Happy Monday!!
I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and all you Mothers had a lovely Mother's day and got truly spoilt.
For my Mum I decided to throw an afternoon tea at home. With all homemade cakes and sandwiches.
I absolutely adore afternoon teas, what's not to love, cute little triangle sandwiches yummy cakes and enough tea you can shake a stick at.
Essentials for a tea party have to be cute floral tea cups and saucers, cake stands and a classic big teapot. Great places for afternoon tea essentials are John Lewis, Debenhams and House of Fraser
A fresh crisp white table cover and gingham cover thrown over the top make for a classic rustic look. Along with some floral napkins and finish of the table with some freshly picked daffodils for the perfect centrepiece.
For the sandwiches I personally don't think you can beat the classics of chicken salad, cucumber, ham and egg and cress. of course cut into cut little triangles. If your feeling adventurous and creative why not use cookie cutters to cut your sandwiches into cute little hearts or any other fun shapes.
And lastly onto the best part of the whole tea, the cakes. As lets be honest no one really comes for the sandwiches.
I wanted to keep things very homemade and rustic so picked a classic Victoria sponge cake, scones with clotted cream and jam and the ultimate chocolate brownies to bake.
All the recipes I used were from BBC good food website. all these recipes were super easy and simple to follow.
Victoria Sponge - so i am going to be completely honest and say I was very disappointed with the method for this sponge cake. All it said was add all the ingredients together and mix. To be honest I am not sure why I done this as I have made cakes before and know to mix the sugar and butter together and then fold the flour in gradually. As this is what adds the air into the sponge make it light and fluffy. I found that following this method made my cake was very heavy and dense.
For the icing I done a simple buttercream topped with raspberry jam in the middle. On top was meant to be a light dusting of icing sugar. One tip do not use a shaker, or if you do get one that works properly. Mine just dropped like a big icing sugar bomb onto my cake and just made a massive mess of the kitchen.
Brownies - These are literally the nicest brownies I have ever tasted. Be warned though they are extremely chocolately and you will not need more than 1 in one sitting. This is the first time I have cooked brownies from scratch, (I normally cheat and buy brownie mixes) and found this recipe so easy to follow so could not recommend it more if you are looking for simple but delicious brownies.
Scones - I have never made scones before so was quite nervous about doing these and was anticipating having to pop to the shop last minute to pick some up. However these turned out amazingly, and again the recipe was super easy to follow. The only down side was the fell over in the oven and went a bit lopsided. But hey that just adds to the homemade rustic look right? You know you've baked well when you Nan tells you they are better than any scones she has made. Huge gold star for me :)
If you want to go all out head Here for some really great other bakes and ideas you can do for your afternoon tea.
Have you ever hosted an afternoon tea? How did it go? What did you serve?
Thanks for reading.
Josie xo
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