The Perfect Afternoon Tea?

I love to enjoy a nice afternoon tea once in a while. In the Netherlands it's mostly called 'High Tea' and apparently we are not the only country who does that.

Also the Lonely Planet wrote an article about the worlds best high tea's.

On this website I found an extensive explanation about the history of English afternoon tea, which is really interesting to read.

I never really realised that this English tradition is spread around the world and you can have excellent afternoon teas in many places. Definitely an extra activity for future culinary travels.


It's actually pretty popular to enjoy an afternoon tea, especially by women. Between 14.00 and 17.00 you will see a lot of women meet each other in a nice tea- or lunchroom, even on weekdays. Some places are so popular you have to make reservations way ahead! 
But what makes it so appealing? And what makes a perfect afternoon tea?
I decided to do some research.

In the last few years I have tried lots of them in different cafes and restaurants. Through all these experiences I became a bit of an afternoon tea critic. And although there were some really good afternoon tea's with perfect tea, food and service (like The Ritz in London).  There were also a lot less authentic experiences where either the food and tea were good but the service was bad.  Or the food was not suitable for a tea; like little lamb kebab with yoghurt or soup. And countless of afternoon teas where the food was not homemade and cheap tea bags were served…
It's so simple! And not even that expensive.  

This is not what you like to get served as tea during an afternoon tea

A perfect afternoon tea definitely has to include good quality loose leaf tea!

And with that I mean tea leaves served in a tea infuser. Preferably from different tea producing countries to choose from (Argentina is one I did not know).
Unfortunately I seldom get this served during an afternoon tea.

Most of the time it's just regular tea bags L

That's so disappointing, why would anyone want to drink regular (in the Netherlands we drink a lot of the Pickwick brand) teabags when they can have that at home or work all the time?

Besides good quality tea I also think unlimited tea should be included in the price.

It's crazy to pay a lot of money for an afternoon tea and then only be served one pot or cup.

Then on to the food; typically it consists of: sandwiches, scones and sweet pastries.  

For me that's perfect. Sometimes you get served soup and/ or a salad first. But that just doesn't blend with tea and has nothing to do with a traditional afternoon tea but more with a normal lunch. Although savoury snacks are not always included, a little quiche is a good balance for all the sweet stuff. They should be served with the sandwiches; savoury before sweet! 

Popular sandwich fillings are egg-salad, smoked salmon and cucumber. Although some variety is seen here with carpaccio, tasty (Cheddar) cheese or chickenbreast chutney-like fillings.  

The bread is traditionally white, thinly sliced, and buttered. The crust is cut away cleanly from the sandwich after the sandwich has been prepared, but before serving.

I prefer to taste different flavours of  'finger sandwiches' also known as 'tea sandwiches'. Those are just small portions of normal sandwiches.

Finger sandwiches, on different bread,  served at Ritz Hotel, London

Then on to the one item that makes or breaks the perfect afternoon tea; scones with jam and clotted cream! Without freshly baked scones accompanied by jam or lemon curd and clotted cream it's not the real thing. The Cornish clotted cream served in the Ritz Hotel was as thick as butter :- ). Unfortunately that kind of clotted cream is hard to find in the Netherlands. You can substitute with whipped double cream mixed with mascarpone. (Note to Dutch readers: some of the large Jumbo supermarkets do have clotted cream in their assortment!) 

And to finish the tea sweet pastries and cakes are served.  Whatever these are, from cakes to chocolates, I always really appreciate it if this part is also home made. Although some things can be perfectly bought at a good quality patissier or chocolatier. Lately I also see some delicious macarons and mini cupcakes in this part. 

Maybe not traditional,  but certainly makes it an extra festive moment, is serving a glass of Champagne or other sparkling wine at the start of an afternoon tea.

Any suggestions for a nice place to try an excellent afternoon tea, anywhere in the world, are always welcome; please leave a comment! 

Recipes to make a perfect afternoon tea at home follow in future blog posts.

