A Proper Tea Party

Yesterday I threw a tea party bridal shower for my best friend. I've spent almost six weeks planning it. Invitations went out a month ago and said that dresses and skirts were mandatory, but hats and gloves were optional. I had three types of drinks and five different foods.

The first drink was hibiscus mint iced tea. The recipe is easy enough- I bought hibiscus tea bags and boiled two quarts of water and soaked about ten tea bags for about ten minutes. Then I let it cool in the fridge over night. In the morning I cut and washed several sprigs of mint that were growing in my little garden and stuck them in. Poof! Done.

The next drink was red iced tea. This one I boiled six cups of water and then steeped eight bags of red zinger tea. I let it cool in the fridge overnight and then before the party I added half a container of apple cider and sliced orange and lemons. This tea was much lighter in flavor than the hibiscus, but both were good and neither needed any sugar added.

The last drink was lavender lemonade. Since a whole pitcher of real lemonade takes about 20 lemons and I don't have a juicer I just bought organic lemonade made up and added a couple sliced lemons and the long stems of lavender that were growing in my garden. It looked beautiful and tasted great.

All the food was either pink or had tea in it. First I made fresh raspberry scones. The recipe said to make the scones and then fold in the raspberries and it would look like this:

 

(http://www.marthastewart.com/336222/fast-raspberry-scones)

But for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to take delicious, tender, Oregon berries and fold them into the flour and butter mixture and then add the liquid. First, all the berries got smushed. Second, it took far too long to get the liquid incorporated into all the flour. Third, because all the berries had burst they were far too wet and didn't bake correctly. But luckily, they still tasted great and looked pretty good too.

Next I made strawberries and cream tartlets from Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts (my new favorite cookbook). The crust is pate sucree which has sugar, cream, and egg yolk added to the plain pie crust to make it a tart crust. They were rich and sweet and still just a flaky. The cream was pastry cream which is like a custard but using only milk, cornstarch, egg yolk, and sugar. I think I would rather have made a custard with egg yolk, butter, and sugar instead because I could taste the cornstarch a bit even after cooking it. Then simple Oregon strawberries on top. One bite wonders that had everything you needed.

These tomato puff pastry tarts did not turn out anything like they were supposed to. I bought the frozen puff pastry because I didn't have time to make my own and usually it works out fine. I let it come to room temperature and when I took it out of the box to unfold it all the layers had melted together. So I had to roll it out to the thickness I needed, and with it's elasticity it didn't stay. Then I found out the house I was at didn't have a biscuit cutter wider then two inches, and my beautiful tomatoes were definitely bigger than that. So after placing tomatoes over the puff pastry I added a little salt, pepper, parmesan, and cooking spray before baking. They would have turned out beautiful if the tomatoes hadn't been falling off the pastry, but they still tasted good.

Two items I made were gluten free because the guest of honor has recently had to eliminate that from her diet. So the tea sandwiches I made were red pear, blue cheese, and white gluten free sandwich bread I found at the grocery store. Then the cake was a chai tea bundt cake from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour with xantham gum added to help it stay together. I have never used gluten free flour and now I know why people don't recommend it. It's made up of all sorts of different vegetable flours and I could TASTE them. It was supposed to be a sweet and spicy cake but it was dry and had a strange aftertaste. And the second the wet and dry mixtures met the dough turned into glue because of the 1/2 teaspoon of xantham gum I added. I think when I make the wedding cake I'll use rice flour and more fat and eggs, less chemical adhesives to keep the cake moist and in one piece.

For the favors everyone went home with a little package of earl grey tea cookies. Every time I tell people what these are they sound a bit disgusted. Yes I take tea bags, cut them open, and pour the tea into the flour mixture before mixing it with butter and a little powdered sugar. These are like icebox cookies that you roll up and chill before cutting into rounds and baking them, but because of the powdered sugar they just seem to melt in your mouth. Every time someone actually eats one of these cookies they go on and on about how great they are. There's just a hint of tea, it's not overpowering or chunky. They are a delicious little treat for the end of a fantastic tea party.