Gin&Tea party

I love tea parties and a couple months  back I shared a few recipes in this post  for a hostess with the mostest. This time I  have some more ideas to make your party tealicious! With summer coming to a quick end I wanted to gather a few of my favourite ladies together for a Gin&Tea… why gin? Simply because it goes oh so well with tea. Try it before you diss it. Don’t like gin? Well too bad for you. I had made quite a few dishes and also asked each guest to bring a ‘tea party’ worthy dish. Lucky for me my guests brought some fantastic prosecco, a Swedish sandwich cake ( google it!), scones, biscuits and a savory tart. As usual have fun with the invite, the decor and the setting. This time around we all wore hats and dressed up a bit for the occasion.  Nothing crazy fancy though!

Drinks

Gin&Tea cocktail – I made a batch of rose and rooibois tea the night before and let it steep in the fridge. Right before my guests arrived I added a few ice cubes and 10 shots of gin (I heart my Beefeater 24) to the 5 cups of tea and topped it off with ginger ale. Stir and serve in wine glasses! I stored the extras in a clear glass pot. So cute!

Masala Chai – This is  my version of a nice spicy tea with inspiration from the Kashmiri teas I used to drink in Pakistan. To brew 10 cups of tea, boil 10 cups of water, to this add a handful of cardamom, cloves, a piece of ginger and 10 bags of tea (green or any sort of plain tea). Let this boil for about an hour and then add some of the  left over cream from the clotted cream (or milk). I also like adding in a few drops of rose syrup ( I use Rooh Afza). This will give it a nice pink hue and you don’t need additional sugar. Serve in tea cups. Not everyone will like this chai so place a few flavoured tea bags on the table with a pot of hot water. This way everyone has something available to drink!

Food

Cucumber Sandwiches – So classic and so simple! I like to use cold sliced white bread. Mix cream cheese with some oregano and salad dressing. Butter each slice and spread a bit of the cream cheese mixture on to one slice. Layer with thinly sliced cucumber and sprinkle fresh ground pepper. Then close the sandwich up. Trim the edges off and slice as desired. This time I did thin strips and even the Little Monkey loved it! I also sprinkled the entire dish with some paprika.

Clotted Cream – My masterpiece this time was this dear old classic clotted cream. Since it’s so hard to find and expensive I thought  I’d have a go myself. The result.. pure melt in your mouth, oh so fatty, deliciousness. Take 1L of whipping cream (pasteurized is fine but stay away from the ultra pasteurized  varieties) and place in an oven proof pan, you want as much surface area as possible so the wider the pan, the better. Place the pan in a pre-heated 180F oven for 13 hours. Yes you read that right. Go to sleep, wake up.  You will notice that  your oven has shut itself off. That’s just fine. You will also notice that there’s a light yellow film on the top.  Clear up some room in your fridge and slowly (try not to shake the liquid around) move the pan from the oven to the fridge. Let it stay here for about 8 hours. I ended up going out so I didn’t get to this next step till 10 hours later, and it was just fine. You can now gently scoop the top layer off and this is the clotted cream. Place in a serving dish and mix it all up so that the yellow-ey stuff is evenly spread out. You can store this in the fridge for up to 8 days. The 1L made about a cup of clotted cream which was either eaten by guests or taken home by them! This is probably the simplest recipe ever! Once you scooped the top out there’s this a lot of  the cream below, save this because you can use this for other recipes.

Scones – I’ve recently had some delicious bakery bought  scones  and wanted to challenge myself. Surprise.. it was easy! Mix 2 cups of flour, a tablespoon of baking powder, a teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoons of sugar, lemon zest and about 5 tablespoons of butter which have been cut up into small cubes. Stir them together and slowly pour in a mixture of 2 eggs and a third of a cup of cream (again use the left over from the clotted cream). Knead with your hands, you want it to be a gooey mess. This is your basic recipe to which you can add any toppings you’d like. I took half and tossed in 1/2 a cup of frozen blueberries and to the other half I mixed in fresh fennel and a little more salt. Drop dollops of the mixture onto a baking sheet, brush with left  over clotted cream and bake at 400 F for 20  minutes.

Apple Pie – I found this idea on Pinterest and as usual I ended up modifying the recipe a bit.  To make 4 apples,  slice the top off of 4 Granny Smith apples (ensure the apples have a flat bottom when you buy them). Scoop out the flesh with a teaspoon but ensure you keep a thick wall (about a centimetre). Take the scooped out apples and remember those tops you sliced off? Cut them up and add them to the scooped out mush. Add a tablespoon of vanilla extract, a teaspoon of cinnamon powder and 1/4 cup of sugar and cook them over the stove.  Next shovel the mixture into the apple shells. I used store bought pie crust, thinly sliced them and topped the apple pies. Next up brush the pie crust with a bit of the leftover cream from the clotted cream and sprinkle some sugar and cinnamon  powder. Place the shells on a baking pan with a bit of water (you want the water to just graze the bottoms of  the apples) and bake at 375 F for 25 minutes. Voila!

Teacup Cupcakes – What better way to serve some mini cakes than in a precious teacup! I cheated and used the Betty Crocker marble box and substituted the left over cream from the clotted cream for the milk/water. Poured them into tiny porceline Turkish coffee cups and baked at 300 F in a pre-heated oven (The cups can bare heat up to 375  F but  I wanted to play on the safer side since these were precious wedding gifts!). Bake for about 20 minutes , cool and spread icing and sprinkles. Cute right?

I hope this inspires you to get cooking! Try something new and challenge yourself!