Afternoon Tea debut for the ________* Pad

Posted by Lou. The time is 4.00pm here in London UK.

My new apartment is one that cries out for afternoon teas and cocktails, right?



I mean, can't you just imagine two gals like me and Bel lazing about sitting on that sofa getting drunk on boooooze sophisticated cocktails and talking about seeeeexxx intelligent subjects whilst eating junk delicate miniature food??

Wait, here is my artist's impression of me and Bel being fabulous in my apartment [using only crusty free paint software so please DON'T JUDGE ME]:

As the one in colour actually looks a little like Bel I'm going to

take one

for the team

and agree to live in black-and-white.

So I had my first ever self-hosted Afternoon Tea Party. It went well. So well, in fact, that an attendee - over the age of 40 and British, so someone who has been around the block a few times in terms of scone-eating - announced that I had made the best scone she had ever had in her entire life. I wonder whether I should get this printed onto a certificate and stick it up on my kitchen wall? (I used this recipe, fyi.)

I of course forgot to take a pic of the final product,

but you can see their uncooked round goodness in the background of this pxt.

The sandwiches were quite stressful for me as a sandwich connoisseur I most certainly am not - but I erred on the side of caution and just used a lot of butter. In the end it was: roasted red peppers and cream cheese; chicken, cream cheese, and cranberry; ham; cucumber. Surprisingly the ham were most popular - lots of butter works you guys!

Advantage of having very little furniture (both in terms of quantity and size)

is that a tea-towel works nicely as a table-cloth.

I am currently in possession of some Real Kiwi Australian jaffas, so made jaffa cupcakes with a jaffa perched on the top of each. They consisted of a basic chocolate cupcake with orange zest mixed in, and then a very citrus orange-cream icing (butter, icing sugar, orange juice, orange zest). I'm going to confess that I didn't like them that much (perhaps because the chocolate cupcake just used cocoa and not Actual Chocolate), but everyone else earnestly declared their satisfaction (though they're hardly going to throw them in my face, are they?).

There was almost a disasterous faux pas when I realised I only had 5 tea-bags in the flat (!), but with a bit of recycling they managed to last the afternoon tea and all was happy in the end.

So come round to the _________* Pad for Afternoon Tea sometime!


*Please come up with a name for my apartment! Bachelorette Pad isn't Facebook-friendly (my brother would be aaaaall over that) and The Cupcake Pad doesn't quite work... any suggestions? (It doesn't have to involve the work "Pad", fyi.)