Truly Wonderful Afternoon Tea

Last weekend my sister Natasha and our friend Miroslawa came to town and we met at a high end bakery, Patisserie Angelica, that has begun to serve a full afternoon tea recently. To date our favorite tea place is the Camellia Tea Room in Benicia...I would happily travel there any time to enjoy their afternoon tea delights. The late La Dolce V also had a nice selection of goodies to go with tea. It's nice to have one fairly close, although they are only open to the public for tea on Fridays and Saturdays. It's worth coming then, though. The afternoon tea is splendid! I thought that their scones were the best yet.

The server deserves first mention because she was excellent - sweet, there when you needed her and not when you didn't, enthusiastic but not overly so, helpful and informative and thoughtful. We ordered a little something for Natasha to take home and she offered immediately to hold it in the fridge until we were finished to keep it cool. A nice touch. She also encouraged us to linger as long as we liked which is just what we like to do.

The setting is lovely. The decor is Paris meets West County with some gold framed mirrors and fancy fabrics but not too fussy or overbearing. We had a comfortable table and chairs right by the window which looks out on some plantings. Along a wall to the right of the entrance there are padded benches and small tables. Sometimes there might be outdoor seating. It was peaceful and it was fun to see future brides and their fiancees coming in to do cake tastings. Patisserie Angelica is well know for its fabulous, world class wedding and specialty cakes.

For our tea we had many choices of green, black and decaffeinated teas. Mine was golden and slightly fruity black tea from Mariage Freres of France and it went quite well with the afternoon tea offerings. Miroslawa had lavender scented and flavored black tea and Natasha had organic Earl Gray. We each had a pot of tea in a white pot, plus china teacups with lovely flowered patterns... a different one for each of us. The delightful server keep the tea pots refilled with boiling water as needed.

As you can see from the photo at the top of this post, the selection of treats was wonderful! They use pure butter, local dairy products and eggs and hand craft everything they make (no mixes allowed). We each had one or two of each offering which were spaced around the server so that we could easily reach our own. At the top were the sweets. These included the favorite... macarons with a lightened praline buttercream. It almost melted in your mouth and was rich but light. My second favorite was the tiny raspberry and frangipane tart, although I did enjoy the dense and buttery not too sweet shortbread, too. If you don't enjoy butter this is not your kind of bakery!

The next level down held three kinds of tea sandwiches including egg salad, ham and cucumber. All were fine but paled in comparison to the goodies baked on site. The lowest level had a darling and delicious square tart that had caramelized onion, spinach and mushroom filling. Another savory was Parmesan cheese twists which were crunchy puff pastry and quite delicious. The best item of the whole tea was the currant scone, served with home made lemon curd, strawberry jam and 'mock' Devonshire cream. If you find that the full on tea is too much, they also serve a cream tea that features these wonderful scones and the curd, jam and cream with a pot of tea.

This is the kind of treat that you deserve...you know it is. A leisurely time spent sipping tea, conversing, nibbling on delicious little goodies...what could be more relaxing and delightful?

If you happen to be in the Sebastopol area (about 25 minutes west of Santa Rosa, CA, which is about an hour north of San Francisco), call up Patisserie Angelica and reserve a tea party for yourself. Better yet, invite some friends to join you and you can have as much fun as we did.

Patisserie Angelica, custom pastry and wedding cake design
Hours: Friday and Saturday 10 am - 9 pm
(707) 827-7998
6821 Laguna Park Way, Sebastopol, CA 95472

Info@patisserieangelica.com

Bebe Eclair Tea

There are fewer things that bring a sense of hope as the immanent arrival of a new baby. My friend Hil, who baked with me a few months ago and whom I also work with, will be a new Mom in late January or early February. One of the pleasures of being a friend is being able to host a baby shower. Since Hil loves all things French, we decided the theme should reflect that. Although this little one has already been dubbed baby Jal, for the shower he or she was bebe eclair...small and sweet.

Although it is the Christmas season, for the tea is was more like a rainy day in April in Paris. We had a toile tablecloth, fine china teapots and teacups, crystal servers and the napkin holder place cards each had a sweet pea (fabric) attached.

Since I knew in advance that this would be a tea, I was able to make fresh lemon curd ahead of time for the home made scones. There was also some purchased raspberry jam and freshly whipped heavy cream to adorn the scones. The scones themselves, also made in advance, were frozen until the shower and then re-heated.

The French theme was helped by a dish of pistachio macarons with ganache filling.

The cranberry bread I made after Thanksgiving was also frozen and, once thawed, cut into thin slices. A creamy orange cream cheese filling and a few flicks of a sharp knife turned them into tea finger sandwiches. Tiny cupcakes sat on a cake stand and were adorned with white frosting and either little white chocolate stars of crushed peppermints.

