Tea Party in the Garden

The ritual of having tea has been important to me since I was a little girl. Many of my childhood afternoons were spent sitting around my grandmother’s dining room table, sipping milky tea and eating her delicious homemade treats. When she passed away many years ago, I was lucky enough to inherit some of her bone china tea cups which I cherish. Though I am still a daily tea drinker, I rarely have the occasion to break out all of my fancy things. With warm Spring weather (though unpredictable - we had to reschedule once due to rain) and an abundance flowers in our garden, it was the perfect excuse to have a tea party. I kept it small with 5 moms and their children and it was truly delightful afternoon of sipping tea and enjoying goodies. Many thanks to Becca of the fabulous Birthday Girl blog who designed the invites & menus, crafted the cute faux fire and helped out with the styling and Sherry Heck for taking all of the beautiful photos.







Menu:
Tea sandwiches: curried chicken, egg salad, cucumber, caramelized onion & goat cheese, and peanut butter & jam
Sweets: Scones with homemade jam & lemon curd, almond raspberry petit fours, lemon bars, strawberry mini cupcakes, white chocolate cupcakes, raspberry tartlets, meringues, vanilla bean shortbread cookies and mini donuts.










Regardless of the occasion, I love giving party favors. For the ladies, I created a crepe paper party crackers filled with a handcrafted rose ring and a mini Lollia hand cream. For the kiddos, I had a hard time narrowing it down, so they got three - a handmade heart glitter wand, a sparrow ribbon necklace and a small candy bag.






I tried to use mostly things that I already owned for this party, but I did splurge on a few new things...

Vintage tea pots (I was surprisingly lacking!): Home 101, Berkeley
Paper straws, pink milk glass cake stand, glassine bags: Shop Sweet Lulu
Flower fabric for tablecloths: Sew, Mama, Sew!
Drink dispenser: HomeGoods

Many thanks again to Sherry and Becca for all of their help!

Fabulous Forty

I was asked to make this cake for my client, Emily's 40th birthday. A big birthday definitely deserves a big cake! The top and botton tiers were chocolate agave cake filled with bittersweet ganache, the middle layer was white cake filled with raspberry/rhubarb preserves and vanilla bean buttercream.

(I'm planning on a update to my little blog soon and trying out larger images. I hope it doesn't look too weird in the meantime!)

You put the lime in the coconut...

I recently created a variety of citrus treats for a lovely dessert table styled by Becca of Birthday Girl. Becca did an amazing job creating the adorable graphics & pulling the table together with simple flowers & fresh lemons. The treats included orange-vanilla bean mini cupcakes, lemon raspberry cupcakes, meyer lemon bars, blood orange meringue tartlets & coconut-lime sandwich cookies. The sleeper hit of the night was definitely the cookies. I have to admit, they were kind of a pain to make. The dough is super soft & required a ton of flour and patience when rolling them out. I skipped the step of freezing the dough before cutting them out and I don't recommend it. That being said, the result was really delicious. The cookies stay soft and chewy and the filling was super limey and refreshing. I might tinker with the recipe to make the dough a little easier to deal with, but they are definitely a keeper!


Coconut Lime Sandwich Cookies ( adapted from Martha Stewart)
Makes 24 or more sandwich cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutter. I used a 1" cutter.

1 cup AP flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
7 ozs. sweetened coconut ( about 1 1/2 cups)

Filling:
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tbsp. butter, softened
2 tsp. lime zest
2 tbsp. lime juice
Cookies:
1. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
2. Put butter and granulated sugar into a mixer bowl and beat in medium high speed til pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
3. Mix in the egg and vanilla.
4. Reduce speed to low and gradually mix in the flour mixture.
5. Stir in the coconut.
6. Shape dough into 2 discs and wrap each in plastic. Refridgerate until cold, about 30 minutes.
7. Preheat oven to 350 and get parchment lined baking sheets ready.
8. Take the discs out of the fridge and roll each out to 1/4" thickness, then pop them into the freezer for about 20 minutes. Then take them out of the freezer and cut out your shapes and pop them back into the freezer for another few minutes to firm up.
9. Place them onto your baking sheet and bake approximately 12 minutes, or til the edges are golden.
10. Cool completely on sheets on wire racks.
11. Fill cookies when cooled.
Filling:
Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl and place about one tablespoonful onto one cookie and top with another.
Store cookies in the fridge in an airtight container.

The perfect party

My weekend was a bit of a let down after having to postpone a tea party that I have been planning with Birthday Girl and fabulous photographer, Sherry Heck due to rain that would just not go away. My little Graham knew that I was disappointed and was determined that the party should go on. While I was away at work Monday, he enlisted my husband's help and orchestrated a tea party of his own in honor of my birthday (a few days early). They baked & decorated a delicious cake (my favorite touch is the raw lemon slices of the outside), made yummy finger sandwiches, and brewed my best-loved tea. Graham invited some friends (Alice, Raggedy Ann, and Rosetta to name a few), set the table and added some lovely flowers from the garden to complete the look. When I arrived home he was so excited and proud of what he had created and I was blown away by the amount of thought and effort that he had put in (long attention span is not usually one of his strong points!).
I often wonder if he will remember the months-of-planning birthday parties that I have thrown for him, but I don't think they will ever be more perfect or more unforgetable than the sweet party he planned for me.

My (enormous) ruffle cake

I've admired Martha's ruffle cake forever and after seeing it pop up at parties around the blogesphere, I knew I had to try it. We hosted a birthday party for my mother-in-law this weekend so it was the perfect time to give it a shot. I found this video and being a very visual learner, it was extremely helpful. I doubled my cake recipe and made 3 1 1/2 9" layers. I started out with a doubled recipe of Swiss meringue buttercream and ran out with about 1/4 of the cake and the top unfrosted. A third batch (of not quite matching pink buttercream) did the trick.
This cake definitely gives you a big bang for your buck! The method is really simple and quick and the finished product is quite impressive. I decorated it directly on my cake stand which I think was a smart move. I can't imagine trying to transfer the cake once it was piped with pounds of frosting. If I made it again, I would definitely use a smaller tip (I used 121 petal tip) because the amount of frosting was ridiculous - adding about 3" in diameter to this already massive cake.