Cakes and Tea

​As soon as I decided to blog about a calendar year of birthday cakes, I received word of an old friend’s passing. In our family, the soundtrack of grief is the lone bagpiper, hopefully playing through a fine mist, set against a green hill. If we must die, let us have the grace to go in winter with appropriately gray skies as backdrop to our sorrow.
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My friend Ellen always did things with artful style, accentuated by her flair for the dramatic. A winter death, while she was still beautiful and vibrant, engaged with the world to the very last second, was her final gesture. She won’t be replaced.

She was mourned and celebrated by her friends and fans, her daughter finding an elegantly modern space to stage our goodbyes. We shared photos and stories, cried and laughed, and ate. We humans need lots of food to prop us up in our grief. In times of sadness, traditional food rituals offer solace. For me, nothing is more comforting on a long buffet table than bundt cakes. Maybe grandma baked them for the county fair or Dad made them for dessert on Sunday. In our collective imagination, caring neighbors drop one off at the house after someone has died. I volunteered to bring five of Ellen’s favorite cakes to share. There was nothing to do but try to console each other and eat many, many slices of cake.

Her chosen birthday cake was the spiced rum bundt, partially shown at left, above. Continuing left to right, we had a cocoa apple cake with Rose’s caramel icing, red velvet with chocolate ganache, Ellen’s own coconut cake recipe, and a triple vanilla bundt cake. All tried and true favorites, found at www.myteaplanner.com and the triple vanilla cake, of which I believe Ellen would approve. I used this basic vanilla cake recipe from King Arthur flour: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-vanilla-bundt-cake-recipe and added a tablespoon of vanilla bean paste and several tablespoons of an interesting product my friend Louise brought me from the east coast, ground vanilla beans. The cake had a deep vanilla flavor but it also tinted the batter slightly green, likely due to the six eggs interacting with the ground vanilla. Next time, maybe I will limit the vanilla bean paste and ground beans to one tablespoon each.
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When Ellen moved to Fresno (or FresYes! as we would say to each other) she found that her backyard came equipped with grapefruit, orange, tangerine, and lemon trees. I taught her to make marmalade and to can the jewel tone jelly in a water bath. Because she was an amazing graphic artist, our housemade marmalade even carried its own custom label: 

 
I miss her so much. Life doesn’t stop, birthdays don’t stop coming. Baking never stops, for me. We still have to laugh, in the midst of crying. None other than Dolly Parton’s character in the movie Steel Magnolias assures us that “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion!” I may never be as evolved as our dear Miss Dolly but I aspire.

When the first coconut cake broke in half while being turned out of the pan, breaking into chunks, I thought that would amuse Ellen no end. When the second coconut cake turned out with just little divots broken off, I imagined Ellen telling me to just add more coconut and more cowbell and everything would come out fine.
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I turned the broken cake into Lamingtons. Lamingtons are a popular Australian petit four, dipped in jam or chocolate and rolled in coconut. I froze those big chunks of broken cake and then sawed them into as many little squares as I could, setting them on a rack, and replaced them in the freezer. I microwaved a jar of raspberry jam and strained out the seeds. I stirred in a tablespoon or so of a berry liqueur, to flavor and slightly thin the syrup. Taking one cake square at a time, I dipped one in the raspberry goo and then rolled it in coconut. I nestled one small, fresh raspberry atop each Lamington. These stayed fresh in the fridge for several days.
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​A fiercely creative person herself, Ellen was encouraging to her sister artists, always guarding the space in which art would flourish. She encouraged me in all my endeavours including our tea book, website, and this blog. I don’t know what life is going to look like, after Ellen. I will continue to bake her favorite rum cake and her luscious coconut cake. I’ll try to remember to laugh when cakes break into pieces and listen hard to see if I can hear her tell me to just throw more coconut on it, but whatever I do, do it with style and conviction and with wild abandon.   

Cakes celebrate many milestones and celebrations throughout the year. A big sheet cake for graduation, a beautiful Bundt pound cake for Mother’s Day, a heart-shaped chocolate stunner for Valentine’s day all are cakes worthy to plan and execute. But the cake that makes us turn on the oven most frequently is the birthday cake. I love making birthday cakes for those who really love a good cake. The people who are happy with a cake from Safeway are welcome to it.

Throughout the years, I’ve figured out who’s who and have happily settled into the habit of turning out birthday cakes that will either surprise those who like to be surprised or making old favorites for those who have decided on one kind.
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With that in mind, I’m embarking on a year of birthday cakes for those cake fans out there.
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For world-traveling Polly, a cake or torte in the European tradition is called for.  Arguably, it is multi component, a more sophisticated cake, perhaps lower in height than our American layer cakes. I created this cake as a composite of my idea of several European cakes. I wanted a dense chocolate cake, with ground almonds in the batter, accented with orange liqueur and orange peel. The chocolate should be very good quality and bittersweet: 70% cocoa solids.
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I was gifted with an exquisite jar of marmalade, so I decided on a marmalade buttercream, the sides frosted with chocolate ganache. I used the back of a teaspoon to create rustic swirls along the top edge, framing the translucent layer of marmalade. A layer of marzipan or almond paste rolled over the top of the buttercream gave the marmalade a light background on which to sparkle. The marzipan also added to the old-world vibe of the cake and adds to the complexity. You can read my notes in the illustration below. I’m so glad I wrote it down since it was a cake with many parts. It was a hit at the birthday gathering, but who knows what I’ll do for the intrepid Polly next year.

