Mother's Day Afternoon Tea

I know you've just been dying to see this (yeah right! Edge of your seat sorta stuff I'm doing here!)

Whilst I finished the sweet side of the afternoon tea my sisters made the triangle sandwiches.  Using thin sliced white bread they cut the crusts off, buttered the bread and filled the sandwiches with:

• cream cheese and cucumber
• ham and Bulldog Mustard (a spicy wholegrain mustard made by The East India Company)
• chicken salad
• strong cheddar cheese and Branston Pickle (uber-Bristish condiment)

Traditional afternoon tea usually goes with cucumber finger sandwiches and cress finger sandwiches but really...cress, cucumber?  Who's tastes is that going to satisfy?  Ultimately its your afternoon tea so do what makes you happy.

Separate sandwiches were made for Nan (sans butter) and Posie (ham and cream cheese cut into shapes with cookie cutters) and the table was laid.

Don't you love my mother's salt and pepper shakers in the background...

My little sister also made some banana bread to finish the spread and we gorged on sweet goodies.

Not quite up to the Ritz standard but hey, not a bad effort on my part given everything else I was doing!!  Everybody loved the Lemon Meringue Pie's best but the Scones and the Welsh Cakes went down well too (of course with lashings of clotted cream).

Just to complete the saga though...you might notice that there are only 4 Scones and 5 Welsh Cakes and that I had originally contemplated making 8.  Well I had.  I arrived home from a hen party on the Saturday night at 12.30am.  I was staying at the 'rents as they were babysitting for me and I needed to be up early to get the food all prepped for the Mother's Day feast.  My bro' had waited up to let me in and upon my arrival informed me that my scones were really good.  It took me a few moments to register what he had just said and then I put my head in my hands.

...and whey (finally)

And so, the final piece of the LMP puzzle....the meringue!*

The recipe - LMP courtesy of the New York Times Cook Book (1961 edition!)

Part 2, the meringue

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

6 tbsp sugar (I used caster sugar)

1. Beat the egg whites until light and frothy.  Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until the whites are stiff enough to hold a peak (I used my mother's Kenwood to bear the brunt of this work.  I have made meringue before whisking by hand but its pretty bloody knackering!).

2. Gradually beat in the sugar and beat until the meringue is stiff and glossy (yes, I did the holding-the-bowl-upside-down-over-my-head test.  I always do.  It makes me feel like a superior baker (and no the whites did not fall on my head or out of the bowl although I'm sure that I will one of these days my cockiness will leave me literally with egg on my face).

3. Pile the meringue lightly on cooled pie filling, spreading it until it touches the edges of the pastry to prevent the meringue shrinking.

Yes, the iPhone was resurrected.  Huzzah!

4. Bake in a preheated hot oven (425F) until the top is brown, five to six minutes.

You might notice there is one meringue-free tart on the bottom right of the first picture.  While I was finishing off the LMPs, Nan cruised into the kitchen to watch me bake (and comment) and requested that I leave one of the tarts without any meringue.  I dutifully agreed as any good granddaughter should and continued to finish off the LMPs.  When we sat down to eat Nan then took one of the regular LMPs and claimed she had never put in such a request...

* I do apologise for the delay, it was not intended.  I had to go to a client event one night, overdid it that night so had to put myself to bed early the following night then had a friend's birthday party (which also involved me having to scale an iron poker fence....in heels....because I couldn't get out of the station.  In my mind walking the 10 minutes it would have taken to get to my car seemed too much like hard work but shimmying over the fence was fine?!?) and so finally here we are.  You really wanted to know that didn't you?