How to Make Traditional Devonshire Splits

The West Country Classic Worth Mastering

Ask anyone from Devon about a proper cream tea and they will usually mention the scone. Ask someone who actually grew up in a West Country kitchen, though, and there is a fair chance they will talk about splits instead. A Devonshire split is a soft, enriched yeast bun, quietly sweet and tender, with a lightly floured top and a texture somewhere between a brioche and a good white roll. Split it open while it is still warm, pack it with clotted cream and jam, and you have one of the simplest pleasures in English baking.

Unlike a scone, a split is a bread, so it needs yeast and a little patience. The reward is a bun that stays soft for hours and never turns out dry or crumbly. They are cheap to make, forgiving once you know the feel of the dough, and they freeze beautifully. Children love shaping them, and there is something deeply satisfying about pulling a tray of them out of the oven on a grey Sunday afternoon.

What You'll Need

This makes ten to twelve splits, depending on how generous you are with the dough. You will need two lined baking trays, or one large one with plenty of space.

• 500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 7g fast-action dried yeast (one sachet)
• 40g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 50g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
• 300ml whole milk, warmed to blood temperature
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 tub of clotted cream and a jar of good strawberry or raspberry jam, to serve

Whole milk matters here. Semi-skimmed works, but the fat gives the crumb its softness. Test the milk on the inside of your wrist — it should feel barely warm, no hotter than about 38°C, or you will kill the yeast before it has done any work.

Making and Proving the Dough

Tip the flour into a large bowl, add the yeast on one side and the salt on the other, then stir in the sugar. Rub the softened butter through with your fingertips until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Pour in the warm milk and the beaten egg, keeping back a tablespoon of egg for glazing later.

Bring everything together with a wooden spoon, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a full ten minutes. If you are using a stand mixer with a dough hook, six to seven minutes on a low speed will do. The dough starts sticky and slack; by the end it should be smooth, slightly tacky and spring back when you press it. If you stretch a small piece between your fingers it should hold a thin, translucent window.

Shape into a ball, return to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel or cling film and leave somewhere warm for one to one and a half hours, until roughly doubled. An airing cupboard is ideal; a cool kitchen will simply take longer. Be guided by the dough, not the clock.

Shaping, Baking and Finishing

Knock the dough back gently, turn it out and divide it into ten or twelve pieces, about 75g each. Roll each one tightly into a neat ball, cupping your hand over it and moving in small circles against the worktop to build tension on the surface. This is what gives the splits a good rise rather than a flat top.

Space them well apart on the lined trays, leaving at least 5cm between each one. They should stay separate as they bake, not tear into one another. Cover loosely and prove for a second time, thirty to forty minutes, until noticeably puffy and almost doubled.

Heat the oven to 220°C conventional, 200°C fan or Gas 7. Dust the tops generously with flour — that soft, pale, floury cap is part of the character of a split. Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes, until pale gold and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath. Cool on a wire rack for ten to fifteen minutes, so they are warm rather than scalding.

Cream First or Jam First?

In Devon the cream goes on first, spread thickly, with the jam spooned on top of it. It is a practical order as much as a patriotic one: the cream forms a base and the jam sits neatly on top without running off the sides. Cornish readers will disagree, and that is entirely their right.

Split each bun horizontally, almost but not quite all the way through, so it opens like a book. Add a generous spoonful of clotted cream and then a smaller spoonful of jam. Do not skimp on the cream. Eat them straight away, preferably with a pot of strong tea, and try not to count how many you have had.

Storing, Swaps and Troubleshooting

Splits are best on the day they are baked, but they keep for two days in an airtight tin. After that, split and toast them lightly, which revives them surprisingly well. Baked splits freeze for up to two months; thaw at room temperature and warm through in a low oven.

For a slower timetable, let the dough prove overnight in the fridge, then bring it back to room temperature in the morning before shaping. If your splits come out dense, the usual culprits are under-proving or tired yeast. If they spread outwards rather than upwards, the dough was over-proved or too wet — resist the urge to keep adding flour, which only makes them tough. And if the tops brown too quickly, drop the oven by 10°C and give them two extra minutes.