In life there are many occasions that call for a dignified gathering of close friends and family members. An Afternoon Tea for thirty to sixty guests can be managed by a few family members and friends and will be far more meaningful than a catered event or a large dinner in a restaurant. Rose and Kathleen, with the help of Kathleen’s team of life-long girlfriends, organized the reception after the funeral of Rose’s mother and Kathleen’s grandmother, our beloved Dr. Betty Murdock. We used the church hall and enlisted all of the women in our family to bring their teapots and sets of china in advance, and the night before we set ten round tables each seating six, with different colored pastel tablecloths, napkins and more or less matching china settings. Each table had a teapot, a cream pitcher and sugar bowl, a platter for the tea sandwiches and a plate or tiered serving piece for the scones. We decorated a buffet table with flowers and photographs and used it for serving cakes on pedestals and additional snacks, baked and prepared by our own family members.
After the funeral in the church, the entire assembly simply walked over to the hall where Kathleen’s friends were busily finishing up the tea sandwiches and taking the scones out of the oven in the church hall’s kitchen. We will remember this afternoon for the rest of our lives, and we know, since Grandma Betty loved Afternoon Tea with all her heart, that we gave her exactly the farewell she would have wanted. We will also be forever grateful to the men in our family who pitched in afterwards and washed and dried all that delicate china and helped clean up the hall. Working together with our loved ones to create such a lovely occasion, was an important part of our grief and healing process.
In your families, you will also come across events that will call for Afternoon Tea. We had a Tea Party to celebrate our grandmother (and great-grandmother’s) one-hundredth birthday, and Rose held an Afternoon Tea in her home to honor her friend Joan’s retirement. You will want to commemorate graduations, anniversaries, adoptions or any number of significant occasions with a well-planned Afternoon Tea. We hope this menu and planning guide, which is included with the purchased recipes for this menu, Afternoon Tea for a Large Group, will help make your special occasion as memorable as ours have been.
Menu
Beverages, Savories, Scones and Sweets Served at Individual Tables:
Beverages:
English Breakfast Tea
Lemon Herbal Tea
Savories:
Deviled Eggs
Classic Cucumber Sandwiches on Buttered White Bread
Turkey and Cranberry Sandwiches
Ham and Swiss Cheese Sandwiches
Breads and Scones:
Buttermilk Scones with Butter, Lemon Curd, Orange Marmalade and Raspberry Jam
Sweets:
Iced Sugar Cookies
Dark Chocolates
Additional Beverages, Foods and Desserts Served on the Buffet Table:
Lemonade Iced Tea for a Crowd
Citrus Sherbet Punch
Sparkling Waters
Coffee and Decaffeinated Coffee
Waldorf Salad
Caesar Salad
Spinach, Candied Almond and Raspberry Salad
Chocolate Trifle
Warm Bread Pudding with Lemon Sauce
Hummingbird Cake on a Pedestal
Beverages, Savories, Scones and Sweets Served at Individual Tables:
Beverages:
English Breakfast Tea
Lemon Herbal Tea
Savories:
Deviled Eggs
Classic Cucumber Sandwiches on Buttered White Bread
Turkey and Cranberry Sandwiches
Ham and Swiss Cheese Sandwiches
Breads and Scones:
Buttermilk Scones with Butter, Lemon Curd, Orange Marmalade and Raspberry Jam
Sweets:
Iced Sugar Cookies
Dark Chocolates
Additional Beverages, Foods and Desserts Served on the Buffet Table:
Lemonade Iced Tea for a Crowd
Citrus Sherbet Punch
Sparkling Waters
Coffee and Decaffeinated Coffee
Waldorf Salad
Caesar Salad
Spinach, Candied Almond and Raspberry Salad
Chocolate Trifle
Warm Bread Pudding with Lemon Sauce
Hummingbird Cake on a Pedestal
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Recipes Included:
Lemonade Iced Tea for a Crowd Tea and lemon are naturally compatible, and this recipe will make a gallon of refreshing Lemonade Iced Tea. This is the perfect beverage if you are planning Afternoon Tea for a large gathering. You can make this easy Lemonade Iced Tea a day in advance and even double the recipe if you are expecting lots of guests. It is good for a tea party where children may be present, such as our Afternoon Tea for a Large Group. Citrus Sherbet Punch You will need a punch bowl for this wonderful old-fashioned fruit punch with sherbet swimming on top. If children are present at this Tea Party, you will find them hanging around the punch bowl, ladling extra scoops of sherbet into their cups. Keep an extra quart of sherbet in the freezer to add to the punch bowl after the children have helped themselves. Deviled Eggs Deviled Eggs are one of the greatest snacks of all time. Good Deviled Eggs need to be home made, and the guests at your large gathering will appreciate the effort that went into making these eternal favorites. Classic Cucumber Sandwiches Cucumbers are usually