Have Your Cake and Tweet It: Tea Party Delights

While deciding which cake destinations to re-visit and review their latest offerings, I recently took part in a baking marathon preparing for my first ever tea party! I was lucky enough to find a lovely collection of vintage cups and saucers, tea pots and cake plates at recent village fetes, stumbled-upon antique shops and dusty drawers at home, which encouraged me to strive to create the perfect tea party...Suddenly the stock of 3 cake-stands I have doesn't seem quite so ridiculous, as I begin to worry if we will have enough plates to store my planned delicacies! I needn't have worried, thanks to Talking Tables' current vintage-inspired tea party paraphenalia, which provided me with a floral and lace patterned paper tablecloth, floral cake toppers and patterned platters to add to the genuine articles. Paper floral garlands and paper chains adorned the house, and my collection of flowers, corsages and brooches were dotted around to add extra prettiness...but now to the cakes...

I decided on 4 varieties of cupcake- Peaches and Cream, Rose, Vanilla and White Chocolate and Raspberry- icing with various pastel colours and decorating every single one individually with different sprinkles, flowers and glitter- just under 70 were made in the end!

I also made lavender meringues with home-grown lavender and a purple tint, petit fours and orange, vanilla and rose macaroons. These last two were the most challenging- fondant icing being the most frustrating to spread on each side of my sponge sandwich cubes, and macaroons due to trying a new recipe and having a more biscuit-like consistency. They looked how I had hoped, and next time I intend to create the perfect specimens! Adding to the collection, friends made the perfect two-tone brown and white cucumber sandwiches, Victoria Sponge, Lemon Drizzle, chocolate brownies, peanut butter fudge, rocky road and chocolate fudge as well as a few ready-made classics. After a lot of colour-coordinated cake arranging, the tea-table looked resplendent in its sparkly, sugary, floral beauty! Champagne and Bucks Fizz out of tea cups, with tea as an alternative, made all the guests feel even more decadent, and with the sun shining on our garden, it was the perfect combination.