Happy Jane Austen Day!

Happy Jane Austen Day!

In my family, we celebrate Jane Austen Day twice each year: on her birthday, Dec. 16, and on her death day, July 18. We sometimes celebrate big and sometimes small. In July, I usually make clotted cream and scones at the minimum. In December, with so many other sweets, I generally skip them. On or around both days, I usually make little Yorkshire puddings for dinner. We eat them with onion gravy, chicken sausage, and some kind of vegetable. We usually have potatoes, but this year we had balsamic glazed carrots. And we had that dinner a few days ago to accommodate my 18-year-old son’s work schedule. He won’t be around for dinner tonight but didn’t want to miss the Yorkshire puddings.

I wasn’t feeling great on Wednesday, though, when we had decided to celebrate Jane Austen Day. I had already made the clotted cream, as it takes 7-10 days, but I wasn’t up for making scones on top of the dinner. My son stepped in and made the scones for the first time. I was not concerned, as he is excellent at baking and cooking. Since we opted to have the scones for dessert Wednesday rather than an earlier meal or snack, he made only 5 scones for the family and saved the rest of the dough for me to bake.

This morning, I finally felt good enough to bake them, so we enjoyed more today, and I wanted to share them with you. We were very casual this week. Because, again, I wasn’t feeling great. Sometimes in the past we have done a full afternoon tea and made it fancy. Not this time.

The scones were not as tall and layered as usual. I do think I had to work the dough a bit too much when I took it out of the refrigerator today because my son hadn’t fully mixed what he put aside, but it tasted great.

And yes, that is way too much clotted cream for two scones. My 15-year-old son had to take some of it.

On Wednesday, we also had the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice on in the background all afternoon. We got through half of it. I read the book every year but don’t watch it very often. I love it, but it is long, and I prefer reading over movies. I am more likely to search for and watch a certain favorite part rather than the whole six episodes. Maybe I will watch the second half in the coming week, though. It has been a while, and it makes me happy.

When you break open your scones to add strawberry jam and clotted cream, what order do you use? Do you like your scones Cornish (cream on top) or Devon (jam on top)?