Purchased brownie bites and mini quiches rounded out the teatime array of goodies. Nine of us consumed at least 5 pots of tea!

Hil started off the party with lovely Kir Royal cocktails which helped brighten the mood. Some Parisian music on the stereo, a poster of the Tour Eiffel and we were transported to France (with a hint of England) for the afternoon. I think that everyone had a good time and I know that everyone involved made Hil feel very special...which she is!

Here is the recipe for the scones. The lemon curd, macarons (substitute ground pistachios for half the almond meal, and cranberry bread can be found using the Index at the upper right hand corner of the blog.


Simple Scones

Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease two cookie sheets.

3 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (no substitutions)
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel

Glaze: 2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar (I used white sanding sugar)

In a small bowl use your fingers to rub together the sugar and lemon peel until fragrant.
Combine flour, lemon-sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. With pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Pour buttermilk over crumb mixture. Stir together with fork just until mixture comes together. Gather dough gently into a ball; knead 4 or 5 times. Cut dough in half and transfer pieces to prepared cookie sheets. Shape each piece into two 6 inch x 1/4 inch thick circles, 2 inches apart. Using floured knife, cut each circle into 8 wedges.

For glaze, brush tops with cream and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake 20 – 25 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 16 scones.

If you are going to freeze these to re-heat later, bake them just short of golden brown and re-heat, thawed, for 5 minutes at 425 degrees F.

Cliffs and Rocks and Smoked Salmon

Driving in another country is always exciting as you navigate unfamiliar territory in an unfamiliar vehicle. Doing so in a country where you are also driving in the lane that usually contains oncoming traffic is unsettling.

Being passed, a high speed, on your right hand side by traffic coming in the other direction (when usually all that is at your right is the passenger who is giving you grief for missing the turn) is unnerving. Most harrowing is doing all this on very narrow roads that are lined with rock walls covered with hedges. Sometimes those rock walls are all that is between you and a drop down into the sea. This is a vacation?

Fortunately, I never had to drive while we were in Ireland. Sweetie quickly figured out how to tell if we were too close to the rock walls without actually having to run into them, and learned to ignore those folks swooping by on his right. Occasionally I had to remind him that he was in the wrong lane and might want to move into the left lane, but overall he was stellar! My job was to navigate and figure out which road on the roundabout would take us where we were going. Honestly, the signs were mostly really good, so it wasn't that difficult. Overall it was fun to explore on our own instead of taking tours and it was really exhausting. That meant more time on foot exploring towns and early nights.


On our first full day in Ireland we traveled northwest to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren, standard fare on most tours of this part of the country. Since we were still new at this driving on the left thing, it didn't take much encouragement for us to stop where ever something looked interesting. All of these stone crosses caught my eye.

Fairly soon we were pulling over at a small churchyard near Ennistymon and taking photos of crosses. Modern gravestones seem to often be polished granite upright slabs, but the older graves often had these beautiful Irish crosses with beautiful designs carved on them.

This is one of hundreds and hundreds of ruins, many from the time of Elizabeth I or, more often, from the time of Cromwell. The 'Roundheads' laid waste to so many churches, monasteries and friaries.



Then I fell in love with some stone....

We continued west to Lisconnor where I fell in love with a local stone. Lisconnor stone has circular patterns in it which were formed by mollusk trails eons ago when it was still mud. Over time it became stone and it is often used as flooring stone since it tends to be easily formed into even thicknesses and is long lasting. Everywhere we went after learning about it in Lisconnor I noticed the use of Lisconnor stone, often where plain slate would usually be used as paving stone.

After Lisconnor we headed up the coast to and past the Cliffs of Moher. On approaching the turnoff for the car park at the Cliffs Visitor Centre we noticed lots of people streaming across the road toward the Heritage Center, plus two tour buses turning in.






Not being in the mood for so many people, we kept driving and were able to get some views of the cliffs at a distance, from Doolin Point. The first photo in this post shows what we saw.






Some of the photos were taken by the Hand Sister a year ago when she and my Mom and Health Sister visited Ireland. They did the full Cliffs of Moher experience, including walking along the edge...brave women!

Before reaching Doolin point we took a side road to get a better view of an interesting tower (probably a private residence) and a nearby elegant newer home sporting an old fashioned thatch roof. Experienced roof thatchers are rare and can command steep fees so these kinds of roofs are for the wealthy. Kind of ironic since they used to be a Iron Age roofing form for poor people. I think this castle was near Kilconnel.

The road curved around so from the town of Doolin, another popular place for tours to stop for shopping, we were able to see back across to the castle. Doolin also has traditional music in the evening.

