It’s been many years since I’ve done a homemade afternoon tea, but reading along with @mig’s project inspired me to propose having one with my cousin and her daughter when they were visiting from out of town this week. Everyone was enthusiastic about the idea, and it was a lovely sunny afternoon, so we had it outside on the deck at my father and stepmother’s house.
To eat…
Savory: Little tartlets with sautéed onions, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, Parmesan, and herbes de Provence in smoked paprika pastry, and open-face cucumber and cream cheese and chicken salad sandwiches.
Dried cranberry scones with Meyer lemon curd.
Sweets: Blueberry cheesecake tartlets, orange marmalade almond cakes, pretzel-topped brownies.
I made all the baked goods. Timing-wise, last week I made and froze the scones (unbaked), the orange almond cakes (unglazed), the brownies, and the pastry doughs. Three days ahead, I moved the doughs to the refrigerator to thaw. Two days ahead, I put the doughs in the tartlet pans and refrigerated them, and put together the aromatics for the savory tartlets. The day before, I thawed and glazed the orange almond cakes and made the fillings for, assembled, and baked both tartlets. The morning of, I thawed the brownies and baked the scones from frozen.
My cousin and stepmother made the sandwiches, and my stepmother and my cousin’s eight-year-old daughter made the lemon curd and a pitcher of lemonade using some of my folks’ backyard Meyer lemon trove.