The other birthday cake I make in January is a cheesecake for Mr. Vazquez. It is his longtime favorite. There are no photos, though, because cheesecake is not exactly photogenic. A good cheesecake will look pretty similar to an average cheesecake. I used to make the standard 9” cake for him but realized he just ate a few slices and was pretty much done with it. I have learned to scale down the recipe to fit a small sized pan. The ratio is one 8-ounce block of cream cheese to 1/3 cup of sugar to 1 or 2 eggs to 2 tablespoons cream which would fit into a 5 or 6-inch pan. Scaling up, my usual 9-inch cheesecake is 4 blocks cream cheese, 1 1/3 cup sugar, 4 or 6 eggs, and 1/2 cup cream. I add some salt, some vanilla, and some grated lemon zest as well. It is more forgiving than one might think, though there are a couple tips and tricks. For an extra silky- smooth cheesecake without the risk of cracking, bake the cake in a water bath, wrapping in a double layer of foil, if it is in a springform pan. I don’t worry about the top cracking because I like to top the cake with sweetened sour cream the last 10 minutes of baking. Topping a cooled cheesecake with lemon curd or fruit is also a good crack covering strategy. Cheesecake gets a bad rap for being finicky, but bakers should just relax; ​your cake will be delicious, and everyone will appreciate your home baked creation. Happy Birthday!

The traditional Italian-American Christmas Eve menu has been mainly fish and seafood for the last 100 years. In our family, we didn’t call it Feast of the 7 Fishes. I began hearing the term in the last decade, finally dawning on me that that was basically what we’d been doing. I just knew that come Christmas Eve, we’d be eating pizza with anchovies, squid in a pink sauce, linguini with clam sauce, and the centerpiece of the meal: baccalà stew. Several days before the 24th, Dad would begin reconstituting hard slabs of salted, dried cod fish (baccalà in Italian) in basins of water, in our bathtub. To a child observing this procedure, it seemed strange at best and completely inedible at worst. And it smelled revolting.
 
My brother has come to love baccalà stew as much as my father, but I’m sorry to say I remain unconvinced of its palatability. My little cousins and I survived the meal by picking the anchovies off the pizza, eating lots of salad and Italian sausage, and pretending we’d already eaten our share of the weird fish stuff. Mostly we were just biding our time until dessert would be served. The sideboard had been laid out with a feast of sweets from boring old-people stuff like dried fruit and nuts to the only-at-Christmastime stars like Grandma Rose’s “dog biscuit” cookies and chewy, honey and powdered sugar-covered zeppoly to cannoli stuffed with traditional sweet ricotta filling or Auntie Norma’s favorite, custard filling. Like every major holiday, the big box of See’s candy and torrone nougat made an appearance. Tins of aging cuccidati fig cookies and paper plates of Christmas cookies of varying pedigree filled in any leftover space. Wading through the strange fish dinner was amply rewarded by this spectacular, sugary array of delights.
 
These days, I have come to appreciate the other fish dishes quite a bit more and have added the love of oysters and most other seafood. With this in mind, my brother, favorite sister-in-law, and I are taking on the hosting this year. We are feeling confident that we can adequately host since the success of last year’s Christmas brunch. We have Aunt Rose’s beautiful Lennox holiday dishes and lots of silver and crystal from catering to set a lovely table and many good cooks to shoulder the cooking of the many courses. Our Christmas Eve dinner has always been a collaborative effort, more focused than a potluck, with family members usually bringing their specialty year after year. Our menu will be a mix of traditional favorites and new seafood to get to the magical 7 fish quota. And we will be serving “too many” desserts, as if such a thing exists.
 

Antipasti Tray with fresh fennel, roasted peppers, olives, cheeses, and cured meat
Chris’ Big Green Salad
Oysters on the Half Shell or Oysters Rockefeller
Fritto Misto or Smoked Trout Spread on Baguette
Peter’s Linguini with Clam Sauce
Anchovy Pizza and Italian Sausage Pizza
Norma’s Squid in Pink Sauce or Regina’s Stuffed Squid
Jesse’s Line-Caught Tuna
Rudy’s Baccalà Stew
Zeppole, Cannoli, Tiramisu, Fruitcake
Tiffany and Molly’s Christmas Cookies
Cuccidati (Spiced Fig Cookies)
Grandma Rose’s “Dog Biscuit” Cookies
See’s Dark Chocolate Nut and Chews, Torrone Candy
And of course, lots of wine, brandy, eggnog, coffee, and possibly even Wassail! 