Doolin Point is where you can catch a boat to the Aran Islands, home of those gorgeous sweaters. It also is the beginning of where you can see the worn stone of the Burren, with almost a moonscape look to it most of the year. In the spring the wildflowers growing up in the spaces between the rocks soften it.

From Doolin Point we traveled on the the Burren Smokehouse at Lisdoonvarna for some smoked salmon...delicious and salty. They also had some nice Irish music CDs - that's where I found the one for my former office mate who has a collection of music from around the world, so it seemed right that she have some Irish dance music, too.

From there we headed inland to Kilfanora and the Burren Heritage Center. That's where we had car trouble and experienced the true spirit of the Irish...next post.

Now we'll just have a cup of tea...a favorite end of the afternoon past time in Ireland.

Proper Tea

Lots of water, heated to a rolling boil
A teapot which has been preheated with hot water
1 rounded teaspoon loose tea - I love Earl Gray tea myself - for each cup, plus one 'for the pot'
sugar, milk (never cream), lemon slices
a tea strainer

Bring the water to a rolling boil. Once water is boiling, empty the hot water out of the tea pot, then add the loose tea. Pour in the boiling water, usually to about 3/4 of the capacity of the tea pot. Stir briefly. Cover with tea pot lid and let steep a few minutes. The longer it steeps, the stronger the brew.

Place a tea strainer over the cup you are pouring the tea in and pour your tea. Continue with each cup you are serving. Set tea pot aside, covered. Cover the pot with a tea cosy if it's chilly and you want to keep it warm for a second cup.

Serve at once with sugar, milk and/or lemon slices. Enjoy the aroma with each sip. Repeat as needed.

A Proper Afternoon Tea

You don't have to go to the Empress in Victoria, B.C. or to England, either, to have afternoon tea in style...although those are great places to enjoy tea, too.

Yesterday, as a late celebration of my birthday, my sister Natasha took me to humble Sebastopol and we enjoyed a proper afternoon tea (which some mistakenly call high tea) with a whole array of goodies.
The place was La Dolce V on Main Street http://www.ladolcev.com/home.htm, a combination chocolate shop and tea salon. Outside the noisy traffic surged by while inside it was calm and comfortable.
I was here a while back with Anna of Anna's Cool Finds, but we had limited ourselves to a single treat and beverage
(which you can read about at http://feedingmyenthusiasms.blogspot.com/2007/02/well-met.html). Now that La Dolce V is serving a full on tea, it seemed like a good idea to try it out.

We were seated at a glass topped table that had French postcards just under the glass. They were advertising chocolate and other appropriate foods. Each place was set with a bone chine teacup decorated with flowers. A small vase of flowers graced the table, too. Natasha had read about their French style hot chocolate, so she ordered some to share while we waited for our tea. It was delectable; intensely chocolate, frothy, not too sweet.

There were a number of choices of teas, including black, white, green and herbal. Instead of the usual china pot, our tea was served in glass coffee press pots. It was not the best choice since the tea cooled quickly in the press pots. The tea itself was delicious. We started catching up on news and waited to see what they would serve for the sweets and savories. Once the tiered tray arrived we knew that we were in for a treat.

On top there was a plate with tiny almond tartlettes with a ripe blueberry baked in the center. Tender heart shaped lavender shortbread cookies with a subtle lavender flavor were joined by creamy jasmine chocolates decorated with tiny white flowers and in the middle of the plate were fresh mandarin orange segments.

The next plate down had fresh tender currant scones and little dishes of lemon curd, intensely flavored house-made strawberry jam, and a mock Devonshire cream.

The final plate had some serious sandwiches, including egg salad on white and cucumber with hummus on wheat. The cucumber and hummus combination was unusual, but it worked very well. The sandwiches themselves were too large for a tea tray and still had the skin on the cucumbers and the crusts on the bread...but I guess Sebastopol is not the height of 'dainty'. There were also some tiny tarts with savory melted Gorgonzola cheese topped with a red onion confit. Crisp crostini topped with slices of brie and tart apple completed the assortment.

The afternoon was spent nibbling, sipping tea, talking, laughing, and admiring my birthday gift from Natasha and her Sweetie: Dorie Greenspan's wonderful Baking: from my home to yours. By 2 pm it was time for Natasha to head for home and were were quite satisfied. Looking at the photo, it may not seem like a lot of food, but it was just the right amount.

Taking tea has become popular, so check in your phone book and see if there are places in your area offering afternoon tea, or even just cream tea (scones, jam, lemon curd, Devonshire cream or whipped cream), then find a friend to enjoy it with. Very civilized and quite fun.