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Cornish Splits
3/4 lb. (3 cups) flour 1/2 lb. (I cup) butter or clarified drippings 1 teaspoonful salt Buttermilk or water 1/2 pint (I cup) cleaned currants 1 tablespoonful sugar Rub the butter into the flour, add the sugar, salt and currants and moisten with sufficient buttermilk or water to work into a nice smooth paste; roll out one and one-half inches thick, cut out with a cutter, and bake in a hot oven for twelve minutes. Split with a fork, spread with creamed butter, and serve very hot.
A very rich currant scone in all but name, and one that will disappoint if you take the thickness and the time at face value together. Read the two together before you start.
- Hot ovenSet the oven to 425–450F. It needs to be fully preheated, since the whole point of twelve minutes is a fast rise and set.
- Thickness versus timeRolled a full inch and a half thick, these will not be cooked through in twelve minutes. Either roll to about three-quarters of an inch and keep to twelve minutes, or leave them thick and expect 18–20 minutes with the tops covered loosely if they colour too fast.
- No leavening is specifiedButtermilk is called for but no soda or baking powder, so as written these rise only from steam and the butter. If you want the open crumb that makes them worth splitting, add 2 teaspoons baking powder, or 1 teaspoon baking soda when using buttermilk.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, the small black raisin, not fresh red or black currants. "Cleaned" meant picking out stalks and grit, unnecessary with packaged fruit today.
- Clarified drippingsBeef or pork fat rendered and strained, a common everyday shortening in British kitchens of the period. Butter is the direct substitute at the same weight; lard also works and gives a shorter, flakier crumb.
- Half a pint of currantsHalf a pint here simply means one cup, about 5 oz. The book's own parenthesis confirms it.
- Creamed butterButter beaten soft and light on its own, not butter creamed with sugar. Have it at room temperature before the splits come out of the oven.
- YieldAbout a dozen rounds from a 2 1/2-inch cutter if rolled to three-quarters of an inch; roughly half that number at the full inch and a half. They are best within the hour, and leftovers are better reheated briefly in the oven than served cold.
A true Cornish split is a soft yeast-leavened bun, left to rise, baked pale, then torn open and filled with clotted cream and jam — the combination often called "thunder and lightning" when treacle stands in for the jam. What appears here, rubbed rather than kneaded and baked in twelve minutes, is closer to a rich currant scone or the Cornish "heavy cake" tradition, so the name seems to have travelled further than the method did. The heavy proportion of fat to flour, and the offer of clarified drippings as an alternative to butter, are at least consistent with West Country baking, where dripping was an everyday shortening — though neither settles where this particular version came from.