You don’t need milk from Jersey or Guernsey cattle to make clotted cream. Most dairy farmers used to make their own cream whether they had Devon, Ayrshire, Fresian or Channel Island cattle. You have to actually scold the milk (heated but not boiled) to bring the cream to the top. Cornish clotted cream (a brand like Rodda’s) is very good.

Double Devon cream (locals never say “Devonshire”) used to be mechanically separated at the milk processing plant and then jarred. It never used to taste quite as good as the clotted cream that you could pick up from your local farmer. I imagine that EU regs now prevent farmers from selling cream direct to the public nowadays.

The Devon Cream description needs a little modification.

Devon(ed) cream is produced by a process of – ‘Devoning’ to simplify the cream is boiled to increase flavour/thickness and improve keeping qualities.

A cheap and pretty good alternative is to buy UHT treated cream which has a very similar and delicious flavour, just as difficult to find in the USA but worth looking for.

The best way of tasting either Devon or Clotted cream is on merringues which are simple and easy to make.

Take some powdered sugar and mix with eggwhite until you have a putty (playdoh) consistency. Roll into balls about 1in – microwave on high on baking parchment – every microwave varies with time and number that can be done, experiment it’s fun. The trick is to catch them just as they stop expanding before they burn – the brown centered ones have the most delicious caramel flavour.

Spread with clotted or devon cream and eat.

Please never mix sugar into Devon or Clotted cream, it’s barbaric and ruins the flavour.