibly romantic because it was the first time I was hearing it in my favourite language."
Wayne was from Cornwall, famous for its scones with jam and clotted cream. On the long drive west to meet his family for the first time, he told her about the age-old cream-tea debate: whether to put the cream on top of the jam or the jam on top of the cream. Cornish clotted cream, he insisted, has to go at the bottom because it's so thick. Petra knew whose side she was on.
They shared their first cream tea - jam on top, of course - on the south-west coast, looking out to the island of St Michael's Mount. "We were freshly in love," she says. "And, somehow, cream teas became our thing."
Once married, they moved to Munich, where Petra began working for Spotlight, as production editor. After two decades back in Germany, she still feels a soul connection to England: "I always felt more comfortable in England," she says. "I like myself much better when I speak English. The reserve suits me."
Recently, she and Wayne have developed a shared passion for Malaysia. What better location, overlooking the tea plantations in the Cameron Highlands, to enjoy a cream tea?
We think little Petra would have approved.
Scones
Ingredients (makes 10 to 12)
- 500 g flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- a large pinch of salt
- 125 g cold butter
- 80 g sugar
- 100 g raisins
- 1 egg
- 275 ml buttermilk
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 220 °C and grease a baking tray.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and rub it into the flour until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and raisins.
Beat the egg and add it to the buttermilk. Mix well, then pour about 250 millilitres of the mixture into the bowl. Make a soft dough and roll it out until it is about 2.5 centimetres thick. Use a glass to cut out the scones and arrange them on the baking tray.
Brush the top of each scone with the leftover egg-buttermilk mixture and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden. Serve with strawberry jam and clotted cream.