It's Afternoon Tea, Dammit!
There is a restaurant that is ignominiously named The Ducks Nuts, to which I refused to go for years because the name made me angry.
However. One day I did go, whereupon it immediately became one of my favourites.
“Sorrel,” this experience seemed to say to me, “Sorrel: you should not judge a book by its title.”
This maxim brings me to the Australian Women’s Weekly book of High Tea. Now high tea is all well and good if that is, in fact, what one wants. But high tea is a hearty farmers' meal that has nothing at all to say to dainty cakes and finger-sized sandwiches and other such fripperies. And on closer inspection, the latter is what the Women’s Weekly is actually on about. In a sickeningly saccharine fashion. “High Tea,” they assert “is the dream cookbook for every girl.” Vomit.
Let us not be hasty, however, because the Women’s Weekly has a tradition of producing very good cookbooks. Their Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits is a winner, and a staple for Christmas baking in my household. Their Children’s Birthday Cake Book was favourite bedtime reading as I was growing up.
And. I had been looking for a book with recipes for afternoon tea-type desserts for a while, so despite its embarrassing title, High Tea looked rather promising. That is why I bought it, and though the title continues to grate, the book itself has proved its worth. I include below a recipe for
Cherry Bakewell Tarts
Preparation time 1hr; makes 24
Note 1 - measurements in Australian metric:
1 cup=250mL, 1tbsp=20mL; 1tsp=5mL
Note 2 - I wouldn't try this again in extreme summer without running the airconditioner; I had to keep returning the pastry to the fridge so that I could cut it out and transfer it without it melting.
Ingredients
90g butter
2tbsp caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup ground almonds
2 tbsp strawberry jam (I used plum)
12 red glace cherries, halved
almond filling
125g butter
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup ground almonds
2 tbsp plain flour
lemon glaze
1 cup icing sugar
~2tbsp lemon juice
Method
ETA: Some time after I bought this book, I discovered that there is also a UK edition available, which is much more satisfactorily entitled Afternoon Tea. So there you go
However. One day I did go, whereupon it immediately became one of my favourites.
“Sorrel,” this experience seemed to say to me, “Sorrel: you should not judge a book by its title.”
This maxim brings me to the Australian Women’s Weekly book of High Tea. Now high tea is all well and good if that is, in fact, what one wants. But high tea is a hearty farmers' meal that has nothing at all to say to dainty cakes and finger-sized sandwiches and other such fripperies. And on closer inspection, the latter is what the Women’s Weekly is actually on about. In a sickeningly saccharine fashion. “High Tea,” they assert “is the dream cookbook for every girl.” Vomit.
Let us not be hasty, however, because the Women’s Weekly has a tradition of producing very good cookbooks. Their Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits is a winner, and a staple for Christmas baking in my household. Their Children’s Birthday Cake Book was favourite bedtime reading as I was growing up.
And. I had been looking for a book with recipes for afternoon tea-type desserts for a while, so despite its embarrassing title, High Tea looked rather promising. That is why I bought it, and though the title continues to grate, the book itself has proved its worth. I include below a recipe for
Cherry Bakewell Tarts
Preparation time 1hr; makes 24
Note 1 - measurements in Australian metric:
1 cup=250mL, 1tbsp=20mL; 1tsp=5mL
Note 2 - I wouldn't try this again in extreme summer without running the airconditioner; I had to keep returning the pastry to the fridge so that I could cut it out and transfer it without it melting.
Ingredients
90g butter
2tbsp caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup ground almonds
2 tbsp strawberry jam (I used plum)
12 red glace cherries, halved
almond filling
125g butter
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup ground almonds
2 tbsp plain flour
lemon glaze
1 cup icing sugar
~2tbsp lemon juice
Method
- Beat butter, sugar and egg yolk in small bowl until combined. Stir in sifted flour and ground almonds in two batches. Turn dough onto floured surface, knead gently until smooth, wrap in plastic; refrigerate 30min
- Preheat oven 200degC
- Make almond filling: beat butter, rind and sugar in small bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in ground almonds and flour.
- Grease two 12-hole 30mL shallow round-based patty pans. Roll pastry between sheets of baking paper until 3mm thick. cut 24x6cm rounds and press into pans. Divide jam, then almond filling evenly into cases (about 2/3tsp jam); bake 20min. Stand 10min on a rack.
- Make lemon glaze: sift icing sugar into a small bowl, then stir in enough juice to make glaze pourable.
- Spoon glaze over tarts; top with cherries. Cool.
ETA: Some time after I bought this book, I discovered that there is also a UK edition available, which is much more satisfactorily entitled Afternoon Tea. So there you go