Instructions: This amount of dough is easily prepared in a 1 1/2-pound bread machine set on the dough cycle. If you have no such assistance, beat together the water, dry milk, and egg in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar, salt and yeast. Add 3 cups of the flour and mix together until you have a slack dough. Add the butter or shortening and finally the remaining flour, mixing until you have a soft but quite workable dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured kneading surface and knead for 3 or 4 minutes. Give the dough a rest while you clean out and grease your bowl. Knead for a further 3 or 4 minutes, shape the dough into a nice ball, put it into the bowl, and turn it over so the top has a thin film of grease on it. Cover and let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Knock the dough down and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. If you have a scale, itll makes the next step a bit more scientific. If youre opting to make one loaf and six splits, take about two-thirds of the dough, shape it into a loaf, and place it in a lightly greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch bread pan. Take the remaining dough and cut it into six even pieces, shape them into balls, and place them, seam-side down, on a small, lightly greased baking sheet. Cover the loaf and rolls and let the loaf rise for 45 minutes to an hour, while the rolls should rise for 15 to 20 minutes.

Bake the rolls for about 15 minutes at 425F. Remove them from the oven and place them on a rack to cool. Turn the oven down to 350F and when the bread dough has risen just over the top edge of the bread pan, put it in the oven and bake it for 35 minutes. Remove it and cool it on a rack.

Cornish Splits
Cut each roll from top to bottom on the diagonal, not quite all the way through. Open each one up; on one side spread strawberry jam, and on the other, clotted or double cream (or even homemade sour cream, which is much like a light clotted cream). Close the roll back up and, if you feel like being elegant, brush the top with a little melted butter and sprinkle on a bit of confectioners sugar. If you serve these rolls with clotted cream and treacle (very similar to molasses) rather than clotted cream and jam, theyre known as "Thunder and Lightning.

This is a rich and basic recipe that makes enough dough for one 4 x 13-inch pain de mie pan; one 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan plus a half dozen Devonshire Splits; or a dozen and a half Devonshire Splits. Splits are the rolls served in the West Country with strawberry jam and double cream at a traditional "Cream Tea." The difference between the Devonshire and Cornish Split is the Tamar River, and which side of it you happen to be on.

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