How to prepare and serve the perfect afternoon tea in collaboration with Chequers Antiques in Petworth...
With summer here and Wimbledon upon us, I thought now would be the perfect time to show you how I prepare and serve one of my absolute favourites, afternoon tea.
First and foremost, a few rules in afternoon tea etiquette;
Tea first then milk
Only stir in a back-and-forth motion from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock
Never stick out your little finger
Never dunk!
Put your sandwich down on the plate between bites
Never use your knife to cut a scone, break it like you would a bread roll.
And now for a little history lesson. Anna Russell 7th Duchess of Bedford started the trend of Afternoon tea in 1840 as she felt it was too long to wait between lunch and dinner. Thank you, Anna.
Let’s start with my 3 favourite sandwiches, super easy and take just moments to make. All quantities here are what I use to make afternoon tea for two, but you can adjust as necessary.
Egg Mayonnaise Sandwiches
Start by boiling two eggs - I like to wait for the water to boil and then set the eggs in for 6 minutes. This ensures the yolk is set, but not too hard.
Once cool enough, remove the shells.
Grab some kitchen scissors to chop up the eggs - this is so you still get good ample pieces of egg in the sandwiches, but not huge lumps.
Add one tablespoon or so of mayonnaise, depending on your personal preference.
Scrunch and scatter in some sea salt - I absolutely love Malden Sea Salt, followed by some black pepper to taste.
Give it a good mix.
Lay your slices of white bread down on the board and spread salted butter over both sides lightly and evenly. I recommend removing your butter from the fridge a little while prior to making your sandwiches, to ensure it is soft enough to spread easily and evenly.
Spoon your egg onto the bottom slice and even out.
Pop on the top slice.
Now I always, always remove the crusts of sandwiches - afternoon tea should be elegant and crusts are certainly not that! They are also quite chewy. Afternoon tea should look pretty and sophisticated, so off with the crusts.
Now cut the sandwiches up into such a size that they are easy enough to eat with one hand.
Do be mindful of your filling amounts so you don’t lose it all out of the sides upon slicing! If some of it does escape, just gently pop it back in with your knife after cutting.
Cucumber Sandwiches
The trick with these is to not make them too far in advance or you’ll end up with soggy bread.
Now, people can be opinionated on how they like their cucumber sandwiches but I have always found this way to be a winner.
Peel the cucumber and thinly slice.
Some people add a little salt at this point - but I find if you do it takes out all of the moisture of the cucumber, so I substitute that by using my salted butter on the bread.
Grab your slices of white bread.
Add your delicate layer of salted butter to both sides.
Lay the cucumber in a lovely thin layer - you don’t want big chunks of cucumber in these sandwiches.
Pop the top on and cut off all crusts as before and cut to the same finger-food size.
Smoked Salmon Sandwiches
Start with two slices of brown bread. Brown bread works especially well with salmon.
Apply your salted butter to just one slice, and apply creme fraiche to the other. Creme fraiche has lovely complementary flavour with the salmon.
Lay your smoked salmon onto the bread, and use your pair of kitchen scissors to cut any overlapping pieces or slices of smoked salmon that are too large to size.
You can also use these scissors to cut away any of the occasional tough parts of salmon found at the bottom.
Squeeze over fresh lemon juice, just a little so that you don’t have soggy sandwiches.
Add a little bit of black pepper to taste.
Pop the sandwich lid on, remove the crusts and cut up as before.
At this point, if you’ve worked a little in advance, wrap the sandwiches up so they don’t dry out and pop into the fridge.
I use Covermates to keep my prepared food fresh - they are stretch-to-fit food covers. You simply plate up your food and cover with one of those - they are a lot like shower caps! They’re also reusable so a great alternative to using cling film and throwing away unnecessary plastic.
Serving the tea
As you can see from the video and photos I have two beautiful teapots.
Teapots tend to be shorter and stouter than the more elegant coffee pot. If you were to use both, you could serve tea from China in one and perhaps a tea from India in another. For the purpose of this blog post, I will be using just one teapot and tea from Fortnum & Masons.
It is very important to warm the pot. Pour boiling water into the teapot, close the top and give it a careful swirl, then pour away once suitably warmed. This will keep your tea warmer for longer.
Pop two teaspoons of tea leaves into your teapot. For the amount of tea to use, you always work on the number of guests is the number of teaspoons you put in.
Pour boiling water over your tea leaves.
Close the lid and let the tea brew for 5 minutes.
After brewing time, place a tea strainer into the cup you wish to drink from. This is to collect all of the tea leaves as you pour, nobody wants tea leaves floating around in their tea!
Add your desired milk.
Give it a stir. The correct way to stir tea is using a forward and backward motion, not round and round in circles.
Afternoon tea would not be complete with some delicious scones!
Break scones with your fingers, not a knife.
In Devon, clotted cream is applied to the scone first, followed by the jam…the opposite in Cornwall!
Sit back and enjoy!!!
An almighty thank you to Chequers Antiques in Petworth who kindly loaned me the teacups and saucers, tea set and cake stand to style today’s Afternoon Tea - if you’ve fallen in love with any of the pieces (and I wouldn’t blame you!) do make sure you pop in to take a look next time you are in Petworth.
Love,