How to Create your Own Afternoon Tea

How to Create your Own Afternoon Tea

My daughters and I are rather partial to afternoon tea! We’ve had so many wonderful afternoon teas at some fabulous establishments. Our favourites were Poppins Tea Rooms at Smithills, Bolton as well as Richmond Tea Rooms, Manchester. If you’re in London, Afternoon Tea at Harrods is the perfect treat. I’ve always wanted to re-create these experiences at home and make our very own afternoon tea.

The weekend was a wet and windy one and I decided to do something creative indoors. Taking inspiration from our fabulous experiences of afternoon tea at the above tea rooms, Aurelia and I decided to create our own afternoon tea at home.

I’m pleased to report that this experiment worked rather well. Our afternoon tea was extremely cheap to create (perfect for those looking for afternoon tea on a budget). Furthermore, it was a great way to spend the day.

Fortunately, Aurelia and I share a passion for baking. We love trying out new recipes and creating some of our own. Baking is definitely time well spent together!

Here is how we created our very own afternoon tea!

Create Your Own Afternoon Tea

Baking

As noted above, we both love to bake. Despite the messiness of the kitchen following our baking sessions, we always have so much fun!

Aurelia chose the cakes she would like to bake, we made scones, shortbread and cookies. I’ve included the recipes below:

Scones

Ingredients:

350g Self-raising Flour

85g Butter (softened)

170ml Milk

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

A Pinch of Salt

1 Egg (beaten) for glazing

Method:

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180 ˚.
  • Into a mixing bowl add the flour, baking powder, butter and salt to a bowl and then mix.
  • Rub the mixture together with your fingers to create crumbs.
  • Next, add the milk and vanilla extract and then stir. The mixture should be a dough-like substance. (Dried fruit or sultanas can be added at this stage, however, we prefer plain scones).
  • Spread the mixture onto a well-floured surface.
  • Roll out the mixture and then create circular shaped scones either using your hands or a cookie cutter.
  • Place the scones onto a baking tray covered with baking paper and then glaze with the beaten egg.
  • Bake in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Cookies

Ingredients:

225g Self-raising Flour

125g Butter (softened)

125g Caster Sugar

100g Sugar (I prefer to use demerara but you can also use white).

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Egg

Method:

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180˚.
  • Add sugars, butter and egg to a bowl and mix.
  • Then combine the flour and vanilla extract with the mixture and stir until the mixture is sticky.
  • Roll out the mixture onto a well-floured surface.
  • Using a cookie cutter create small cookies. Note: the cookies will expand in the oven.
  • Place the cookies onto a baking tray spaced well giving enough room for the cookies to expand.
  • Bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Shortbread

Ingredients:

180g Plain Flour

55g Caster Sugar

125g Butter (softened)

Method:

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180˚
  • Add the ingredients to a mixing bowl and stir.
  • Roll out the mixture onto a well-floured surface.
  • Using a cookie cutter, create biscuits approximately 1cm deep.
  • Place the biscuits onto a baking tray.
  • Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes (check regularly to ensure they don’t burn).

Decoration

Aurelia really wanted to decorate something, (anything) with icing. Using purple and red icing, she created something wonderful and unique!

She completed her creation with sprinkles! The icing and sprinkles were all purchased from Home Bargains. The icing and sprinkles cost less than £3.00!

Enjoying our Afternoon Tea

No afternoon tea would be complete without a tea stand. Again we raided Home Bargains for a bargain! I picked up this beautiful tea stand for £1.89. Made from cardboard, it was easy to assemble. Once we had finished, I disassembled the stand so we can use it again!

Months ago, my Grandfather gave Aurelia some cups, saucers and plates which belonged to his mother. This was the perfect opportunity to use them! (The owl teapot is my own quirky addition).

Aurelia placed all of her baking goodies onto the tea stand alongside some sausage rolls. She was extremely proud of what we had created.

Creating our very own afternoon tea was a great experience. It was time well spent together. Plus we had some delicious treats, the tasty fruits of our labours!

Follow:

16 Comments

  1. Blueforever
    June 10, 2019 / 12:26 pm

    That looks so nice and what a great way to spend a rainy day indoors

    • Lellalee
      Author
      June 11, 2019 / 9:10 am

      Thank you xxx

  2. Nancy
    June 11, 2019 / 2:56 am

    I love that you made your own afternoon tea! It is so much cheaper and you still get to enjoy it in the comfort of your own home. I love that this is also a perfect opportunity to bond with your daughters!

    Nancy ♥

    • Lellalee
      Author
      June 11, 2019 / 9:14 am

      Thank you Nancy – it was a lovely experience xxx

  3. June 11, 2019 / 9:02 am

    I HAVE to try to bake the scones and shortbread. I tried scones before but they ended up a but flat but yours look so beautiful.

    • Lellalee
      Author
      June 11, 2019 / 9:13 am

      Thank you lovely – they were really tasty too xxx

  4. Kim
    June 25, 2019 / 11:59 am

    Oh, I love this. What a lovely rainy day activity. It’s been ages since I’ve done any baking(!) but I’m going to try your Scone recipe (with free from butter and milk of course), see how they turn out.

    • Lellalee
      Author
      July 2, 2019 / 9:33 pm

      I hope they turned out well Kim xxx

  5. Kelly Diane
    March 29, 2020 / 8:24 pm

    This is such a lovely idea. It’s great that you got to spend some time together being creative

  6. March 30, 2020 / 3:04 pm

    Aw, this is such a sweet post! I did some baking with Flora at the weekend too but we only baked one type of muffin, we didn’t think about creating a proper afternoon tea. Something we’ll have to correct the next time – lovely post, thank you for sharing! x

    • Lellalee
      Author
      April 1, 2020 / 10:39 am

      Thank you Lisa xxx

  7. March 30, 2020 / 3:36 pm

    Aww, this is so cute!! Thank you for sharing. Definitely a great idea to spend the day with the kids, especially during rainy days.

    xoxo Olivia | http://www.oliviaandbeauty.com

  8. Ashleigh
    March 30, 2020 / 5:49 pm

    Oh wow! I love that you made it all yourself it looks lovely! I am also patial to an afternoon tea and I cannot wait for my little lady to be old enough to join me! What a lovely little idea!

    Ashleigh –

    • Lellalee
      Author
      April 1, 2020 / 10:20 am

      Thank you lovely xxx

Leave a Reply