My Italian grandmother, Rose, was a truly amazing cook; everything she made was savory and succulent. But she herself admitted that she was no baker. My Dad reminisces fondly about flat cakes and brick-like breads and tells of her favorite brand (None Such) of purchased mincemeat and gingerbread mix.
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But being loyal grandchildren, we waited all year for her “dog biscuit “ cookies. They are hard, as the name implies, but have a pleasant lemony taste that pairs well with tea or coffee. They taste best when they have aged a bit in a tin. Grandma Rose usually formed hers into a twisted shape but sometimes she’d make them into wreaths. It’s a good dough for children to help with, as it takes over-handling in stride. None of us cousins got the recipe before she passed on, and we didn’t know if we’d ever have our beloved, dry cookies again. Luckily while I was making a batch of lemon biscotti at the inn, I nibbled the end piece before it went in the oven for its second bake: they tasted just like hers! I immediately made the recipe again, this time shaping the cookies into individual cookies before baking. The only difference was these were too fresh tasting, but I knew they would age into proper dog biscuits my cousins would love. I gave them copies of this recipe so we can all bake and eat the dog biscuits and think of our darling Grandma Rose.
 

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​Preheat oven to 350˚F
Special equipment: 2 large mixing bowls, hand or stand mixer, silicone spatula, baking sheets lined with parchment or silicone baking mats
Makes 4 to 5 dozen, depending on size
 

In large bowl, stir together 5 cups flour, baking powder, and salt to combine. Set aside.

1. In mixer bowl, beat butter and sugar until thoroughly combined. Stir in lemon zest and juice. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping bowl as needed. The mixture may look curdled but will come together when dry ingredients are added.
2. Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions, scraping bowl between additions. Add additional flour, a tablespoon at a time, until a stiff dough is formed.
3. Turn dough onto floured work surface and knead briefly, for about 30 seconds.
4. Take a portion of dough and form into a “snake" shape by rolling it with both hands until it’s about 7 inches long. Twist the two ends together or tie into a knot or make a circle with pinched ends. They should look rustic so don’t stress too much about the shape.
5. Place on prepared baking sheets, about an inch or two apart and bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. They should barely color, take care to not over bake. Let cool 5 minutes then transfer to cooling rack and let cool completely. Store in airtight containers (we like cookie tins) and let age a few days before serving. They keep at room temperature for quite awhile.

Tiffany and Molly’s Christmas cookies, 201

These look similar to my Grandma Rose’s zeppole but this recipe includes ricotta in the dough. This will make the zeppole more tender which I think would be an improvement. I’m considering doing them this year.

Fritto mistook, or mixed fried seafood and sometimes vegetables.

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Although fall is my favorite season for inviting friends over for an autumnal afternoon tea party, this cool season tends to get quickly filled with invitations and activities. This fall, we are hosting the first annual “Biscuit Off!” competition in which invitees will compare their biscuits and biscuit creations against other entrants. Biscuits and their close relative the scone have long held a special place in our hearts and on our tables. Those of us with Southern roots have experienced great biscuits first hand from grandma’s kitchen or have heard tales of the daily mountains of biscuits cooks made for the family and field hands. If one is described as having ‘a good biscuit hand,’ it is high praise indeed. Visiting various breakfast places while traveling to sample different versions of biscuits and gravy is a time-honored activity in the Murdock family and always a great excuse to go out to breakfast any ole time.
 
