Tea Time

This is my one-year anniversary of this food-blog.  Faithfully each week I've brought you some interesting and tasty dishes from my cuisine.  I hope you've enjoyed my offerings.

For a variety of reasons, including the season finale of Downton Abbey Season 5 this week, Sally wanted to host a Cream Tea for some of our English and Anglophile friends. So yours truly got to work finding ingredients and recipes. Here's the menu we served at 3 PM on Saturday:

Sandwiches

Cold Devil Chicken Mayonnaise

Smoked Salmon

Classic Cucumber

Blueberry Cream Scones

Crumpets

Rich Tea Biscuits

English Teas

Taylor's Yorkshire, PG Tips Decaf

Accompaniments

Fresh Butter, Strawberry Jam, Lemon Curd

Double Devonshire Cream, Cream and Milk

Tea Sandwiches

Rule #1 -- cut the crusts off after you make the sandwiches, otherwise you won't have filled edges.

Rule #2 -- in America use Pepperidge Farms Original White bread. It's properly thin sliced.

Rule #3 -- let the bread sit out for a few hours to 'harden' slightly - makes it much easier to slice.

Rule #4 -- cut into wedges not squares.

Cold Devil Chicken Mayonnaise 

Any dish called "devil" something-or-other is spicy. This is a cold or room temperature dish.  In England, chicken or tuna "mayonnaise" is what we Yanks call 'salad' -- tuna salad, etc.

Cooked Chicken, minced

Tartar Sauce

Celery

Splash of Hot Sauce

I cheated -- instead of a splash of hot sauce, half of the chicken I got from my megamart deli was 'chipotle spiced' to give the dish a kick. The other half was ordinary rotisserie chicken. I bought thick slices of chicken and then diced it extra fine, along with the celery. The Tartar sauce adds a nice touch.

Smoked Salmon 

Use the 'nova', 'Scottish' or 'lox' type smoked salmon, not the dry smoked type from the Pacific Northwest. The dill-butter comes in handy for a lot of things, including vegetables.

1 stick unsalted Butter, softened

1 tsp Chives, minced

1 Tbsp fresh Dill, minced

1 tsp lemon juice

8 oz soft smoked Salmon, thin sliced

Stir together the chives, dill, lemon juice and softened until well combined. Return to the fridge to harden, before using.

Classic Cucumber 

Unsalted Butter, softened

English (not American) Cucumber

Peel the cucumber, cut into thin rounds. Place rounds on paper towels to help remove some of the liquid before making the sandwiches. Butter and a single layer of cucumber. Simple. Surprisingly tasty, if you've never tried them.

Tea Sandwiches -- Top:  Cucumber; Left: Cold Devil Chicken; Right:  Salmon

Crumpets

I'd made crumpets before, but my previous recipe was just OK. Crumpets are very tasty griddle-breads. Similar to, but not the same as, an English muffin, crumpets have more of a yeasty taste. IMHO they're worth the effort to make a couple times a year, anyway. 

 Making the batter and cooking a batch of a dozen or so crumpets takes about 3 hours. The following recipe works really well, and makes about a dozen 3" egg-ring crumpets. 

1 lb AP flour (unbleached), sifted

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 pkt fast-rising active dry yeast

1/2 pint warm milk

1/2 pint warm water

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Put the flour and salt into a large bowl and stir in the sugar and yeast. Make a well in the center. Pour in the warm milk and water, and mix to create a thick batter. Beat well until completely combined and then cover with a towel or cling film.

Leave the batter in a warm place to rise for an hour until it's a light, spongy texture. I like to use the microwave, it cuts down on drafts as well as keeps things at a decent temp.

After the hour of rise, stir the batter well to knock out any air. Yep, sounds crazy, but it works. Now add the baking soda, mstir again, and allow to rise for a further 30-45 minutes.