Cookbook recommendation: 
* The Ritz London book of Afternoon Tea Including a great collection of their recipes.

Dried Date Cake; No Bake Treat

Sometimes you taste something and immediately want to know the recipe. That happened a few weeks ago when I was having lunch with a friend at Bagels & Beans; a Dutch franchise formula lunch and coffee room.
A very successful concept where they serve delicious bagels, homemade cakes plus freshly squeezed juices , coffee and loose leaf teas. Most of it organic and fair trade.
(They also have an English menu online and in all their shops)

Anyway, it was not one of their bagels I was so excited about; it was their date cake.
A sweet and sticky cake, with the natural sweetness of the dried dates (plus some extra sugar and caramel syrup ;-))

I was already busy investigating the ingredients while eating it and was really surprised to find the original recipe on the Bagels&Beans website! I wish it was so easy to find these kind of recipes from more restaurants.

I used the original Bagels & Beans recipe with instructions from the Dutch food blog OverEten.com.
I halved the quantities and instead of a normal caketray i made it in a well greased small, round quiche tray (20 cm). And served it, cut into small pieces, as friandise with coffee and tea at my dinnerparty. It;s a perfect recipe to make for a lot of people.

Dried date cake cut into pieces in quiche tray before serving

Before serving it at the dinnerparty I tested the cake on my family. Let me tell you; they normally don't eat dried dates. My family is of the kind that likes to eat the familiar cakes and pies over and over again. Like Dutch apple pie or my grandmothers Cheesecake ( in Dutch: Monchoutaart).But even though they looked a bit strange when I presented the pieces of dried date cake; everyone loved it!

My grandmother just couldn 't stop eating. Same as my colleagues from work, who I brought the leftovers. They immediately asked for the recipe. And I was very pleased to hear already two of them made it themselves successfully.

This is definitely one of my new favorite recipes and I'm very happy that Bagels & Beans shared this recipe online.

For the Dutch version of this recipe in PDF click here.

Dried Date Cake
www.bagelsbeans.nl

For about 8 'pie' pieces or approximately 30 little pieces

Ingredients:

• 250 grams dried dates, pitted and chopped (weight after pitting)

• 125 grams of butter + extra for greasing the tray

• 75 grams dark brown sugar (in Dutch: basterdsuiker)

• 25 grams chopped walnuts

• 75 grams Maria biscuits, chopped into small pieces in a mortar

• ½ egg (M), beaten

• 1 tablespoon caramel syrup (Monin or ( for Dutch readers) Douwe Egberts)

• Flaked coconut

Important: make sure to have pitted and chopped the dates before you start; it is a sticky job.

1. Grease a small quiche tray (20 cm) with butter.

2. Melt the 125 grams of butter on the lowest possible heat.  Do not let the butter brown!  When the butter has melted  add the sugar in parts and stir constantly with a small whisk. Make sure it does not stick on the sides. It has to remain a liquid mass. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes.

3. Beat the egg with a fork and add it only to the butter-sugar mixture as this is no longer really hot anymore, otherwise the egg solidifies immediately and you get pieces of egg in your cake. Pour it in gently and stir constantly. Put the pan back on the heat and continue to stir until completely incorporated.

4. Add 1 tablespoon caramel syrup while stirring.

5. Add dates, keep stirring and boil for 1 minute.

6. Then add the biscuits and walnuts and remove from heat. Stir until everything is mixed well.

7. Put the mixture into the quiche tray and press it flat with a spoon. The cake should be 1 ½ cm  thick. Make sure everything is evenly distributed.
Let cool about 1 ½ hours in the refrigerator before you cut it in pieces.

8. Sprinkle the cake with coconut flakes before serving.

Easy to make 1 to 2 days in advance; keep in refrigerator.

Change of plans & Nutella cookies

It's almost unbelievable how fast things can change. One minute you're busy in the kitchen with dinner party preparations and the next minute you're husband falls down the stairs and breaks his ankle.
That's what happened last weekend when I asked him to bring down my ice making machine. It turns out it's pretty risky to marry a crazy dutch foodie who want to make her own ice cream  ;).