While waiting for the seemingly endless Northern California summer to end, I muse on the menu for my afternoon tea party. My starting place is our Autumn Tea menu, here: myteaplanner.com But fall flavors are so alluring that I have to keep recombining them in even more delicious new ways. Can I pack more pumpkin in somehow? Can I use ginger or mace in a different way? Can I finally put poached pears in there somewhere? And is there enough maple?! These burning autumn questions swirl together as I create a menu for my fall tea party. I love to tinker and adjust until I’m happy with the result. Ta-da!
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​Perfect, tasty, and so very fall, but unfortunately, the fall tea party hasn’t yet found a place on the schedule. Not to be deterred from celebrating my new menu, I reasoned the next best thing to actually cooking it is to create it in watercolor. I started doing daily watercolor paintings early in the year and have been enjoying reproducing tea foods, still life, and flowers in an effort to improve my painting and illustration. 
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​Several autumns ago, we invested in these vintage little brown ceramic custard cups. They are just so charming. Each autumn since, I have delighted in digging them out of storage and using them on my fall table. Here one is holding gingered honey butter to accompany maple pecan scones. The illustration makes them look like chocolate chips in the scones instead of pecans, but I love how the glaze on the brown cup looks. For the flavored butter, I might beat softened butter with honey and freshly grated ginger, which would make a tangy spread for the warm scones.
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I can’t get enough beet pickled eggs! I’ll use any pretext to put them on a menu. The color is so wonderfully vibrant and the taste is zippy from my home-pickled beets, made with fresh dill and garlic. Popular microgreen mixtures combine sprouts of kale, arugula, endive, radish, and or beet greens. They would make a pretty and complementary bed for the deviled eggs.
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I recently made mushroom soup when we were gifted with an abundance of sliced mushrooms. That week, we had mushroom scramble, mushrooms in salad, mushroom pâté, and we’d barely made a dent in our mushroom trove. I figured mushroom soup would use up the most mushrooms, so I dove in. I’d forgotten how delicious this creamy, earthy soup can be. I added the tiniest bit of cream to lend it the most velvety finish. You’ll recognize my favorite vintage custard cup attractively holding the soup. For the savory hand pies, a filling could be any of several different flavors. At myteaplanner.com, we have recipes for potato pasties and mushroom piroshki, either of which would do nicely. A spicy ground beef or minced root vegetable filling would also be yummy.
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​I saw a summer grilling recipe for biscuit dough wrapped around skewers made of rosemary sprigs. Suzi and I loved the idea and made them at a 4th of July barbeque where they were a big hit. For fall, I’d like to add a strip of bacon to the strip of biscuit dough which gets wound around the skewers. Everything is better with bacon, right?
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Every autumn I say to myself that I will make something in those cute little miniature pumpkins but every year I seem not to. But wouldn’t it be charming for each guest to have their own baked pumpkin filled with a warm mix of diced root vegetables and big pearls of Israeli couscous? Or pumpkin au gratin or pumpkin stew?
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Wait a second! Suzi just informed me that we made pumpkin soup and served it in the miniature pumpkins several years ago. Oops, forget I mentioned it.
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​Eclairs are one of the French pastries that are worth the investment in some practice time. Once mastered, choux pastry opens up so many possibilities for sweet as well as savory applications. Filled with ice cream, pastry cream, or lemon curd, they make decadent desserts. Filled with chicken or lobster salad, they make elegant tea sandwiches. A petite éclair of only four inches long would be an exquisite addition to the tea table. This fall I was working on a caramel icing recipe for a wedding cake, and I realized it would make a fantastic topper for éclairs. I’m planning to share that whole wedding cake recipe, including the caramel, in a future blog. If you need the caramel recipe sooner, email me and I will get it to you.
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​I admit that I have a fondness for pinwheel cookies. Any excuse is good enough to make some of these traditional rolled-up ice box cookies. I love the red and white colored dough versions at Christmas and the poppy seed filled vanilla versions. Here, I’m thinking of taking vanilla dough and spicy gingerbread dough and rolling them up together to form a brown and ivory pinwheel cookie. They would look quite nice with a maple sugar cookie cuddled up next to a cup of tea.
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​These individual pies can be made in canning jar lids or four inch tart pans. Being shallower than the usual pumpkin pie, lattice should work in this petite pie. Lattice will definitely work with apple pie filling. I wouldn’t rule out pecan pie filling, either, and how mouth-watering would that be?!
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​This was the year I actually made poached pears and baked them into gingerbread cupcakes: hurrah for me! However, I learned several things about working with pears. When the nice farmer at the farmer’s market tells you to wait for the pears to ripen up, do listen to her. No amount of cooking will get the unripe pears past that undesirable gritty texture. Do use the whole bottle of port or red wine for the best color in the poaching liquid. Don’t be tempted to use half an old bottle of Martinelli’s apple juice as filler; your pears might turn out to be an anemic dusty mauve color. When filling the cupcake wells with batter, do listen to that inner voice that reminds you that your gingerbread recipe, though extremely delicious, rises really high, so DON’T OVERFILL THOSE CUPS! When a whole small poached pear is inserted into each cup, the batter will overflow all over the oven and make quite a mess. Scraping burnt mess off the oven floor is something I strive not to do. If I hadn’t had to clean the oven, if I hadn’t lost power for three days, if I hadn’t gotten a head cold right afterwards, I MAY have gotten more tiny pears, more port, more molasses and started over. Or maybe not. I did have some of the yummy caramel icing leftover from my cake experiment, and I did put a spoon of it over the pear, and it was delicious. 
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I’d seen this crafty candle on Pinterest and took note because my hunter had gifted me with these exact feathers. The pin said they are guinea fowl feathers available at craft stores. I thought they were quail feathers, but he said they are from wood ducks. They also caught my eye because I had each element already on hand in the studio. It is simply a small glass votive wrapped in the kind of dried corn husks used to make tamales, tied with raffia or twine, finished with that pretty little feather. Each thing in stock: that never happens. It must be the magic of autumn. 

Prompted by a tempting article in the May/June, 2019 issue of Tea Time magazine entitled “Tea Treasures of Portland, Oregon,” my friend, Valerie, and I visited the historic Heathman Hotel in downtown for a Sunday afternoon tea.

We treated ourselves to a Lyft ride to the Heathman so we could enjoy the signature Northwest rain and not worry about parking downtown. I got to wear my jazzy paisley rain boots and Valerie loaned me a creamy knitted shrug to ward of any chill. We were feeling wonderfully expectant of our tea.
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And then we saw the lobby. I expected to find the room seen below. Unfortunately, it had been updated.

