WHAT IS AFTERNOON TEA?
Afternoon tea is basically a pot of tea with cream/milk and sugar provided, and a selection of savoury and sweet treats. The treats are usually small and they are often displayed on a cake stand or platter. Drinking tea is a very British thing, and going out for afternoon tea has become fashionable over here. We made afternoon teas for a while as a hobby and a way to make a few pennies by selling them to friends and relatives. We also make them at home for special occasions when the family get together. If you visit a cafe or restaurant they can be very expensive to buy, however a nice frugal present for Mother’s Day or Easter could be to make a nice afternoon tea yourself. It can be done in your home or you can package it up nicely and take it round to be eaten later. Places like Home Bargains in the UK sell lovely cheap cake boxes that you can package your afternoon tea in.
HOW DO I PRESENT IT?
We have an old fashioned china tea set that we present ours in at home and some cake stands. All our things do not match but we try to stick to a couple of colours eg. blue and white. If you do not have any special crockery you can often find odd tea cups and plates in charity shops. If there are a lot of us I use platters to serve as well. These can be trays, slate or wooden. The afternoon teas doesn’t need to cost a lot. We do a batch bake of various sweet treats and freeze most of them for our own use later in the month, just placing a few of each in the cake box. We make up a box of sweet treats and a box of savoury items. Here are some ideas for your afternoon tea.
SANDWICHES
We make dainty sandwiches by taking the crusts off the bread and cutting them small. We try to do some white bread and some brown bread. The fillings do not have to be expensive. We use egg and cress mayonnaise, cheese mayonnaise, chicken and home made sweet chilli with salad, ham and pickle and either tuna mayonnaise or salmon with cucumber. Most of these things we have in any way and it is good to keep it simple. Adding the mayonnaise helps the filling go further. We make the sandwiches with what we have in.
Savoury platter
TARTS AND PASTRIES
For savoury items we make sausage rolls, savoury tarts, cheese straws, quiche, chicken goujons, pork pies, sausages and vegan rolls. I don’t have any of these items on the site yet but will put links next time that I make them and can post them with photographs.
Easter platter
SWEET TREATS
Our favourite sweets include chocolate profiteroles, chocolate truffles, cupcakes, scones, Bakewell slice, chocolate tiffin, shortbread and fat scallies. We always provide butter jam and cream in our scone but I will leave you to guess whether or not we put the jam or the cream in first! A way to make just an ordinary sponge tray bake look nice is to use a cutter and cut out circles and then fill with jam and cream and dust with icing sugar. They are simple and look nice on a cake stand.
Do you make afternoon teas? What are your favourite items to eat for an afternoon tea? I use entertaining a lot to show love and that I care. It is mostly about the presentation rather than what you are eating. A few cheap scones and jam tarts presented nicely, with a few egg or cheese sandwiches and sausage rolls made to look like a posh tea can make an occasion seem special, even if it was what you were going to have for lunch in front of the telly anyway.
For £10 a year for membership we get two hot drinks a month at the local garden centre. It is a pleasant hour, to sit and chat away from the iPads and phones.
We have a stroll round the lovely plants, sometimes getting a bargain from the sales. We check the yellow-stickered shelves at the small Waitrose area in the store.
At home, four o’-clock is time for a pot of tea and a slice of cake. I make some variation on the Welsh Bara brith, sometimes adding malt extract or marmalade to replace some of the sugar, or grated carrot to use a bit less dried fruit. The dried fruit is soaked in tea, and the cake needs just one egg and no fat, and I bake one for the week alongside the Sunday pot roast. When that has cooked I put a few rock cakes or a small tray of flapjacks.
If the cake tin is empty I can make a few drop scones in the frying pan, and there is always some homemade jam, and a loaf from the breadmaker, for a jam sandwich if it is fresh, or toast and jam.
Sorry for the late reply. I have been away. That sounds like you have got your cakes sorted. I have just bought some malt extract but have not tried it yet but I want to make a malt loaf. Thanks for sharing