As I may have mentioned before, I've been planning an "elegant" English Tea Party in honor of my friend's 24th Birthday. The party was planned for noon on Saturday, and so Friday night, I set about prepping and/or making as much of the food as possible. On the menu was Pink Lemonade, Funfetti Cupcakes, No-Bake Mixed Berry Cream Pie, Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries, Strawberry Cream Sandwiches, Cucumber and Cream Cheese Sandwiches, Nutella and Banana Sandwiches, Lemon Bars, Brownies, and Madelines. I specifically picked out recipes that were simple, somewhat healthy, and easy to transport since the tea party was held to be held at a nearby park. I thought I'd share as many of them as I can (I didn't get a chance to photograph every step since I was in a bit of a frantic rush)!
This post details the following recipes:
-Homemade Pink Lemonade
-Dark Chocolate Covered Strawberries
-Funfetti Cupcakes
-Cucumber+Cream Cheese Rolls
-Cucumber+Cream Cheese Tea Sandwiches
-No-Bake Mixed Berry Pie
-Strawberries & Cream Tea Sandwiches
Homemade Pink Lemonade:
Once again, I decided to take advantage of the tree full of lemons in my backyard and make lemonade. Since it was a tea party and all the attendees would be girls, I decided to add a touch of pink food coloring and make a beautiful pink lemonade instead of regular lemonade.
Ingredients:
-1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
-2 drops of pink food coloring
-1/2 cup of sugar
-5 cups of water, divided
1.) Start out by squeezing all the lemons until you get 1 cup of lemon juice. I used my handy dandy lemon squeezer to make things go a bit faster.
2.) Make the simple syrup by combining 1/2 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water and stirring the mixture over low heat until the sugar dissolves completely and the syrup is clear.
3.) Once the simple syrup has cooled, combine the lemon juice and syrup in a large pitcher, and add 4 cups of water. To make it pink lemonade, add 2 drops of pink food coloring and voilà.
Dark Chocolate-Covered Strawberries:
The chocolate-covered strawberries were probably the easiest thing to make and by far, my favorite. I've loved chocolate-covered strawberries for as long as I can remember, and the simplicity of such a delectable dish always blows my mind.
Ingredients:
-Dark Chocolate Chips (I used Hershey's)
-Large Strawberries
1.) Melt the chocolate chips in a microwaveable dish in 30-second increments, stirring frequently.
2.) Allow the chocolate to cool for a minute or two and then dip the strawberries in and coat thoroughly.
Funfetti Cupcakes:
Since we couldn't have a tea party without cupcakes, and I didn't have time to make cupcakes from scratch like I prefer, I took the easy way out and made out-of-the-box Funfetti cupcakes. They turned out surprisingly tasty (although I still definitely prefer the ones made from scratch), and were moist and yummy.
Ingredients:
-Pillsbury Funfetti Cupcake Mix
-Cream Cheese Frosting
-Pink Food Coloring
-1/4 cup sugar
-Teacup Toppers
1.) Bake the funfetti cupcakes according to the directions on the box. Allow them to cool completely before beginning frosting and decorating.
2.) Since I didn't have time to decorate my cupcakes elaborately, I stuck to plain and simple. I colored the frosting light pink, using a few drops of pink food coloring. I also colored some sugar a dark pink, using 4-5 drops of the same food coloring. In order to sprinkle the sugar evenly, I filled a salt shaker with the colored sugar and sprinkled each cupcake thoroughly.
So I've never made cucumber rolls before and decided to try it out after seeing a number of recipes online. I bought the cucumbers and cream cheese, and then decided I didn't want to use just plain old cream cheese in my rolls so I decided to spike it a bit. I wanted something herbed, with a bit of a kick to it, so after a quick assessment of my refrigerator, I grabbed some garlic and sun-dried tomatoes, and then went out into the garden and plucked a few leaves of basil. It turned out quite delicious, and rather reminiscent of garden vegetable cream cheese. Either way, it was a great complement to the cucumbers.
Ingredients:
-1 cucumber
-8 oz fat free cream cheese
-2 tbsp sun-dried tomatoes
-2 tbsp fresh basil
-1 tbsp garlic
-Toothpicks
1.) Since I didn't have a mandolin to thinly slice my cucumbers, I decided to get a bit creative, and used my peeler instead. Since the cucumber wasn't too wide, the peeler worked perfectly, and I got gorgeous, thin slices of cucumber.
2.) After assembling all my cucumber slices, I chopped up the sun-dried tomatoes and basil, combined them, along with the garlic, with the cream cheese, and whipped it quickly with my beater.
3.) I spooned out a dollop of the herbed cream cheese mixture onto each cucumber slice, rolled it up tightly, and stuck a toothpick through the whole thing to hold it together.
Cucumber and Cream Cheese Tea Sandwiches:
After making the cucumber rolls, I had plenty of the cream cheese spread left and a few slices of cucumber. So I decided to combine the two and make a yummy tea sandwich. I had been planning on having strawberries & cream sandwiches and nutella & banana sandwiches, so I figured I might as well add a savory one to the mix. Since I already had all the ingredients ready to go, these were super easy to make and so yummy!
Ingredients:
-2 slices of bread (I used multigrain)
-cucumber slices
-herbed cream cheese spread (see cucumber rolls recipe above)
1.) Slather both slices of bread with the herbed cream cheese spread
2.) Place cucumber slices on one piece of bread before topping the sandwich off with the other piece.
Mixed Berry Pie:
So I saw this recipe for deconstructed raspberry pie on a Driscoll's raspberry commercial and decided to try it for the tea party. The ingredients were plain and simple and the finished pie looked delicious.
Ingredients:
-Homemade strawberry jam (recipe from Martha Stewart)
-1 quart strawberries
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-1/2 cup sugar
-1 pie crust
-whipped cream
-1 carton raspberries
1.) First I set about making the strawberry jam. The recipe was incredibly simple and the whole house filled with the wonderful aroma of strawberries. The first step was crushing all the strawberries into a pulp until only very small pieces were remaining. I chopped them into small pieces and then used a wooden spoon and my hand.
2.) I added 1 tbsp of lemon juice to the strawberry mixture before putting it into a pan over the stove.
3.) I added the 1/2 cup of sugar to the strawberry-lemon juice mixture, and brought the whole thing to a boil. After cooking it on a medium flame for 7-8 minutes, I allowed the strawberry spread to cool completely, before refrigerating it in an airtight container overnight.
4.) Once I had all my ingredients assembled, I started my pie. I added a few dollops of the strawberry spread to the base of my pie and spread it thoroughly.
5.) Next came the whipped cream. I added a few healthy dollops on top of the strawberry jam and spread it thoroughly until it filled 3/4 of the pie crust.
6.) Last but certainly not least were the yummy raspberries. I topped off the pie with the whole quart of raspberries. I'll have to remember to get more next time so I can fully cover the top of the pie with them.
I'll put up a post with pictures from the actual tea party as soon as I can!
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