Ugh. With a slight sinking feeling, we exited into the Headwaters restaurant which had apparently been carved out of the original lobby. We found the hostess who did have our reservation. We were a bit encouraged to find that our tea was to be served in the hotel’s mezzanine library. It had previously known life as the hotel’s tea court lounge. I tried not to imagine how wonderful the room had been before the modernization. An airy, two-story room in the center of the hotel, the library at least retained a bit of former glamor. To quote the Heathman’s own blurb, “The Library features more than 3,000 volumes signed by their authors in a grand bookcase that spans the full height of the room to prominently showcase the autographed tomes.” And huge points for the chandelier.
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​We were seated at a low marble table with a beautiful blue velvet sofa and comfortable beige arm chairs. A fire was lit in the modern fireplace. Our spirits were on the rise. We waited for one of the two waiters to greet us. After about ten minutes, I went in search of the hostess to explain our third guest would not be joining us so could we have our tea? She was on the phone (with her boss, she later explained) so she gave me the "I'll be right with you” gesture. Okay…that went on for a few more minutes. Not the level of service I would prefer.
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Eventually, we did begin our tea service. We were cheered to see they used Smith Teamaker, a local tea blender with a long tea pedigree. Smith has multiple shops around Portland, their flagship store in a 100-year-old blacksmith shop. Valerie chose the Georgian Caravan tea. The name is a nod to the traditionally smoky Russian caravan tea, said to have been created by the black tea being stored near campfires during the long journey from China to Russia, in the saddle bags of pack animals. The tea was delicious and Smith packaging is quite lovely, so we added a canister of the Georgian Caravan loose leaf to take home. I chose Bungalow tea which was described on the menu as a blend of first and second flush Darjeeling tea leaves. This tea needed a longer brewing time than my usual Yorkshire Gold, but after about ten minutes, it fully opened up and became very flavorful. When next in Portland, a visit to Smith Teas is definitely on the agenda. www.smithtea.com
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​Portland chef Vitaly Paley opened Headwaters at the Heathman restaurant, and their afternoon tea service is inspired by his Russian heritage. Pastry chef Megan Jeans interprets the Russian pastries with finesse and flair.
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Everything on the three tiered server was interesting looking, fresh, and tasty. The printed menu does a good job of explaining the savory and sweet items. Each of the eight loose teas available is described in detail, so even tea novices will be able to choose a tea to their liking. 

Tart Olivier is a play on a historic Russian salad, here presented in tiny tart shell, garnished with even tinier cornichon slices. Georgian cheese bread, Khachapuri, was a rich, cheesy roll, made with local honey.

Middle tier: Flaky mushroom turnovers, delightful walnut-stuffed eggplant rolls garnished with pomegranate seeds, powdered sugar-covered Russian tea cakes, and excellent orange and pistachio halva.

Top tier: Pryaniki, old-world style spiced cookies with a honey glaze, Steopka, which is reputedly Paley’s grandmother’s recipe for walnut cake, Tort Po Kievski, an elegant multi-layered hazelnut and coffee flavored cake square, lemon bars, and a rather tired version of Russian honey cake, Medovik Torte.
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I feel confident in critiquing the Medovik torte, as I made a few in preparation for one of Hidden Valley String Orchestra’s donor fêtes. The concert featured Eastern European music and Polly suggested the honey cake. It is made from spiced cookie-like layers that soften once the torte sits with its filling and frosting of the amazing combination of caramel, butter, and honey. It is finished with crumbled cookies over the top and sides. The Medovik tastes best about 3 or 4 days after it is assembled. I’m thinking that theirs sat a bit too long and tasted a tad stale. Overall though, the quality of the savories and pastries was very good. 
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​Our Russian tea menu at www.myteaplanner.com is similar in spirit while adding some Russian foods not specifically served with tea but too yummy to leave out.
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Borscht Shots
     Charlotte’s Marinated Mushrooms
     Open-faced Smoked Salmon Sandwiches on Swirled Rye
     Piroshky
     Caviar Platter with Blini
     Kulich with Paskha Cheese Spread 
Russian Cheese Tartlets
     Russian Tea Cakes
     Poppy Seed Cookies
     Walnut Crescents
     Charlotte Rousse

I also appreciated Headwaters at the Heathman’s interesting beverage menu. Besides the hot tea selection from Smith Teamaker, a flight of vodkas including Russian, local, and infused vodkas is available. And as should be at all urban hotel afternoon teas, sparkling wines are offered. We ordered a cava and a brut rosé sparkler which were both delicious but unfortunately were served in wine glasses because “we are out of champagne glasses.” Huh?
 
Wonderful food and fine quality tea, elegant, if modern, surroundings but a bit rough in the service and organization department. The overall experience was most fun due to my charming companion. Many thanks to Valerie for being my Portland tea co-conspirator. We are already planning our next tea outing, to Hotel de Luxe:
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​Recently, I was fortunate enough to cater an afternoon tea in a Victorian home in Santa Cruz, California. A party for ten was set at the long table in the formal dining room. Fine reproduction Victorian wallpaper made an exquisite backdrop for the traditional china and silver service, illuminated by candle light. I could not have wished for a more beautiful setting.
 
We set both ends of the long table with symmetric white floral arrangements, three tiered servers, trays of strawberry tarts, creamer and sugar sets, and scone toppings: clotted cream, lemon curd, apricot jam, and chutney cheese spread. 

​Smoked Salmon Rolls
Cucumber Watercress Sandwiches
Egg Salad-Avocado Double Stacks
Prosciutto-Wrapped Goat Cheese Stuffed Dates
Fresh Tomato Tarts

Clotted Cream, Lemon Curd, Apricot Jam, and Chutney Cheese Spread
Classic Cream Scones
Black Pepper and Onion scones
Shortbread Fingers
Red and White Pinwheel Cookies
Lemon Buttons 
Fresh Strawberry Tarts
Miniature Black Forest Cakes

​We tailored the menu to indulge the hostess’ preference for savory food over sweets. This being afternoon tea, though, at least three kinds of cookies is a usual. Dainty Driscoll organic berries topped buttery tart shells, for a stunning burst of scarlet red to harmonize with her family china.

