Tag: Afternoon Tea

Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

Every afternoon tea starts with a delicious selection of finger sandwiches. For this spread I went for cheese and ham on brown bread and then cucumber and smoked salmon on white bread. These are personal faves  of mine, but feel free to get experimental! So yes I am going to write a recipe for sandwiches, here we go…

Recipe

Makes 6 of each type of sandwich

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 6 tsp Unsalted butter
  • 6 slices Brown bread
  • 6 slices White bread
  • 2 tsp cream cheese
  • A few pieces of Smoked salmon
  • ¼ cucumber
  • 3 Slices of Honey smoked ham
  • 3 Slices of Cheddar cheese

Method

  1. Begin by buttering (the proper technical term) the brown bread slices and half the white bread. Then spread the cream cheese over the remaining White bread slices.
  2. To make the smoked salmon sandwiches lay the smoked salmon in  a layer over half the cream cheese covered bread. Then sandwich these sandwich halves with the rest of the cream cheese covered slices.
  3. Now make the cucumber sandwiches. Thinly slice the cucumber and then lay the slices over 1/2 of the white bread slices.  You might need to cut some of the cucumber discs in half so all the bread is covered. Top with the other slices of white bread and leave to one side.
  4. To make the remaining sandwiches lay the ham over 3 buttered brown bread slices and the cheese slices over the another. Then top with the remaining slices of brown bread, butter side down.
  5. Take a sharp knife and cut the crusts off all the sandwiches (keep these in an air tight box as they make great snacks!) and then cut each sandwich in half vertically to make two finger sandwiches. (Depending on the size of bread you’re using you might need to cut the sandwiches into three or something, but just use your judgement). Serve!

Thanks for reading! Next afternoon tea recipe coming out tomorrow!

Emma x

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast” – Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland.

We’re at the end of book themed month (where did that go?!) and so I’ve decided to end like we started and do a week of recipes themed around one book – this time that good old favourite Alice in Wonderland! I’m from Oxford and there’s loads of Lewis Carrol references around the city that I’ve been trotted around since I was very young, so I’ve always had a fondness for this crazy story. Although it’s technically a children’s book I think the actual themes and plot are pretty incomprehensible and I remember being really confused with it as a kid, but re-reading the book now in my early adult years I’m finding it much more insightful and interesting.

So, back to why we’re here, the food! When doing an Alice in Wonderland themed week on a food blog it’s kinda compulsory to do a Mad Hatter’s tea party so that’s what we have. This is an all bells and whistles afternoon tea, but you could scale it back if you don’t want to spend two days baking. If you really don’t want to bake that much you could just take inspiration from what I’ve put together and buy the elements from a shop. I have to admit to being sooo tempted to just buy a bakewell tart on my way out of the shop when I was buying the ingredients for this! In my opinion a ‘complete’ afternoon tea needs…

• Finger sandwiches

• Scones

• Some kind of cake

• Some kind of biscuit

• Something made out of choux pastry (e.g a profiterole)

• Something made out of Shortcrust pastry (e.g a tart)

• And of course lots of tea!

I’ll be posting a recipe a day which you’ll be able to find on the main page of my blog, or on this post where I’ll be collating all the links…

First up is the base of all afternoon teas – finger sandwiches!

Afternoon Tea Sandwiches

Scones

Banana, Cinnamon and Rum Friands

Bakewell Tartlets

Passion Fruit and Chocolate Profiteroles

Chocolate Ginger Biscuit Shards

Thanks for reading!

Emma x