The Kidlet has been reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at school. Early in the book, one of the characters meets a fawn and he invites her home for tea. The homework explained that in the UK "tea" can refer to both the drink and a meal. In the book, Mr. Tumnus (the fawn) served soft-boiled eggs and sardines on toast for tea. The homework invites students to have their own tea and gives instructions for how to brew a pot of tea along with recipes for scones and suggests that tea could include these things as well as finger sandwiches, fruit tarts, cookies, and/or cakes.

This scone recipe is a bit different than other scones I've made. They were much enjoyed, but I feel like the recipe was written by someone who had heard of scones but never actually had one. The write-up describes scones as a cross between a cookie and a muffin!
The recipe contains both more butter and more sugar than I'd normally expect for a scone. And no leavener! Like I said, they were still quite good (probably on account of all the butter and sugar), just very unusual.

I've also never heard of flipping scones halfway through baking before.

Oddness aside though, it was a really fun activity! We made the "scones" along with some rooibos tea and cucumber finger sandwiches. And we had a few biscuits in the pantry already, so we added those to the spread too.

It went over very well and the Kidlet was effusive with her praise of the meal. (As she so often is.)

Afternoon Tea

Tea

Ingredients

• 1 teabag per cup of water
• enough boiling water to fill your teapot (or to fill everyone's mugs)
• milk, to serve
• sugar, to serve
• lemon, to serve
• honey, to serve

Directions

1. Place 3 or 4 teabags in your teapot (or one teabag in each mug).
2. Pour boiling water to fill up the teapot or mugs.
3. Steep for 3-5 minutes depending on what kind of tea you're making and how strong you like your tea.
4. If using a teapot, pour the tea into teacups and serve with milk, lemon, sugar, and/or honey according to your taste.

English Scones

This is the recipe from the homework. I've also had good success with the Edmonds scone recipe (which is more in line with what I think of as a scone). Use whichever one you prefer.

Ingredients

Dough

• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 2/3 c. sugar
• 113g butter
• 1/4 c. shortening¹
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 c. raisins or dried currants²
• milk, as needed

Topping

• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp. sugar

Directions

1. Mix all the dough ingredients together by hand.
2. If the dough won't come together, add milk, a little at a time, until it does. ("A little at a time" means no more than 1 Tbsp. in a go.)
3. Pat the dough into a flat disc about 1.5cm thick.
4. Cut out circles with a cookie or biscuit cutter. You can make them whatever size you like. I think ours were ~5 or 6cm across.
5. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and bake your scoens for 8-10 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet.
6. After 8-10 minutes of baking, flip the scones over and brush the tops with some beaten egg, then sprinkle with sugar.
7. Return to oven and bake for another 8-10 minutes.
8. Allow to cool completely, then serve either plain or with butter. (Or clotted cream and jam if you want to be really British!)

Finger Sandwiches

Rather than offering a recipe here, I've just given a few suggestions for different types of sandwiches you could offer.

• cucumber (with mayo and/or cream cheese)
• egg salad
• tuna salad
• salmon salad
• ham & swiss
• peanut butter & jam
• tomato & cheddar
• turkey, cheddar, & apple
• chicken pesto (with tomato & mozzarella)
• salami & artichoke
• deviled ham (with gherkins)
• prosciutto & brie (possibly with fig jam and/or sliced pear)
• roast beef & horseradish (possibly with watercress)
• strawberry & cream cheese
• coronation chicken

Hard- or Soft-Cooked Eggs

Ingredients

• 1/2 to 1 egg per person
• salt and pepper, to serve
• mayonnaise, to serve
• toast, to serve

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
2. Carefully place eggs into boiling water. Cook eggs 3-4 minutes for soft-boiled, 11-13 minutes for hard-boiled. 6-8 minutes should give you a nice "medium" egg with set whites and a jammy yolk. (Exactly how long you need for each level of doneness will depend on the size of your eggs.)
3. Soft-boiled eggs should be served immediately. Serve with buttered toast and salt and pepper.
4. Hard-boiled eggs should be plunged into cold water until cool enough to handle, then peeled. Serve with salt and pepper and/or mayo. Paprika or curry powder can also be a nice addition.

Other Possible Inclusions

• mini quiches
• madeleines
• fresh fruit (esp. strawberries)
• fruit tarts
• pickles
• sardines
• crumpets

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¹ I didn't have any shortening handy when we were making this, so I just used lard. The two should be largely interchangeable in most recipes. Just keep in mind that if you use lard, the recipe is no longer vegetarian. They both work fine from a baking perspective though. ^Back
2 The original recipe just called for raisins here, but the Kidlet isn't really a big fan of them. She does, however, love dried currants, so we used those instead. I like both, but I think the currants were nicer here and, to me at least, they made it feel a little more "British". ^Back