The chocolate quotient was filled by miniature chocolate cherry cakes. Avid readers of this blog and Rose’s blog know how much we adore the combination of deep chocolate and delicious cherry. Browse a trove of cherry and chocolate recipes on our website:
https://www.myteaplanner.com/

As a gal who caters near and far, logistics are always pertinent to the party. In this instance, I had to “MacGyver” up two three tiered servers at the last moment. (We have Mr. Vazquez to thank for introducing us to the world of MacGyvering in which we use our skills to make something out of nothing, like MacGyver repeatedly did in his 1980’s-90’s television show.) Luckily, I have my trusty Soquel antique/junk store favorites I could rely on for inexpensive serve ware. Most importantly, I have a skilled, accommodating brother who is willing and able to quickly make any necessary changes to anything from wood to metal to plastic. Thanks Peter!

If you are at all interested in afternoon tea, you have most likely heard of a cream tea, featuring Devonshire or Cornish clotted cream. This thick, slightly sticky, pale yellowish, spreadable cream is served along with strawberry jam to fill scones, which have been split, never cut. You may imagine rural British farm wives, with peaches-and-cream complexions, setting out pans of fresh cream at the back of the big stove, to gently thicken up overnight, to be served the next day at teatime.

In Devon, your cream will be called Devonshire clotted cream, but if you are in or near Cornwall, you will be served Cornish clotted cream. It’s a little bit like California cheese versus Wisconsin cheese, both high quality and delicious but maybe tasting slightly different due to what the cows are eating in their locale. To further complicate matters, there is no American equivalent to British “double cream” which is 48% butterfat. Our standard butterfat content for heavy cream is 36% to 38%.

However, American cream can be successfully made into clotted cream. For a large tea party this spring, I set out learning to make real clotted cream. For my experiments, I used either pints of Trader Joe’s organic, pasteurized, heavy whipping cream or the half gallon cartons of Producer’s Dairy pasteurized, heavy whipping cream available at Costco.

I specify the various attributes of these creams because they factor into the texture and quantity of the clotted cream. After reading many, many recipes for homemade clotted cream, I would say 95% of the recipes call for cream that is pasteurized and NOT ultra-pasteurized.  Ultra-pasteurized cream has been heated to 280 degrees then chilled while pasteurized cream has been heated to 167 degrees before being chilled. (The ultra-pasteurization gives the cream a longer shelf life, up to 60 days, unopened.) As is the case with yogurt-making and cheese-making, the temperature has a dramatic effect on the structure of the milk proteins. Unlike yogurt or cheese, clotted cream is simply heated cream, without any added cultures.

Making clotted cream is a matter of heating and cooling liquid cream until it separates and thickens. Nothing is added to the cream but time and temperature. Though sounding straightforward, getting cream to clot to a particular thickness is a subtle process without obvious signposts. My first experiment produced a small amount of clotted cream and a lot of grayish liquid under the layer of cream. My second batch was overheated, making the cream look slightly browned in spots, totally unacceptable; I was looking for a creamy yellowish color without a hint of browning.
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These first batches were done in two different ovens, both set to 180 degrees. As bakers know firsthand, all ovens are slightly different. I used 4 cups of cream, poured into a glass baking pan, 8” by 8” square. Several recipes mentioned the depth of the cream as well as the amount of cream, usually at least 1” deep but no more than 2” deep. My 4 cups of cream measured about 1.25” deep. 
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​After these first two unsatisfactory batches, I read more recipes for clotted cream, one of which mentioned making it in a slow cooker. That seemed perfect. A slow cooker delivers even heat and can be set for the requisite 12 hours. I borrowed Suzi’s slow cooker and set it on the “Warm” setting for 12 hours. The next step is to cool the heated cream, so I lifted the crock out of the slow cooker and let it cool for an hour or so. I carefully put a spoon under the top layer and peeked underneath. The cream layer seemed very thin, but I covered it and put it in the refrigerator to finish setting. It turns out that this step is really important and cannot be rushed. It needs to chill at least 12 hours. At this point, I cautiously spooned the thick top off the more watery layer underneath. It only made approximately a cup of clotted cream which seemed shockingly little from the four cups I started with. And what do you do with all the unclotted cream? Various recipes suggested using the leftover liquid in scones, breads, or less appealingly, in your tea or coffee.

After three batches of only slightly satisfactory clotted cream, I was feeling a bit hopeless and thought about abandoning the project. The reason I didn’t give up is that though all three batches weren’t perfect in amount or texture, all tasted absolutely divine. The taste is almost indescribable, naturally sweeter than cream, without being at all cloying, subtly nutty in aftertaste, and wonderfully sticky and delicious, in a way different from crème fraiche, mascarpone, or whipped cream. And so much better than the small jars of Devonshire cream imported from Britain which taste overcooked.

I did take a few days off and continued to read more clotted cream recipes and blog posts. I compared, step by step, the way I handled the cream as compared to the way each recipe writer recommended handling the cream. I’d done the heating method, the cooking time, the cooling time, and the spooning into glass jars just the way they showed. What was I missing?