After falling down the stairs...

As far as the ice maker; it was off course broken but the insurance company immediately compensated that.
My husband on the other hand had to undergo surgery and can't walk for at least 6 weeks :(.  After a few days I realized this was not only about my husband having a lot of pain and unable to walk. It also caused a change in a lot of other plans which I hadn't thought about before. We couldn't travel to the two Michelin star restaurant where we had a lunch reservation. But even worse; our planned trip to visit friends in Israel and spent a few days in the old city of Jerusalem in April  is probably not possible. My husband can't walk without crutches and this place was not exactly designed for the disabled  with all the narrow, cobble stoned streets ;).

And with my husband recovering at home it also meant  all of a sudden family, friends and colleagues came along to keep him company and were a welcome distraction for the pain.
So besides I had to do all the things at home all by myself now I also had to make sure all the visitors were 'entertained' with drinks and food. That combined with the fact I'm really busy writing my Bachelor thesis made me a bit stressed out and I decided to keep it simple. Well as 'simple' as a crazy foodie can be; I still refuse to get takeaway or microwave food. For me it's just cooking things that are easy to make and do not involve a lot of shopping for ingredients in different stores. 

So when my mother in law and her boyfriend came over I made lasagna the night before and served it with a green salad. For dessert I used the Doyenne du Comice pears, which I actually had intended to make ice from, in a crumble. My parents brought french fries and snacks with them and I made a tapenade with olives, sun dried tomatoes & Parmesan as an appetizer on toast. One day I heated up some leftover potatoes and sauerkraut-dish from the freezer and the day he came back home after the surgery we baked pizza's. 
And one afternoon, while my husband was talking to one of his visitors, I tried a recipe from Pinterest which was almost to easy to be true. 

It was a recipe for nutella cookies originally from the blog 'A Busy Nest' and someone who pinned it wrote a very clear instruction; DO NOT ADD SUGAR!
So I didn't and was amazed by the result; chewy chocolate cookies. A bit crispy on the edge and soft on the inside. And from start to finish it only took me about 15 minutes! Definitely the ideal recipe for unexpected visitors :). Meanwhile I found even more 'Nutella cookie' recipes on Pinterest with different additions like peanut butter or sea salt. Can't wait to try them all. In the meanwhile I safely stored them on my Pinterest board 'recipes to try'.

You can find the recipe through the blog link above; just leave out the sugar. They are sweet and tasty enough. Here I 'translated' the recipe to European measurements. For the Dutch version in PDF click here.

Nutella cookies

• 1 cup Nutella -> 200 grams
• 1 cup all-purpose flour -> 120 grams
• 1 egg (large)

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit/175 degrees Celsius. 
Blend all ingredients together well (I used a spoon first and then mixed it by hand).
Form into 2,5 centimeter balls (a bit smaller than golf balls).  
Place on cookie sheet & press down firmly with bottom of floured glass. 
Bake 7-8 minutes or until set (my oven needed a bit longer) and cool.

Even after a few days in a cookie jar they are still good!

Measuring cups to grams

New Years resolutions? Bake more cupcakes!

I’m not a big fan of New Years resolutions; they sound like some kind of obligation.  

And if you do not fulfill that obligation if feels like failing to yourself right?

But like anyone else I do have some hopes and wishes for 2013, here they are:

1)   Finally finish my Bachelor of Law degree (after 10 years !)

2)      Blog more regularly; at least once a month. That becomes more realistic when I don’t have to spent every free time to study.

3)      Roast a leg of lamb. I love lamb but for years now I’m a bit scared of preparing this big piece of meat. Will it fit in my oven? And when do I know it’s ready and not raw anymore? But this year I’m definitely going to give it a try.

4)      Travel to Australia. A long time favourite on my countries-I-would-love-visit-list.  Hope to spend this Christmas and New Year in the sun.

5)      Bake more (mini) cupcakes! I really love cupcakes and don’t believe any article or person that says the end of cupcake trend is way behind us. It’s not a trend; they are here to stay!

