Tea Report

I put on afternoon tea yesterday for my mom and Matt. I had intended to take pictures at the time of the lovely spread, but I got too preoccupied with the procedure and then the chowing down. So I've photograped the leftovers and a historic recreation of the place setting. I put on the tea as an exercise in cake-producing and occasion-managing for my possible future pastry career. Well, the tea was lovely and everyone enjoyed themselves, but I learned that I have a LOT to learn still.

Currant Cream Scones with Orange Blossom Honey Butter and Boysenberry Preserves



Currant Cream Scones: I got this recipe out of The New Best Recipe, a cookbook from Cooks Illustrated magazine. They were pretty good; nice and sconey with a lightly browned top and soft interior. They were weren't very sweet or flavorful, but the cookbook said that was the style of British scones. They're more of a plain base for sweeter toppings, as opposed to American scones which are eaten plain and are therefore more stand-alone flavorful. I think next time I'll use the follow-up recipe, Cakey Scones,which contains an egg and will probably make it more... well... cakey.



Orange Blossom Honey Butter: From Cooking Light magazine, although there's nothing light about it. Honey, butter, and both lemon and orange zest. Simple and absolutely divine!! The only downside was it was a bit runnier and sweeter than I was hoping, but a reduction of the honey to butter ratio will solve that in the future.

Boysenberry Preserves: Smuckers. Shhhh.

Caramel Cookies



This deceptively simple recipe came from Bon Appetit. It was difficult to make and required one throw-out/start-over, and the cookies themselves have been schizophrenic. Fresh out of the oven, delicious! Soft texture, rich flavor, darn good cookie. By tea time, I had a plate of caramel paving stones. However, my guests were gracious enough to dip them in their hot tea and call them perfect dunking cookies. Then the following morning, when I expected them to be even harder than ever, they'd resoftened in the night! So I'm not sure what to make of these possessed cookies. I still haven't decided if they deserve a spot in the recipe box yet. Better eat some more.... *munch munch munch*

Tea Sandwiches

Smoked Salmon and Cucumber with Dilled Cream Cheese: Not bad, but not particularly good, either. I blame the salmon. It was very, very salty and kind of mushy. Next time I'll find a better brand. The dilled cream cheese was scrumptious, though.



Curried Egg Salad: Delicious!! Mango chutney and curry and onions and cumin and yuminess. That was one of my favorites. It was just a little wet for a tea sandwich; it oozed a bit out of the edges. So I'll have to tone down the liquid in the future, but otherwise it's a keeper.

Petit Fours



Lemon cake layered with lemon buttercream and fresh strawberry marmalade: Wonderful as a cake, not as a petit four. It was a mega-four. A monstro-four. I layered it too high, I cut it too big, and I certainly shouldn't have used fresh fruit, which made it lumpy and unstable. But I really couldn't get that upset about it because it tasted so good. So I'm saving the recipe for a future full-size cake, but I'll have to find something else for petit fours. And do you know how hard it is to make a straight line of piped icing on the top? If you move too slowly, the icing squiggles up. If you move too fast, the string breaks. My decorations were certainly... rustic. But like I said, it's hard to get upset when it tastes good, so I'll just have to keep practicing!