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.

I'm a GIANT

I've always been obsessed with things that aren't the "right" size be it miniature things (like mini-jaffa-cakes where I can pretend I'm a giant) or things on the enormo scale (so mancakes and fishbowl cocktails).  As a kid I remember watching "The Borrowers" and "Willy Wonker and the Chocolate Factory" (the original of course! Can you imagine it...going into that room with the chocolate river, the giant lollipops, the edible tea cups, the enormous gummy bears....) and obsessing over the possibilities of chocolate chips the size of my head.  Seriously, as a kid this was my idea of heaven but then I was a sweetie fiend.  My mum used to find sweet wrappers stuffed in my Popple whilst I proclaimed my innocence and blamed Teddy Ruxbin. 

This past Sunday was Mothering Sunday in the UK so my sibs (and my Pa) and I had the fateful discussion about what to do for Ma.  Every time we've attempted to go out for Mothers Day it has always been tricky, usually because we have to cater to my Nan's very strange foodisms and it stresses my Mum out (Nan refuses to eat butter (but carries her own butter knife in her purse)* or anything she deems as fat but will quite happily tuck into any sort of cake and will eat cream on its own).  Not to mention I'm a football widow on Sunday anyway and the thought of dealing with Nan, my Mum's angst and my Tasmanian devil is enough to make me run for the hills.  I therefore put the kibosh on it straightaway and suggested we cook at home and I'd also bake.  Job done.  And then true to form I went a step ahead and suggested we also do afternoon tea...so I've roped myself into making little cakes too.  Why do I always get so ahead of myself and over commit???

No afternoon tea would be complete without scones.  In fact, I'd personally feel cheated without them!  So last Sunday the first thing I set about making was the scones.  Not just any scones though.  We were going to be eating a few cakes and since I do love things in miniature, I made bite size scones. 

Again, I'm too lazy to type the recipe up so the recipe is below.  I'm not sure where its from, I know its from one of my mum's old tomes and I have a feeling its a Delia but I'm just not sure.

I made the recipe as directed although I have to say the dough was pretty sticky so I ended up adding more flour.  Hubby claimed this made the resulting scones more savoury and like American style biscuits but my family said they enjoyed them.  Perhaps this is the difference between the English and American palate (listen to me sounding all knowledgeable!).

I don't have any cutters so I used a shot glass
(I have no cookie or cake cutters but I have a ton of shot glasses - standard)

Serve warm and fill with jam and clotted cream!

I took 8 of the little scones, placed them into an airtight container and put them in the freezer for Sunday.  I then simply let them defrost for 24hrs and served them up with the afternoon tea (see later posts).  They fared pretty well in the freezer so look like a good recipe to make ahead of time if need be.

I also did a little taste testing and personally, I thought they were nom.


* I am not even joking.  She got flagged at Heathrow airport for carrying a knife - on her way to my wedding - in the USA - post 9.11.01 - and then had her knives (yes PLURAL butter knives, they found another one in her HANDBAG) confiscated.  Don't even try to understand my Nan. Tip.Of.The.Iceberg.