April: An Easter Tea
Menu
Beverages:
Darjeeling Tea
Chamomile Lemon Tea
Strawberry Lemonade
Savories:
Deviled Eggs with Asparagus Tips
Ham or Turkey Biscuit Sandwiches with Mustard Chutney
Swiss Chard and Gruyere Tarts
Green Goddess Spread with Watercress on Sliced Challah Loaf
Relish Platter: Baby vegetables, green olives, celery, baby dill pickles
Breads and Scones:
Hot Cross Buns
Basic Butter Scones with Double Cherry Variation and Mock Devonshire Cream
Sweets:
Thumbelina Panna Cottas with Raspberry Coulis
Golden Egg Cackles
Lemon Ring Cookies
Russian Tea Cakes (Mexican Wedding Cookies)
On the Pedestal: Coconut Cake with Lemon Filling and optional Candy Egg Decorations
Recipes Included:
Strawberry Lemonade
What could be more delightful for this celebration of renewal than fresh strawberries and fresh lemons? These early gifts of the season pair perfectly to create a beverage that is both simple and elegant. You can make this completely natural lemonade the day before your Easter tea and refrigerate it in the pitcher you will use to serve your guests.
Deviled Eggs
For our Easter menu, we will add barely cooked and chilled fresh asparagus tips to these delicious home made Deviled Eggs. If you wish, you can microwave the asparagus stems and serve them on the Relish Platter with the baby vegetables and the Green Goddess Spread. Make sure to trim off the tough ends of the stems.
Ham or Turkey Biscuit Sandwiches with Mustard Chutney
Make these memorable biscuit sandwiches for your Easter Tea by splitting a warm biscuit in two with your fingers, adding a spoonful of mustard chutney on the bottom, and piling slices of good quality ham or turkey, cut to the size of the biscuit or layered back and forth accordion style, on top. This Mustard Chutney, which you can make in advance, is really tasty, and if you know your guests will love it, add another spoonful on the underside of the biscuit top, and press the whole package together.
Mustard Chutney
This traditional chutney adds a little zip to ham and turkey. Served over the top of cream cheese, it makes a wonderful spread for crackers. It can be made well in advance, and if preserved in small glass canning jars, makes delicious party favors.
Join us for our Easter Tea, where the sacred intersects with the sensual pleasures of the springtime. Celebrate rebirth with a gathering of friends for an abundant tea party menu. Pastel spring greens and daffodil yellows set against snowy white crop up on the savory menu and carry on into the desserts. If you wish, bring in pinks and soft lavender hues with small Easter egg candies around the coconut cake. Jonquils, daffodils, and tulips make the perfect decorations.
Swiss Chard and Gruyere Tarts
This savory tart can be made ahead and brought to room temperature to serve or reheated and served warm.
Green Goddess Spread with Watercress on Sliced Challah Loaf
Our Easter menu includes sandwiches made with Green Goddess Spread and Watercress on Sliced Challah Loaf. This charming combination captures the essence of spring by using a multitude of fresh herbs. And fortunately, Green Goddess Spread is easy to make in the food processor. For the freshest herb flavor, use this spread within a day or two. You can transform this flavorful spread into a lively dip for crunchy fresh vegetables by thinning with lemon juice or milk to a dipping consistency.
Hot Cross Buns
Hot Cross Buns are ancient in origin, dating back to Pre-Christian England. Eventually they became associated with Holy Week and Easter. Tradition tells us that by the Fourteenth Century, the monks at St. Albans Cathedral in Hertfordshire, England, customarily distributed buns marked with the cross to the poor on Good Friday. This custom continues into our own time, as Hot Cross Buns are consumed as part of the Easter celebration throughout Europe and the New World. Fortunately, these little warm buns, flavored with citrus, spices and fruit, are as delicious now as they were hundreds of years ago.
Basic Butter Scones with Double Cherry Variation
Make these beautiful buttery Scones extra special for your Easter Tea by turning them into Double Cherry Scones. Just add a touch of almond flavor and the bright red sweetness of both dried and fresh cherries. Served with Mock Devonshire Cream, these traditional favorites will shine with springtime freshness.
Mock Devonshire Cream
Devonshire Cream is a thick, clotted cream produced in Devonshire, England. Authentic Devonshire Cream is difficult to find in the United States, but you can make your own version of Mock Devonshire Cream with this easy recipe. It is the perfect partner for scones.
Mock Devonshire Cream
Devonshire Cream is a thick, clotted cream produced in Devonshire, England. Authentic Devonshire Cream is difficult to find in the United States, but you can make your own version of Mock Devonshire Cream with this easy recipe. It is the perfect partner for scones.
Thumbelina Panna Cottas with Raspberry Coulis
Easter calls for all things fresh and magical. These dainty molded panna cottas are made in two layers: on top, the faintest blush of pink raspberry peeking out, covered by a blanket of softly gelled cream. A fit sweet for fairies to feast on!
Golden Egg Cakelets
Author, former lawyer, celebrity baker, and sister to actress Sandra, Gesine Bullock-Prado, is a force to be reckoned with. Credited with starting the French macaron frenzy here in the U. S.A., she is a master baker and sugar work expert. Of all her delicious recipes, it is this simple little cinnamon-coated egg-shaped cake recipe that we fell in love with. More than the sum of its parts, this miniature Easter wonder must be baked and tasted to be believed. Then bake them for your favorite guests. Everyone will love these little golden cakes, and you, of course!
Lemon Ring Cookies
These lemon ring cookies caught Kathleen’s fancy because the accompanying photograph showed several cookies tied loosely together with baker’s twine: charming! She has since given gifts of these cookies, similarly tied, many times, never failing to delight recipients. They are perfect partners with a cup of tea. We have included decorating variations to fancy up the cookies as desired.
Russian Tea Cakes
As we mentioned in our October Dia de Los Muertos menu, Russian Tea Cakes and Mexican Wedding Cookies are one and the same delightful little nut and butter cookie. For those of you who did not get the memo, here they are in their disguise as Russian Tea Cakes. This decades-old recipe adapted from Betty Crocker differs only slightly from our Mexican Wedding Cookies recipe. Both will make some of the best cookies you have ever eaten.
Coconut Cake with Lemon Filling and Egg Candy Decorations
The fresh, pure colors of Easter are white and gold, and this splendid cake celebrates the season with golden yellow layers with lemon filling and iced with cloudy white cream cheese frosting topped with angel flake coconut. The bright flavors of lemon and coconut bring springtime joy to the occasion. This is the cake to serve on your best pedestal, cut crystal if you have one. Lure the children to this masterpiece by circling it with little pastel chocolate Easter eggs.
Lemon Filling
This luscious lemon filling contains corn starch to thicken the mixture so it will not drip out between the cake layers. It is also good for cake rolls, lemon tarts and thumbprint cookies.
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