Tea Party!

[joyliveshere]

We're having a tea party! No, not the kind where Republicans with picket signs gather in public places and complain about liberals, or Democrats, or Obama, or taxes, or health care, or whatever it is they're complaining about (don't tell me, I don't want to know.) We're having a real tea party, with tea and crumpets and little crustless

Comments

[sageofgodalming]

I suspect you have a disconnect: the whole point of afternoon tea is that it's a light snack with tea, it isn't a proper meal. That said, I think there are two versions:

Summer: cucumber sandwiches, strawberries and cream, Pimms and lemonade, cream tea, maybe a slice of cheesecake (but all those things together would be disastrous). For optional extras, the background thwunk of tennis rackets, and Bertie Wooster hiding from his aunt in the bushes.

I have never had cucumber sandwiches as described.

Winter: crumpets, toasted teacake, muffins (not the blueberry abominations), Scotch pancakes (aka drop scones, in effect blinis) with butter and jam, various cakes including chocolate, carrot, fruit, etc. Optional extra: dead baronet in the library with ornate dagger sticking out of his back.

The tea itself is the main thing, of course.

[joyliveshere]

We don't do light snacks very well. We're better at massive amounts of food. Where do we buy the dead baronet?

[sageofgodalming]

Buy? Aren't you into local production, pick your own etc?

[joyliveshere]

There's a local baronet shortage.

[vado]

If I could imagine myself as Angela Lansbury in a period drama, afternoon tea would be a big pot of leaf tea, plus cakes (perhaps a slab of cake - fruit, madeira, battenburg - or individual cakes) - and little sandwiches.

I don't think I've ever encountered cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, but perhaps I don't mix in the right circles; I suggest putting cucumber with salmon and leaving the crusts on (unless most of your guests are toothless).

Pasties don't strike me as a teatime thing. I most often see them when a bunch of football fans catch my commuter train, en route to White Hart Lane (football ground), and need to scoff something before the match - for some reason that's usually a hot Cornish pastie and a can of super strength lager.

Scones are good, with cream and jam. Muffins I would eat for breakfast or perhaps supper (like toast), but not tea. "Tea and crumpets" seems like a good choice, although I've never had a crumpet at teatime either.

[joyliveshere]

I know pasties don't fit in, but Amy really wants some. Besides which, the guests will be a bunch of Americans who don't know any better, except for jan_can_too, who's already pointed out that pasties don't fit in. But I'm sure she can be discrete.

[sageofgodalming]

whatever it is they're complaining about

the taste of the coffee, I expect.

[vado]

Also, how about fairy cakes?

See here:
http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/Fairy-cakes

[joyliveshere]

I think fairy cakes are what we call cupcakes. Fairy cakes is a much better name, though.

[catlily]

Oh, missed this

[happy_potterer]

Yum, I'm liking the tiny little tartlets. I'm signing up to make those and scones.

We asked guests to bring teapots, as we only have one or two, but now I see we will need a 3-tier stand to do this right.

The expert opinion on pasties is unanimous, so I will satisfy my pasty craving another time. Sounds like it should wait 'til the next time I go to a soccer match, which was going to be never.

Clotted cream, we can get.

[joyliveshere]

Got any suggestions (or, better yet, recipes) for tiny little tartlets? And, uh, is there a difference between cress and watercress? Anything made with hard boiled eggs is out, since I find them disgusting and won't allow them in the house.