Mary Berry's Scones Review, Photos: Perfect Afternoon Treat

As a Brit living in the US, whenever I get homesick I watch a British murder mystery (there are too many to name one), or put on an episode of "The Great British Baking Show."

If it's the latter, it's usually not long before I'm sweating over the oven to make something that'll taste like home.

So when I hosted a Eurovision watch party this May, and wanted to bake something British to match the theme, I turned to a recipe that's become a favorite: Mary Berry's scones.

The former "Bake Off" judge has a foolproof recipe, published by the BBC. It's hard to screw up, and almost impossible to end up with a soggy bottom.

To make Mary Berry's scones, you'll need the following ingredients. (I've converted the measurements from Berry's recipe for American readers.)

I gave the flour, sugar, and baking powder a quick whisk before adding my butter, which I made sure had softened before throwing it into the bowl.

This part was the only bit that really required much effort.

I gave the bowl a little shake at intervals to let any clumps rise to the top, and then worked at them until the mixture looked as close to breadcrumbs as I could get it.

Then, give it a good whisk with a fork (or mini whisk, if you have one).

Make sure you mix it as you go.

I felt the mixture with my hands at points, and added more of the mixture if the dough felt too dry.

When it stuck to my fingers, it was ready.

This part got therapeutic, but I made sure I didn't overhandle the dough. And if you're not keen on raisins, you don't need them.

If, like me, you're an adult who doesn't own a rolling pin, I've found you can substitute pretty much any large (and clean) bottle. In my pandemic baking era, a Svedka vodka bottle was my go-to baking tool.

I know what you're thinking. How does a person who doesn't own a rolling pin have a fluted cookie cutter?

It's simple, really. One of these objects fits into my kitchen drawers and one doesn't.

I almost forgot to brush on the milk-egg mixture, which gives the scones a nice, glossy shine when they come out of the oven.

Every oven is different so I put a 12-minute timer on, then checked the scones. They were still a bit too pale, so I popped them back in and set 1-minute timers until they were closer to golden brown.

If you've ever watched "Bake Off," you'll know a mere minute can make or break a bake. At 14 minutes, my scones were looking good.

Lifting them out of the tray, I was pleased to see the bottoms of the scones weren't too pale or burned and were the golden hue I was looking for.

And the tops had a slight sheen on them, thanks to that all-important egg wash.

Still, in the name of journalism, I bit into a scone without any toppings. It was light, but not too crumbly or dense, in texture. And when I bit into a raisin, I found they added a nice chewiness and hint of sweetness.

Of course I cannot, in good conscience, encourage eating a dry scone. Onto the toppings!

It was easy to find my favorite jam, Bonne Maman's Strawberry Preserves, at my local Acme. But I couldn't find clotted cream in any stores near me in Philadelphia and had the same problem when I lived in New York City.

That's because clotted cream is made with unpasteurized milk, which is prohibited from being sold in some states; the CDC says the legal sale of raw or unpasteurized milk has previously been linked to "a higher incidence of related disease outbreaks."

While I'd be willing to roll the dice if I could find clotted cream, if you don't want to or can't find it in your home state, there's a dupe! And it tastes close enough to the real thing.

I found a great recipe for mock clotted cream from the blog Confessions of a Baking Queen, run by Elizabeth Waterson, who says she has 15 years of restaurant-industry experience.

Her recipe calls for:

I don't have a stand mixer (the dream), so I used my trusty hand mixer. You could do it by hand but you would be tired, or really showing off.

I'd whipped the heavy cream and sugar on the heaviest setting of my hand mixer for about three minutes before I added the mascarpone.

Waterson warns not to mix the mascarpone in with the whipped cream and sugar "with too much power," lest it deflates the cream.

She adds that you can keep the clotted cream in the fridge for up to three days in a sealed container. I found it kept well during that time frame.

There's some debate about the order of events when it comes to eating scones. Jam or clotted cream first?

For me, there's no question. I'm jam first all the way. The cream looks nicer on top, and it's more pleasant to bite into a dollop of cream than it is to stick your teeth into a glob of jam. This is also how the late Queen Elizabeth II ate her scones, so it must be correct.

Berry is a jam-first lady as well.

"Personally, I would put jam on first, with cream on top," she told Varsity, the University of Cambridge's newspaper, in 2017. "But do what you want."

The order "depends on whether you live in Devon or Cornwall," she added. The two English counties are known for their distinctive scone style: In Devon, it's cream then jam, and the Cornish way is jam then cream.

There's even a debate about how to say the word scone properly; we're big fans of pointless debates in the UK. I pronounce it "scone" to rhyme with "con," but many people (incorrectly, I said it) pronounce it like "stone."

Biting into the scones with jam and cream — to be fair, I had one half of a scone with jam then cream on top and the other the opposite way around — they were delicious, no matter which way you eat them.

Still, I stand firm that the Cornish way (jam first, then cream) is superior. It was worth the extra effort to make the mock clotted cream; without it, the scones wouldn't have felt complete.

The scones tasted delicious, and rivaled the ones I had at afternoon tea with my mum on a recent visit to the UK. It took me back, and made me feel like I was home.

And even though Eurovision was a bust, the scones were a hit at my watch party. My friends loved them, and so did my husband; the few leftovers we had didn't last long.

If Paul Hollywood had been at my Eurovision party, I like to think I would've gotten a handshake.