Cheese Straws

These are really easy to make and are a great addition to an afternoon tea table or as a snack for a film night. They don’t take long to prepare or bake but the mixture does need to be chilled for 30 minutes, so you can time them around making other things.

Ingredients:

115g plain flour, plus extra

Pinch of salt

1 tsp curry powder

55g butter, plus extra

55g grated cheddar

2 tbsp grated parmesane

1 egg, lightly beaten

poppy seeds for sprinkling

Sift the flour, salt and curry powder into a bowl. Add the butter and rub it in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add all of the cheese and half of the egg and mix to form a dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 6. Grease and line a large baking tin.

When the mixture has chilled turn it out onto a floured work surface and roll out to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 3 inch by 1/2 inch strips and lay on the baking sheet. Brush the strips with the remaining egg and sprinkle with the poppy seeds. Place in the centre of the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the tin and then transfer to a wire rack.

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Cheese and Pancetta Scones

I love making these scones. I like to have a batch on a covered cake stand on the dining table, so that my husband has something interesting to eat for lunch whilst I’m at work. They’re quick to make and it’s an easy recipe to adapt to suit your tastes. Great for picnics, packed lunches or as part of an afternoon tea!

This recipe makes approximately 6 decent sized scones.

Ingredients:

225g Self-raising flour

Pinch of salt

55g Butter or Margarine

175ml Milk

50g Mature Cheddar

1tsp Wholegrain Mustard

100g fried pancetta or bacon lardons

Preheat the oven to gas mark 7. Line and grease a medium sized baking tray.

Mix together the salt, flour and butter in a large bowl. Add the milk a small amount at a time and mix in. Add the cheese, mustard and pancetta. Mix well.

Believe it or not, that’s the mixture done! I like to end up with a fairly moist mixture, so you may want to add a little more milk. You can add pretty much any cheese to these that you want, something gooey like Brie or Dolcelatte works really well and parmesane gives great flavour, so pick, mix and experiment as you go!  If you want a veggie option you can obviously just omit the pancetta.

As this recipe gives quite a sticky mixture, you can’t use a cutter to shape them as you would normally do with scones. I usually use my hands to make 6 balls and space them out on the baking tray. You can brush them with milk or egg if you want to but I don’t find it necessary.

Bake for approximately 12-15 minutes on gas mark 7 and then check them with a skewer to make sure they’re cooked through. These are great served whilst still warm or you can wait for them to cool. I like to serve mine with red onion marmalade. To be honest I’ll eat most things with red onion marmalade!

I’m sure some people would argue that the end result can’t actually be called a scone, they do look more like a savoury rock cake, but hey ho. Enjoy!

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Ladies that lunch

Ladies that lunch

have tea by the pot

cakes and sandwiches

in their best pressed frocks,

Ladies that lunch

on salad they munch

with vinegar to dress

and croutons to crunch,

Ladies that lunch

converse through brunch

with flowers on the table

in vases by the bunch.

Time for tea

A lovely shape in best bone china

this pretty pattern could not be finer,

flowers in every colour and shape

a pot of loose leaf tea to make,

a dainty spoon to stir in

a heart shaped sugar lump from the tin,

a cosy cover to keep it warm

a cup on every waking morn,

toast with jam or biscuits to eat

a little white napkin to keep you neat,

boil the kettle to top up the pot

it’s best taken whilst it’s hot.

Teacups and tea cosies!

We went to a Vintage fair on Bank Holiday Monday and I took the opportunity to stock up on some household essentials.

Teacups, teapots and side plates are quite common in charity shops but it can be difficult to find the right pattern to suit your home and your tastes. I prefer not to try and find entire sets, not just because of the rarity of a complete sets, but because it’s easier to replace odd teacups after breakages, than it is to try and find one to fit into a set. It also means that you can be a bit more creative with table decorations.

My purchases…

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I bought two of these pretty purple teacups and saucers.

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A lovely blue patterned set of two teacups, three side plates and two bowls.

A wonderful white work tea cosy.

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Two delightful glass bottles. Both missing corks but they’re easy enough to find. One is an old fashioned medicine bottle.

The Little Stain Upon my Dress

   It happened on Tuesday afternoon

   I fumbled and I dropped the spoon

   The tea it dripped and stained my dress

   A tiny drop, no more no less

   With soap nor water, I have no doubt

   This little stain will not come out

I suppose I’ll just make do and mend

I’ll cover up the drop of my Afternoon Blend.

Bari Tea

My husband and I went on honeymoon to Alnwick in Northumbria. On our last day we checked out of the Hotel reasonably early and wanted somewhere to while away some time until our train home. We had intended to visit Bari Tea before we left and so wondered down to take a look.

Bari means ‘lovely’ in Northumberland; but it doesn’t quite cover what we found. I think the best word to describe this little tea brewery  would be ‘delightful’. It specialises in loose leaf tea with over thirty different kinds to choose from.

We walked in just after opening and spent nearly four hours at a table in the window next to a warm, cosy fireplace. We started off with a pot of loose leaf tea each; I had breakfast tea, my husband the Gyokuro (a Green tea of Japanese origin.)  A short while later we ordered some cheese scones with red onion marmalade and I have to say, I’ve never tasted better. The scones were lovely and moist and the onion marmalade had plenty of flavour without being too strong.

As you can see from the above photo, there are small sample jars of each tea on little shelves on the wall, allowing you to look at and smell all the different teas before you decide which to try.

I ordered some soup around lunch time and had the last portion of Sweet Potato and Cinnamon from the day before, served with bread and butter. It was delicious! Suffice it to say I was rather full at this point. But we still managed a slice of cake and another pot of tea each. I tried the Afternoon Tea, whilst my husband went for the Duchess Grey, which smelt absolutely amazing.

Even though we were in the shop for so long, we never felt that we’d outstayed our welcome. The Maître t’ Caroline is an amazing woman and all the staff are really friendly and welcoming. After buying some bags of tea and other tea paraphernalia to take home we made our way to the train station in Alnmouth.

It was a great way to spend the last day of our honeymoon. You can order tea and other bits and bobs from the Bari Tea website, I’d definitely recommend the Afternoon Blend!

http://www.baritea.co.uk/

If you’re ever in, (or near!) Alnwick, this is definitely somewhere worth visiting!