Tea the Fourth

Afternoon tea should be provided, fresh supplies, 

with thin bread-and-butter, fancy pastries, cakes, etc., 

being brought in as other guests arrive.

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management

Emerald Street - Saturday, 23rd February 2013

Celebration of 50 years of Sarah and Olivia

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Tea Takers

Sarah Ryan

Paul Ryan

Olivia Ryan

Jean Thacker

Margaret Griffith

Deborah Flood

Kieron Flood

Rachael Flood

Eleanor Flood

Matthew Flood

Clinton Thacker

Carole Thacker

James Thacker

Anna Thacker

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Time for a family tea to celebrate our birthdays, and time to make the most of being at home over half term. 

The birthday cakes for both Olivia and I were in cupcake form, 10 for her and 40 for me, naturally.

The arrival of Anatole, my fabulous new Kitchenaid mixer, added even more joy than usual to holiday recreational baking, and as well as the cupcakes and chocolate muffins he assisted in the creation of the traditional birthday biscuits:

Anatole in all his glory....

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Upon the importance of scones

The great thing about writing this is that I don't have to have any of the usual tussles over pronunciation. (Frankly, as Paul needs to accept, if I have made them, I say how we pronounce them...).

The scone is a crucial element of a really successful afternoon tea and for my first 'home-made' event I felt it was time to ensure that I was making the best that I could.  I have dabbled with numerous recipes but never really felt I had made an effective critical choice, so decided it was necessary to approach this much more scientifically.  Having read about ten recipes, I narrowed my field down to three (the others being variations on a theme) and made a small batch of each, which the long suffering Mr Ryan had to blind taste. 

This was Thursday's 'tasting tea' and the three scone recipes from left to right are from Nigella Lawson, Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry.  We decided swiftly that the saintly Mary wins hands down (and this was confirmed by the Asbury family who graciously performed the same task - with day old scones (shock horror) the next day).  Paul H was a creditable second, with his interesting 'strong bread flour' twist, but both he and Nigella require the addition of copious amounts of cream of tartar which adds an elasticity which doesn't truly sit comfortably with the essence of scone-ness.

So Mary came into her own as we went into industrial scale production today.

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Family Reunion

Ooooh

Cousins

The Twins

 I think these three were generally happier than this photograph might suggest...

Surely that isn't Paul playing on his phone?

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Fourth Tea - Fourth Year

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Tea Art

Debbie rediscovered the joy of the Etch-a-Sketch

At first this seemed an impressive tea tribute:

But look what it became:

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