Mother's Day Afternoon Tea Party

Mothers Day morning this year for me was spent baking and preparing a little afternoon tea party for my mum, gran,sister, sister's mother in law and my mother-in-law to be (?!)... one day maybe haha.

      Some pom pom decor I love a pom pom <3


We had a lovely time eating plenty of sweet food - we considered afternoon tea with sandwiches but decided we wanted to focus only on the good part who wants a cheese sandwich when you can have an extra meringue?!

There were some savoury items...

                              Plain and cheese scones, do they count?

Cheesey straws - puff pastry rolled out and covered in cheese - I used gruyere, parmesan and cheddar.  Cut into strips and twisted, egg washed and placed in the oven for about 10 minutes.  Yum!!

     But mostly we ate sweet stuff :D

 Melting moments, mini victoria sponges, lemon drizzle cakes
                     and creme egg brownies

++Our Mothers Day Desserts Table ++

I love a desserts table or party table of any kind 

Check out our Easter table from last year will we repeat it this year or go back to bring the basics and make your own sandwich at the picnic table???  

Up market Easter picnic

Our Easter picnic every year is hilarious...tubs of marg, loafs of bread and packs of ham just purchased on the way to the picnic.  This year I warned them all we were going up market and to get their picnics in order.  I have been pinning a bit but hadn't really planned a table because I am busy with Finlay's party plans but it got to Friday and me and my sister decided we really should put in some effort.

Eatser biscuits... Uncle Grant kept changing this to Teaser and I tried to fix it but ended up with Eatser!  Haha I can't spell!

That's better :) Recipe for these here.

Sandwiches 

Mini quiches and crackers 

 Cheese board and sweets

My little Easter Bunny! I have been practicing my face painting -my gran thought she was a tiger!

Two face - very Easter-ish!

 A bunny in the hedge

 Easter banner

Marshmallow lollypops











Little gingham cover for the potato salad












Easter picnic up market style with bunting, wicker and brown paper.  The other guests at our picnic still brought their marg in a tub, ham in a packet and uncut breadsticks....however there were homemade shorties, custard creams and cranberry biscuits so they were allowed on our table:)

 There were also mini trifles I made which are so cute - I found these little jars in Ikea and have been waiting to use them for something brilliant like this.  

I also found these bottles in Ikea and filled them with cherry juice and pear and elderflower juice

Not so up-market drinks station!  There were 8 adults so we had a flask each - I don't know how much tea and coffee we thought we were going to get through!  It was quite a cold day - still some snow on the ground but much better weather than we expected!  

So good to keep the Easter tradition going with a picnic whatever the weather but a nice change to eat such lovely picnic food! 

Happy Easter 2013! 

the eve appeal ♥

We had a vintage tea party at work this week to raise money and awareness for the eve appeal - a gynaecology cancer research fund.  The staff, volunteers and patients at work donated cakes, scones, biscuits and loaves and we all enjoyed a tea party using vintage tea sets and cake stands,

      Chocolate loveheart themed cupcakes and cakes I made for the tea party with white chocolate icing.  There were also vanilla cupcakes in the same theme with love hearts for the eve appeal symbol

 Hearts cake, cupcake and biscuit

 Tea set

 Cake stand full of homemade treats

 Tea cups

 Stacks of loveheart biscuits waiting to be loved

  Another cake stand full of goodies

We all had a great time raising money for this fantastic cause.  Donations were taken for the tea party and we had a raffle and bags of tablet for sale.  Raising money while having fun.  And a tea party is right up my street I love cake stands and tea cups.  I am a granny in disguise with my china teacup :) 

Why not get involved and host your own vintage tea party?

Check out my mini tea for two party here

Tea for two

When my friends come round I always like to make something homemade we can eat.  I never ever buy cakes or tray bakes from the supermarket because it is really easy to come up with something quickly out of my cupboards at home.

On Saturday my two friends came round for a catch up and this time I made them these little jam cakes.  They are called thumbprint cookies in the recipe book but I don't think they are cookie-ish so I need a new name for them!  Dimple cakes?

The tiny little jam dish is actually my Mum's.  She got this as a present and it matches my little set of teapot plates and spoons - which are too cute to use only for holding soiled teabags- so I stole it!  She knows I stole it so it's not that bad but I would use this so much more than she would so I am keeping it!  :)

Anyway the little jam cakes were so simple.  I got the recipe from a book called Sweet Treats.  It has lots of ideas for these "thumbprint cookies" like different flavours of jam, chocolate chips, dried fruit and sprinkles but I stuck with jam and my favourite nutella - I adore a nutella recipe!  Although this time I much preferred the jam.  The nutella was too hard once the cakes had cooled.

Waiting to be baked

I tried a few with a little loveheart cut out to see if it would work for a valentine's theme or desserts table with a heart theme

Pretty cute!  A little neater and I think it would look beautiful ♥

Now it is Tuesday these were finished over the weekend and I feel the need to make more :)

"Dimple Cakes"

1 teaspoon orange zest
285g plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
230g unsalted butter softened
125g sugar
vanilla extract
strawberry jam - or jam of your choice/sprinkles etc.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C

Beat the butter until soft. Add sugar. Add orange zest and vanilla extract. Weigh out all dry ingredients and mix. Add half to the butter/sugar mixture. Mix until just blended. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until blended. Scoop up rounded spoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Using your thumb/finger/end of a small rolling pin dipped in flour make a dent in the rounds. Fill each with a small amount of filling such as jam. Bake for about 15 minutes until just browning. I also sprinkled these with sugar as soon as they were out of the oven - because I can't get too much sugar into myself!  Remove and allow to cool on a rack for 10 minutes until completely cooled - you do not want hot jam burning your mouth and ruining the rest of your enjoyment of these babies.