Tea at the Ritz

I have always wanted to go to The Ritz for afternoon tea and now I think I will be going this year! Its my boyfriends Grandma and Grandad's 70th and 80th birthday this year and to really treat them we have decided to take them to have afternoon tea at the Ritz. A bit pricey but they are worth it, you don't turn 80 and 70 every day do you! Plus it will be research for me too, well no not really I just want to go and eat cake and drink tea!
I will report back when I have been.

A menu for a very nice afternoon tea with suggestions for appropriate teas

Traditional Afternoon Tea
A selection of freshly prepared finger sandwiches (crusts off, preferably cucumber or fish paste)
Warm scones with clotted cream and preserves
A variety of home made cakes (coffee and Victoria sponge are delightful)
Your choice from a range of teas

Here are some of the more common teas but of course there are so many to choose from out there.

Darjeeling
An aromatic and astringent tea from India, with a hint of almonds and wildflowers.


Earl Grey
A blend of black teas scented with oil of bergamot named after Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, who was Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834.


Lapsang Souchong
A Chinese tea fired over smoking pine needles, which produces a striking smoky odour and flavour.

A delicious coffee and walnut cake recipe to go with your tea:

Coffee and walnut cake

250g butter
250g soft light brown sugar
4 eggs
300 self raising four
200ml strong coffee
50g walnuts chopped

Buttercream

225g unsalted butter
3 teaspoons strong coffee (dissolve the coffee in just enough water to make a paste)

How to make a teapot cake

I love teapots, its a very big obsession of mine, so big that sometimes I feel like taking one out with me just because they are so pretty but you would look very silly holding a chintzy teapot on a night out, but then I suppose it could be passed off as a bag...mmm, that's something to think about for the future! anyway! so I loved making this cake and was so glad when I got the order, I was planning it in my head immediately. I wanted to share how to make it as its too lovely not to made again by someone!

The sponges.

I used 2 1.1 litre bowl cakes using this recipe:

225g butter or Stork
275g self raising flour
225g caster sugar
5 eggs
1 tablespoon of whole milk

half the mixture between the two oven proof bowls and bake at 170c or 150c if you have a fan oven for 40 to 50 minutes or until its firm and springy to the touch and a cocktail stick comes out clean.

The buttercream part.

When these are baked and cooled, leave them for a day as they are better to work with the next day. Then level off the tops of each cake and sandwich together with lovely light fluffy buttercream, making sure you fill in the gaps with sugarpaste so you create a round shape, cover the round cake shape completely with buttercream and smooth. Place in the fridge to form a 'crust' for 20 minutes.

The icing part

Then take the cake out of the fridge and using a palette knife and boiling water, smooth the cake again to get that final finish ready for your icing.

Measure out your cake and board so you know how much you will need to completely cover it, then roll out your sugarpaste and cover your cake, very much easier said than done, but you can do it!!! smooth it down with cake smoothers and your hands, then comes the fun part... the decoration!

The decoration part

The handle and spout are obviously very important and I would make these with flowerpaste the day before so they can set, just model the shapes (the more ornate the better) you want and then push 3 small pieces of spaghetti into the base of the spout so you can insert this into your cake and it will hold better, make sure you do this when they are still soft though as flowerpaste dries rock hard! You can use cocktail sticks to do this but if you use spaghetti it makes it completely edible which is better I think. Then use some edible glue to stick on your handle, you might have to use something to hold it whilst it dries, once its dry though it will be very secure.

I decorated mine with pink dots and flowers but you can of course do whatever you fancy, hearts, a pattern whatever really. Using a doily on your cake drum looks lovely and very vintagey which is quite frankly right up my street, anything vintagey and I am there!

You can get different shaped teapots of course so you could try 2 round 6 inch sponges sandwiched together to get another shape, I think next time I will go for this shape rather than round, just for some variety.

The eating part

Then cut the cake.. you know what to do here but it will so nice you just can't cut it!!

I hope you will make one yourself and if you do please send me a photo. x

Vintage and Cake's first blog!

I have discovered Shabby Blogs and how lovely it is! So I have decided to start a blog separate to my website as that is what all of the blogging type techie people say to do, so here I am. It has been a busy few weeks with Christmas markets and lots of orders. The Fabulous Places Christmas Market was great, its a bit harder for me though as I am selling a concept not just cakes, I really want people to be aware that this lovely tradition is out there, the afternoon tea party. You can sit back and relax and I will set up a beautiful tea party for you with my lovely vintage china, it is all stored in the Vintage and Cake room and ready to go, its not really that organised... its in my loft, all neat and tidy I might add, as if I have an actual Vintage and Cake room!!! I now have some bits for sale too, I have vintage cups and saucers for sale with tasty treats inside. The vintage I have ranges from Victorian to War time and its all lovely. Bye for now I am looking forward to doing more blogging on my new blog!