Heat a non-stick frying pan, or griddle, over a very low heat (325F) with a wipe of oil or butter. Wipe with a paper towel to remove excess oil/butter. Sit the greased crumpet rings in the pan, and leave them to heat up for a couple of minutes.

Pour in enough mixture to fill the rings almost to the top of the 3" egg rings I used, rather than purpose-made crumpet rings. It took a bit less than 1/4 cup of batter per ring.

You could also use rings cut from tuna cans or something similar, but a set of egg rings is pretty inexpensive, and you can find them in your megamart kitchenware section.

The batter will rise a bit during cooking, and you want the crumpets to finish about 3/4" thick. Let them cook until lots of small holes appear on the surface, and the batter has just dried out (like a pancake). This takes 10-12 minutes. Don't hurry...

Remove the rings and turn the crumpets over to cook for an additional 10 minutes on the other side. Low and slow.... remember? Sit the first batch of crumpets on a wire rack and continue cooking the remaining batter. While a batch are cooking, cover the batter and return it to the microwave. That way you'll get a bit more rise.

Serve crumpets warm, generously buttered. If you make crumpets in advance, reheat them in the toaster on low for a minute or so.

Leftover Crumpet slathered with butter makes a great breakfast!

Clotted Cream

Clotted cream is the essential ingredient for a Cream Tea.

I looked all over Fort Myers (Publix, Winn Dixie, Fresh Market) and I ended up buying Double Devon Cream, which my English friends tell me is clotted cream made in Devon, while 'real' clotted cream is made in Wales. Go figure!  If you live near a Whole Foods, they may carry 'real' Clotted Cream.

This 'cream' is really interesting.  And very tasty.  Not sweet.  Rich, almost like butter.  Considerably stiffer than whipped cream. Nearly as thick as whipped sour cream (but not sour).  Do yourself a favor and hunt down some of this stuff.  A dollop on a scone is heavenly.

Alton's Cold-Clotted Cream

Normally clotted cream is created by slow-baking a pan of heavy cream for 6 hours!!! Alton Brown's 'cold-made' recipe would be great -- if you could find ordinary pasteurized cream. All I could find, anywhere in town was ultra-pasteurized, which will not work! Yields 1 cup.

2 cups pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) cream

Set a coffee filter basket, lined with a filter, in a strainer, over a bowl. Pour the cream almost to the top of the filter. Refrigerate for 2 hours. The whey will sink to the bottom passing through the filter leaving a ring of clotted cream. Scrape this down with a rubber spatula and repeat every couple of hours until the mass reaches the consistency of soft cream cheese.

Welsh Skillet Scones

This quick and easy recipe has become my standard scone, made by 'dry frying' in a skillet or griddle, rather than baking. Substitute Zante currents (the original version), raisins, cherries, etc. Makes about 18 wedges.

2 cups AP flour

1/3 cup Sugar

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1/2 cup Vegetable Shortening

4 Tbsp cold unsalted Butter, cut up

1 Egg

1/3 cup Milk

3/4 cup Blueberries, Zante Currants, Golden Raisins, Craisins, or any combination.

Set your griddle or skillet to 325F or med-low. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt & nutmeg. Add the shortening and butter and cut into fine granules (I use my fingers rather than a pastry cutter). Add the fruit. Beat the egg and milk to combine. Pour liquid into the flour mix and stir with a fork to make a soft dough. Turn out on a floured surface and give it 10-12 kneads. Cut into thirds. Roll each third into a 6" circle and cut into 6 wedges. Cook uncovered, 3-5 minutes per side, turning once, until GBD.  As you can see, I used blueberries for these traditional Tea treats.

Leftover Scone with a dollop of Clotted Cream makes a rich 'morning after' breakfast treat.

Sally's table setting using some of her Edwardian? era china brought from England in days gone by.

Rich Tea Biscuits

These are biscuits in the Cookie sense, not the Southern Buttermilk sense.  Crisp, mildly sweet, vanilla-ish.  Can be found in the British section of your mega-mart ethic foods.