I started this year with wish number 5. Because my birthday is in January I decided to bake cupcakes for my colleagues and family. Normal cupcakes are pretty big and I sometimes find them difficult to eat. Especially with a big butter cream or cream cheese topping on it.

So instead of baking normal cupcakes I experimented with the baking times and made 3 times the amount of the regular sized by using a cupcake tray for little cupcakes.

This gave everyone the chance to try different flavours and it was a big hit.

I used recipes from the cookbook ‘Rudolph’s Cupcakes’ by a famous Dutch pastry chef; Rudolph van Veen. He is one of only two persons in the Netherlands that earned the title ‘Master Patissier’. 
And just like me he is a big fan of cupcakes!  But even better; his recipes are correct and written down for any amateur to make them.

This is the one I liked most, Rudolph calls them ‘Bombay Boogie’ cupcakes.  
They are deliciously fresh and fruity. And the sugared cashew nuts are a nice crunchy extra.

I made about 36 mini cupcakes from this recipe; using a mini cupcake tray for baking and mini cupcake papers.

Missing ingredient: flour 

Cupcakes ready in the oven

For the Dutch readers; if you're interested in the Dutch version of the recipe click here or buy the book for this and more delicious cupcake recipes.

Bombay Boogie cupcakeYogurt- saffron cupcake with mango-passion cream topping

For 12 large cupcakes or 36 mini cupcakes

Ingredients yogurt saffron cupcakes:

• 1 gram of saffron threads or powder
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoons water
• 200 grams of flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder (7 grams)
• 230 grams of sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs (large ones)
• 200 grams Greek yogurt
• 180 grams of sunflower oil

Ingredients mango-passion cream:

• 250 grams of butter (at room temperature)
• 60 grams of icing sugar
• 250 grams of pastry cream made from 100 gram instant custard powder or instant custard (I used  it from the Jamin store which worked  great) created with 250 ml mango passion juice (store bought is fine, I used the freshly squeezed juice from AH supermarket ). Read the instructions on the package, sometimes the proportions slightly different

Ingredients sugared cashew nuts:

• 1 egg white
• 75 grams of sugar
• 150 grams cashew nuts (unsalted)

Additional: cupcake tray, paper cupcake tins, mixer

Cupcakes

Dissolve the saffron and turmeric in 2 tablespoons hot water. Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Sieve the flour and baking powder. Mix  in the sugar and salt. Mix in another bowl the saffron-turmeric mixture with the eggs, yogurt and sunflower oil. Add the two mixtures together and mix them up, low speed, until smooth. Mix the batter then another 10 seconds at the highest setting of the mixer. Set the cupcake papers in a cupcake tray and fill them three quarters full with the batter. Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes until if you make 12 large cupcakes and about 16 minutes if you make mini cupcakes. Every oven time may vary, always check if they are cooked by putting a skewer to stabbing. Does this come out dry then they are good.

Mango-passion cream

Add the softened butter with the sugar in the bowl of a food processor (Kitchenaid) or use a mixer and a bowl. Beat the butter at least 10 minutes of easy breezy.  Add the custard with mango passion juice gradually to the airy butter. Keep beating until well blended.

Sugared cashews

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Beat the egg whites with the sugar separately, mix the cashews through and arrange them on a baking sheet with parchment paper. Fry lightly browned and crispy in about 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Stir interim notes once thoroughly with a spoon. Let them cool down.

Garnish

Spoon the mango-passion cream in a pastry bag with a small cartel mouth and make a rosette/topping on the cupcakes. Garnish the cupcakes with candied cashews.

Storage
Because I had to bake them in advance I kept the cupcakes in a box outside the fridge and the cream in the pastry bag in the fridge for 1 day. Just finish them before serving, but make sure to get the cream out of the fridge in time to soften again!

If you want to keep them longer they are easy to store in the freezer. In that case garnish with the cream but keep the cashew nuts separately.

The result: perfect one-bite mini cupcakes