served with other vegetables, as in a tossed salad. These traditional English style sandwiches highlight the fresh natural flavor and texture of cucumbers all on their own. This recipe makes 64 small sandwich triangles, enough for your Afternoon Tea for a Large Group. Turkey and Cranberry Sandwiches Even if your Afternoon Tea does not take place during the fall or winter holiday season, your guests will still love the combination of turkey and cranberries on these fresh and flavorful sandwiches. Make sure that the turkey you use to make these sandwiches comes from a whole turkey or a roasted turkey breast. Do not use reconstituted turkey rolls. Either roast the turkey breast yourself, or buy the turkey slices from a reputable deli. Ham and Swiss Cheese Sandwiches Ham and Swiss sandwiches are familiar and ever popular. They are easy to make and can be served at room temperature, making them perfect for Afternoon Tea. The key to making great Ham and Swiss Sandwiches is great ingredients. You might want to buy a small Honey Baked or similar good quality spiral cut ham so the slices of ham on your sandwiches will be moist and flavorful. Similarly, buy the best quality Swiss cheese. We recommend getting the cheese slices from a good deli rather then just buying the plastic packages of grocery store sliced cheese. It will make a difference, and your guests will notice. Buttermilk Scones We like the classic version of Buttermilk Scones with currants and a touch of orange zest. However, you should feel free to add any kind of chopped dried fruit, depending on the season of the year and your guests’ preferences. If your gathering is taking place during the autumn or winter holiday seasons, you can also add up to 2 teaspoons of ginger, cinnamon or nutmeg. You can also add up to ¾ cup of toasted chopped nuts to this basic recipe. Whatever add-ins you choose to include, these Buttermilk Scones will be wonderful served with the traditional toppings-- butter, lemon curd, orange marmalade and raspberry jam. Make two batches of these perfect scones for Afternoon Tea for a Large Group and serve them with butter, orange marmalade and raspberry jam. If you think your guests are likely to eat more than one scone each, make a third batch and keep them warm. As the party progresses, bring a tray of warm scones, wrapped in an attractive napkin, to each of the tables or seating areas and offer more scones. Iced Sugar Cookies Everyone loves Sugar Cookies, and they can be shaped and decorated for any occasion, from Christmas to Easter to Thanksgiving and all of the special events in between. It’s good to have an interesting selection of cookie cutters with symbolic motifs such as hearts, eggs, Christmas trees, snowflakes, pumpkins, shamrocks, flowers, leaves, animals, or just circles, diamonds or squares. The icing for these cookies can also be tinted any color you want. Waldorf Salad This classic fruit salad has been around for well over a hundred years, having been created at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City between 1893 and 1896 by the hotel’s maître d’hôtel, the famous Oscar Tschirky. Your guests will love the fresh apples, fresh grapes and flavorful toasted walnuts that comprise this elegant and healthy salad. Caesar Salad Caesar Salad is another famous culinary creation that has withstood the test of time. Attributed to chef Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who lived in San Diego and worked in Tijuana, this salad was invented in 1924 when, according to his daughter, Caesar’s restaurant kitchen ran out of ingredients and her father had to improvise. The original salad contained romaine lettuce, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, raw egg yolks, Parmesan cheese and croutons. The first Caesar Salad contained no anchovy fillets, which are now routinely included in restaurant Caesar Salads. Controversy has developed over time about the health risks involved in using raw eggs in a salad. To avoid any anxiety about the health of our guests, we have chosen not to include raw eggs in our Caesar Salad. However, we have included anchovy fillets, which along with copious amounts of garlic, Parmesan cheese and Worcestershire sauce, give Caesar Salad it characteristic zip. This recipe for a very large Caesar Salad is designed to serve about 32 guests. Spinach, Candied Almond and Raspberry Salad A more contemporary salad, this healthy and visually stunning composition features luscious ripe raspberries, vibrant spinach and the secret ingredient—candied almonds. Even the children will love this food adventure with all its variety of color, taste and texture. Chocolate Trifle with Variations We are grateful to the Aztecs for giving us chocolate and to all the chefs, bakers and candy makers over the years who have combined chocolate with other flavors in stunningly innovative ways. Chocolate has been paired with nuts, coconut, caramel, coffee, every imaginable