Afternoon tea ideas/recipes?

[TigH]

Thought it would be nice to have a "tea party" around the end of January.

I plan to make some finger sandwiches - egg salad, chicken salad, cucumber and shrimp, and a cream cheese spread. I also plan to make scones, and I found a recipe for Devonshire Cream.

I would like to serve one or two other sweet treats, aside from the scones. Searching on google with the keywords "traditional English tea" or "afternoon tea" or "serve English tea" has not helped too much. I am wishing and hoping to find a site that has some really neat ideas about serving an English tea - with some yummy recipes!

Have any of you ever done this sort of thing before? I have some frou-frou glass serving platters and I got a nice tablecloth for Christmas. Need to buy a vase or two so I can add some flowers to the table. We have plenty of tea pots and tea cups! I'm just drawing a blank when it comes to deciding on two other sweets to serve. I thought about chocolate covered strawberries, but I have never had much luck melting chocolate.

If anyone has a link to a site that is dedicated to "Afternoon Tea", please lead me to it! I even checked the BBC site, but didn't see too much information there.

Thanks!

 

[BevS97]

hi Karen

I would ask your sheffield connection!

Seriously, afternoon tea is traditionally sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, and plainish cakes, like a maderia cake, or maybe some petit fours. Strawberrys and cream are very traditional at Wimbledon but I'm not sure about with afternoon tea, but I bet if you don't tell noone would know!

Afternoon tea is something we tend not to do at home, it's more of a going out treat, so I don't really have any recipes

All the goodies are traditionally served on a 2 tier platter like this

there are some recipe suggestions on Delia's website - if you want a British recipe than you can't go wrong with Delia, she's a bit of a UK institution.Delia Online

bev

 

[MommieMommie!]

Here is a wonderful site, not only for tea ideas, but so much more... www.oldfashionedliving.com. With 4 small DDs, we love tea parties and as they are getting older we are venturing into more "proper tea" territory. Enjoy the site!

 

[TwingleMum]

Just read your post might I suggest shortbread? Its lovely with tea, melts in your mouth.

 

[Baboo]

Small tarts would be nice. I also like something like lemon bread.

 

[yummy72]

DD and I had a Valentine Tea a couple of years ago. Here's what we served:

Chocolate dipped strawberries
Cherry Scones (with heart shaped pats of butter
Chicken Salad sandwiches (cut into heart shapes)
Madelines
Raspberry Tea


HTH!
Candi

 

[TigH]

Thanks so much for the great suggestions! And also for the links to those wonderful websites. I still have some deciding to do, but I have an idea what the final menu will be (hopefully). Looks like this is going to end up being somewhat of a Valentine's Day tea afterall, so I will need to look for some heart-shaped cookie cutters!

THANKS AGAIN! I'll post pictures of the spread before everyone gobbles it up!

P.S. Bev, I found a great steak and kidney pie recipe on the site you provided. Actually, I found about a dozen recipes that I printed off. I didn't think about contacting my Sheffield connection - we usually have scones and those types of things while we're out shopping and have a regular tea (pork pies, veggies, cheese, etc.) for "dinner" Planning another trip over for the summer, so I will pick everyone's brain then for good recipes!