With a slow cooker borrowed this time from Peggy Sue, I began again with my 4 cups of cream. Twelve hours of cooking, twelve hours of chilling. When the time came, I carefully spooned the clotted top layer into a glass bowl. Under the thickened layer was a creamy layer that was thicker than uncooked cream but not as thick as the clotted part. I tentatively scooped a little of this aside to reveal the grayish liquid I’d seen in my first batch. I definitely didn’t want the grayish stuff,but the thickish cream seemed useful. As this batch of clotted cream was relatively thick, I stirred some of the cream into it, remembering that a few of the recipes had mentioned stirring it up before chilling. Aha! That was the final key point: the clotted cream could absorb some of the additional cream without becoming too thin. I stirred in most of the extra cream and set it to chill for another day. Voila, perfect clotted cream, and quite a bit of it, as well.
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When we served my now perfected clotted cream at our Cherry Berry Tea, on a warm day in June, I noticed that as it sat out, it became yellower and firmer, in texture more like whipped cream cheese. The mysteries of time, temperature, and butterfat are truly unending.

​4 cups pasteurized cream
Slow cooker with removable crock, shallow spoon, glass jar or bowl
Begin several days before you wish to serve the clotted cream.

1. Pour cream into slow cooker, cover with lid. Set on “Warm” and cook for 12 hours.
2. Remove crock and let cool on counter for about 1 hour.
3. Cover crock and chill for 12 hours.
4. Carefully spoon thickened layer into glass bowl. Stir in some of the thinner creamy layer, while avoiding the grayish liquid at the bottom.
5. Chill for 12 to 24 hours. Serve with scones and jam. The clotted cream keeps, chilled and covered, for up to a week. 

 
Savories:
 
European Cheese Assortment with Fresh Cherries, Almonds and Wheat Meal Biscuits
Classic Cucumber Sandwiches
Best Summer Tomato Sandwiches
Deviled Eggs
Herb and Green Onion Individual Frittatas
Cherry Salsa, Blackberry Salsa and Corn Chips
 
Scones:
 
Cream Scones with Cherries and Blackberries
Lemon Curd and Clotted Cream
 
Sweets:
 
Black Forest Brownies
Warm Cherry-Almond Tart
Summer Pudding with Whipped Cream
Brambleberry Miniature Cupcakes
(Find the recipes for Black Forest Brownies and Warm Cherry Almond Tart on Rose’s June 2019 blog: https://www.myteaplanner.com/tea-travels---roses-blog)
 
Beverages:
 
Yorkshire Gold Hot Tea
Sparkling Wine, Rosé, Martinelli’s Sparkling Blush, Strawberry Lemonade 

Setting our tea party at lunchtime, we included additional savory items. Inviting more guests let us happily add more desserts. Several winemakers were in the group, so we added rosé wine and sparkling wine to the beverage menu along with non-alcoholic choices for all.
 
Gifted with two whole flats of amazing Driscoll berries by my wonderful sister, Tiffany, we were really able to load our menu with berry flavor at the height of their season. The sweet-tart flavor of blackberries is highlighted in a fresh salsa with the addition of jalapeno, diced red onion, fresh cilantro, lime zest and juice.
Rose found a recipe for an old British dessert, Summer Pudding, traditionally a mixture of fresh berries and white bread. This recipe substituted lady fingers for the usual white bread, a marked improvement.  Summer Pudding is made when fruit is at its best, and is simple to assemble and hugely delicious. We used a mixture of chopped cherries, raspberries, and blackberries. Freshly whipped cream is the perfect accompaniment. ​
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​I had yet another bite of bad carrot cake. In 2019! Haven’t we learned to bake a delicious carrot cake yet? Carrot Cake gets a bad rap, many times with good reason. Its faults can overshadow the very core of its inherent splendor. Not enough flavor, too much clove, too dry, too oily, raisins, too much frosting. Just kidding! You can’t have too much cream cheese frosting. But the other faults are all too common.

In California, in the 1970’s, carrot cake was the prevalent hippie cake, found at picnics, weddings, in delis, and in 13” by 9” pans at potlucks. It has a vegetable in its very name yet is moist and spicy-sweet. In Suzi’s and my wedding cake business, Ivy Lane, it was one of our two most popular wedding cake flavors. (The other popular flavor being our luscious lemon yogurt cake, featured in our June Wedding Reception Tea on this website.)
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Our Carrot Cake recipe is a version modified from a C & H Sugar promotional cookbook, published in the 1970’s or 1980’s. A quick internet search finds a C & H Carrot Cake recipe on their website which is unfortunately not the original recipe. It sadly lacks one of the outstanding features: crushed pineapple. Check out the modern recipe here: C & H Sugar carrot cake recipe They have replaced the granulated sugar with brown sugar which might be okay, but why risk it? The one odd thing they kept was the notion that it should be frosted with orange buttercream frosting instead of everyone’s favorite, cream cheese frosting.  You’ll notice I’d crossed out the very name of that imposter frosting and written in cream cheese. You can see that this is a well-loved recipe. We’ve been making it as a layer cake or a sheet cake for so long, I’d forgotten that the original was made in a tube pan. It does work in a tube pan, but it might be too moist to be turned out of a Bundt pan with success.
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​Rose made a delightful 13” by 9” Carrot Cake for my mom’s 70th birthday that we still recall with fondness and hunger pangs. She decorated the cream cheese frosting with strips of candied carrots which were very attractive and tasty. I used her idea when creating a gluten-free Carrot Cake for an auction. (It fetched $250!) I made carrot slice “flowers” and candied them in a sugar syrup. Not that pretty; I think Rose’s natural candied curls were better. An easy and traditional garnish is chopped nuts, strewn about the top and or sides of the frosted cake.
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Ivy Lane Carrot Cake
Adapted from a C & H Sugar recipe
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• 2 ¾ cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg or mace (No nasty cloves!)
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil, such as canola
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 packed cups shredded carrots
• 1 can 8 ½ ounces crushed pineapple, undrained

