Posted by Bryna Bear aka Gluten Free Baking Bear
I just had my first Gluten Free Tea
Party. Nine of us dressed up for
the occasion with hats, lace gloves, fans and parasols; and we spoke with British
accents. It is likely that the English
would be amused, shocked or even offended by our Americanization of the
Afternoon Tea, but we had an irreverently grand time.
The menu consisted of savory and sweet
items and an assortment of delicious teas.
In my next few blogs I will be posting the recipes for everything I made for the Tea Party.
The Savories
European Cucumber with Lemon Mint Cream Cheese
Curried Egg Salad with Chutney Butter
Smoked Salmon with Dill Cream Cheese
Waldorf Salad on Raisin Bread
The Sweets
Lavender Scented Scones with Clotted Cream and Strawberry
& Plum Jams
Mini Tart Shells filled with Lemon Curd and Peach Jam
Fresh Strawberries with Whipped Cream
The Teas
HOT COLD
Earl Grey Mint
Jasmine Lemon
Verbena
Peach Lavender Coconut
Chocolate
Blooming Flower Jasmine
The Sweets
I went a bit overboard with the sweets and would suggest omitting the
Russian Tea Cakes and or the Brownie Bites if you follow this menu.
It is difficult to find ready made dainty GF baked goods that are really
delicious and as good as or better than regular baked goods. For this reason I baked all of the
desserts myself.
The bread makes or breaks the sandwich. I bought a good GF Raisin Bread
by Canyon Ranch and I made the bread for the other sandwiches. I love to bake
and I love to entertain, so baking the bread was fun for me. I chose to bake a
GF Challah Bread recipe that I have made before. It is moist and delicious and is good eaten without being
heated or toasted even if it is four or five days old. It was easy to cut into thin slices
with a serrated knife. I baked the
loaves two days before the Tea; cut off the crusts and sliced it the day
before. The sliced bread kept well
in a plastic baggie. I put the
leftover crusts into the food processor to make breadcrumbs and froze them for
later use.
All of my guests (only one of which is GF) remarked about how much they
liked the bread that I made. Next
time I will make the raisin bread also.
I might just add raisins and cinnamon to the GF Challah recipe that
worked so well.
Curried Egg Salad & Waldorf Salad Sandwiches
Photo by Kathy Graves
Crustless Quiches
Smoked Salmon with Dill Cream Cheese Sandwiches
Lemon Mint Cucumber Sandwiches
I asked
everyone to bring their favorite teas and as a group we decided which ones to
make pots of. It was almost 100
degrees outside, and someone brought Stevia sweetened Iced Teas to share.
Planning the Tea involved many details. First of all I decided what kind of Tea Party to have. I
researched about Teas on-line. Tea Time in England is when people will sit and
have a cup of tea with a biscuit (cookie), scone, sandwich or some sort of
light fare to tide them over until supper. High Teas are a heavy substantial meal. There are Southern
Teas, Children’s’ Teas, Morning Teas and Summer, Fall, Spring and Winter ones. Afternoon Tea is more of what we think
of when we say Tea Party. You can
make it as formal or casual as you like with savory and/or sweet goodies. I think that you can make it whatever
would be special to you. I decided on an Afternoon Tea that was a little formal
with both sweet and savory items.
After deciding on the date and time, invitations were made on the
computer and sent via e-mail.
Depending on the occasion, you could do the traditional paper invites
and mail them.
Next I planned the Menu.
Again, I searched the Internet for ideas and recipes for teas sandwiches
and desserts. You will need 6-8
sandwiches per quest. Each
sandwich is the size of ¼ slice of bread.
You can cut them diagonally or into narrow rectangles. Per 2 slices of bread you can make 4
finger sandwiches with my homemade recipe. The store bought raisin bread was smaller and made 2 finger
sandwiches per 2 slices of bread.
Some people use cookie cutters to make heart or flower shaped
sandwiches. I did not do this
because it wastes quite a bit of the bread. GF bread is more expensive than
regular bread and I also would have had to bake more loaves to make enough
sandwiches for nine people and I knew I would be doing quite enough baking
already.
Servers for Cake and Sandwiches
Photo by Kathy Graves
I counted my teacups and saucers, teapots, dainty plates and serving
dishes. I asked my guests to
contribute their Tea worthy things to make up for whatever I was lacking. My friends were happy to get into the
spirit of the party and eagerly collected their teacups & saucers, fancy
serving dishes and pretty teapots.
Favor Place Card
Party favors are a tradition I love. I decided to give each guest a pretty porcelain teabag
holder. There are other tea themed
favors such as teapot shaped tea strainers, tea bags, teacups, teaspoons, etc.
that could be used depending upon your friends and your budget. In the dollar store I found 9” circles
of tulle, thin ribbon and tiny ribbon flowers in coordinating colors and I used
these to wrap the favors. I made
place cards by printing out each guests name on colored paper that matched the
favor wrapping and then attached the name tags to each favor.
Since I was baking so many items I
made a list of what had to be done and organized the tasks by days of the week
and started preparing food three days before the Tea. Butter cookies keep well for many days, so I made them
first. I also measured out,
labeled and put in plastic baggies all the dry/flour ingredients for everything
else I would be baking later in the week.
By the day of the Tea only the sandwiches needed to be put together
(sandwich fillings and spreads were all ready prepared) and the scones needed
to be mixed and baked. Scones take
very little time to mix (especially if the dry ingredients are ready in a
baggie), shape and bake and I wanted them very fresh for the Tea.
Place Setting with Menu and Favor
The table was set a few days before the Tea. I printed out small menus and put them by each place setting. I asked a friend to come early on the day of the Tea to help make sandwiches and
set up the food.
Homemade Sugar 'Cubes'
Finally we all sat down to Afternoon Tea. I made sugar ‘cubes’ myself by pressing moistened sugar
into rose shaped candy molds and ice cube trays with small holes. Everyone wanted to try them in their
tea, so between the sugar cubes and the sweets we were all on a sugar high. We
got quite silly, but this cannot be blamed entirely on the sugar.
We enjoyed tasting the different teas and we ate a remarkable amount of
food.
All my guests really appreciated the detail and work that went into the
party. Rave reviews were received
for all the food. This may just
become an annual tradition.
We
are talking about having a Southern Tea soon and each of us will make some of
the food. Corn bread, Mint Juleps,
sweet potato pie...what other southern food can be served for Tea?