fruit, liqueurs, marshmallows, peanut butter, cookies, and even chili. In creating your own Chocolate Trifle, your choices will be limitless. Keep in mind that a Trifle is a decorative, free-form dessert comprised of pound cake, custard and other ingredients presented in a large, footed glass Trifle bowl for visual appeal. Almost everyone loves to eat Trifle, but half of the fun is admiring all of the ingredients showcased through the clear glass of the bowl before digging in. You will want to think about whether you are looking for a monochromatic chocolate on chocolate effect or whether you want to emphasize contrasting ingredients. However you design your Chocolate Trifle, your primary consideration will be taste. Choose a combination of ingredients that you like to eat and will be appealing to your guests. Our “recipe” is really just a list of suggestions. Vanilla Custard Vanilla Custard will form the foundation for the Chocolate Trifle that you will serve at your Afternoon Tea for a Large Group. You will turn this basic Vanilla Custard Recipe into Chocolate Custard and layer it with chocolate pound cake and the other ingredients you will select to go into this luscious Trifle. It takes a while to make this homemade custard from scratch using cream or milk, sugar, egg yolks and a little flour, but it will taste so much better than the pudding you can make from a box. Whipped Cream Please do not be tempted to use the squirt canisters of whipped cream from the grocery store or the little cartons of “whipped dessert topping.” (You know what we’re talking about!) Making your own whipped cream only takes a few minutes, and home-whipped cream is infinitely better than any store-bought versions. The secret to good whipped cream, we believe, is not to over-sweeten it, and to whip it just until it starts to resemble soft pillowy clouds. Real whipped cream is not very stable, however, so you will want to make it shortly before your party begins, or even after your guests have arrived. Warm Bread Pudding with Lemon Sauce Almost everyone loves bread pudding, one of the world’s most welcome comfort foods. It is best served warm right out of the oven, but haven’t all of us eaten cold Bread Pudding in the morning for breakfast? It is so much better than breakfast cereal, and it does contain eggs, milk, raisins and bread, so it is certainly not without nutritional value. For Afternoon Tea, you can bake this familiar dessert in a glass or ceramic baking pan and serve it warm on the buffet table, perhaps resting on a decorative towel or trivet. It will be good even after it comes to room temperature, served with Lemon Sauce. Our recipe calls for sweet French bread, the kind with a soft crust, but you can also use challah, Hawaiian sweet bread, or a combination of interesting breads. You will need about 1 ¼ pounds total for eight cups of cubed bread. For your convenience, and to make sure the ingredients are well blended, the pudding is assembled the day before it will be served and baked the next day just before your Tea Party. Lemon Sauce This fresh tasting lemon sauce is easy to make and very versatile. It is the perfect accompaniment to Warm Bread Pudding, but it can also be served with Gingerbread, Lemon Pound Cake, Ellen’s Fabulous Coconut Cake, or any other treat that you think would be good with a little extra zip of lemon. Hummingbird Cake This regal Southern American classic is ideal for serving on the buffet table for a large group. You can bake this cake a day before your gathering and refrigerate it. The flavors will improve overnight, and at serving time, the cream cheese icing will remain stable all afternoon. This beautiful fruit and spice creation, topped with toasted pecans, will be the focal point of your buffet, sitting on its elegant cake pedestal, waiting for Scarlet to help herself to a slice. We adapted this recipe from Southern Living, a great source for traditional teatime treats. Since you will refrigerate this cake and later serve it on a cake pedestal, your refrigerator will probably not have room for a three-layer cake on a tall pedestal. The solution is to place the cake on a decorative china dinner plate while you are icing it, and refrigerate the cake on its plate, loosely covered with plastic wrap. When your tea party begins, just place the cake and the plate on the pedestal. For an even more dramatic effect, you can cover the pedestal with a 10”-12” paper doily and present the iced cake on its china plate on top of the doily. Hummingbird Cake is appropriate for all four seasons, as it is made of ingredients that are available year round. Many families feature Hummingbird Cake at Christmas or Thanksgiving because it is so beautiful and festive. Also, the Cream Cheese Icing can be decorated thematically for any holiday, birthday, shower or other special occasion. Afternoon Tea for a Large Group, Planning Guide (included with purchased menu recipe) |
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