 
Preheat oven to 350˚F
 
Special equipment: sifter or sieve, 2 large mixing bowls, wooden spoon, silicone scraper, 2 8” or 9” cake pans, sprayed with baking spray, lined with parchment circles and sprayed again, cooling rack
 
Makes one 8” or 9” layer cake
 

1. In large bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside
2. In another large bowl, with wooden spoon, beat sugar and eggs until incorporated. Beat in oil and vanilla. Stir in carrots and pineapple.
3. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture. Stir until combined. Divide batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean when inserted into center of cake layers. Cool on rack for 10 minutes. Turn out layers and remove parchment papers, cool completely on rack.
5. Fill and frost with cream cheese frosting. (1 cube of butter, 1 8-ounce package of cream cheese and 1 box of powdered sugar, beaten until smooth) Store chilled until serving time.

 
Some notes on the carrot cake

• 1 large carrot makes about 1 cup of grated carrot
• More grated carrot is always fine to add to the batter
• The recipe makes about 6 cups of batter
• It’s fine to double the recipe; use a total of 2 ½ cups oil
• Doubled, the recipe makes two layers each of 6” and 10”
• A teaspoon of apple or pumpkin pie spice in place of the other spices is fine
• Some people like to add grated coconut to the batter

​Chances to go out to tea seem to be getting further and fewer between. In the United States, small country tea rooms have all but disappeared. In cities, though, you can generally rely on a fine hotel to provide you with a high-quality afternoon tea. Most properties of the Fairmont chain of hotels have afternoon tea service with the exception of my nearest Fairmont, in San Jose. They discontinued it several years ago, after Rose and I had a few disappointing teas there. I’m not sure why a large, cosmopolitan city such as San Jose can’t support a traditional British-style tea service at a Fairmont hotel but I suppose, if it can’t be done correctly, it’s best to not do it at all.

​                                         Tea at the Fairmont Empress
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​That being said, I’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed perfectly executed afternoon teas at three other Fairmonts, the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, the San Francisco Fairmont, and most recently, Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. The Fairmont Empress offers the quintessential traditional afternoon tea in North America: she’s been the gold standard for decades. However, Le Chateau Frontenac’s tea in the Place Dufferin restaurant, with views overlooking the Saint Lawrence River, quite possibly surpassed the Empress’ tea. Admittedly, it’s been several years since I’ve been to the Empress but I believe I can be more or less objective. The extremely high quality of the service coupled with the astoundingly good savories and desserts is what had brought me to this opinion. Hotel tea food is guaranteed to look beautiful but the actual taste of the jewel-like confections can be deceiving. Not so at Place Dufferin. The flavor profile on each tiny dessert was original, intense, unexpected and completely amazing. I was so enraptured by each dessert, I failed to get a copy of the menu. I do apologize for the oversight. I recommend getting yourself to Quebec for tea, as soon as possible. Chatting with the knowledgeable concierge, we learned a fun fact about Fairmont hotel china: each Fairmont that serves an afternoon tea has its own special china, different from the hotel’s main china. You can see the more modern harlequin patterned teal and pink china in Quebec and the more traditional gold-trimmed china featuring a royal crown motif for Victoria. It is available for purchase in Fairmont gift shops and online.
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​                                                     Le Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City

​                                               Place Dufferin afternoon tea, Le Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City, the amazing desserts,
                                                                                                                                                 Louise with the three-tiered server of savories
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Of course, some non-Fairmont hotels offer lovely afternoon teas in their elegant lobbies, palm courts or restaurants. A Londoner advised Louise and I to skip the Ritz hotel tea in favor of tea at the smaller Dorchester hotel. That experience proved to be one of the most delightful and memorable of my life. We went on a snowy weekday in January, having the long central lobby of the Dorchester nearly to ourselves. The softly lit lobby was furnished in overstuffed couches and chairs. A group of beautifully dressed Italian twentysomethings were the only other tea party. We lounged and savored a well done afternoon tea, drinking tea and champagne and nibbling into the late afternoon. I believe they have redecorated since we were there but contemporary photographs show it is still lovely.
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​                                     The lobby of the Dorchester Hotel, London
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This past winter, Kristin and I enjoyed a special Victorian tea at a small, exquisite country hotel, in McCloud, near Mount Shasta. Decorated in arts and crafts style furnishings, the historic McCloud hosted tea during the town’s Victorian Days festivities. The tea was served in the Sage restaurant dining room, adjacent to the lobby. Guests and servers were dressed in period costume and they used three tiered servers at each table, featuring scones, tea sandwiches, and an array of miniature sweets. Costumed carolers sang at the piano, in the lobby. We were enchanted and vowed to return for any and all occasional afternoon teas they put on.
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