High Tea

[echokilo]

What would be the components of your perfect traditional british high tea? What looks most impressive?

This is for a sophisticated (hopefully!) birthday tea, but only for a very small number of people ...................... TIA

[murraymints]

tea...scones with cream and jam..some posh petit fours...fresh cream cakes..maybe a nice trifle..little individual ones....posh mints and hand made choccs...can I come...?

[murraymints]

..and little triangle saernies with crusts off...

[joggerjayne]

yes ^^

[murraymints]

some nice unusual cheese wth selection of crackers.....

[murraymints]

..and pickles...and chutneys... I COULD come in black and serve..as long as I get first dabs at the cake !!!.

[woofgang]

for high tea you really need a hot course...so tiny toasted sarnies or vol au vents,being more modern, those little cones of fish and chips or little yorkshire puddings with beef and gravy in...or a selection of all of them....

[woofgang]

Oh and glasses of champagne or light fruity cocktails as well as tea

[sunny-dave]

Yes - agree with woofgang - a proper high tea has a (small) hot course - nice crispy bit of battered fish with a little ramekin of minted mushy peas is good :=)

[echokilo]

Clearly a subject that provokes nice reaction to get so many answers so quickly - yummmmmm ...... thanks and keep the ideas coming!!

[sunny-dave]

Drat it - I was being virtuous with the muesli/bran brekker - but now am dreaming of buttered toast and marmalade :+()

[sadielady]

I bet there are loads of Birthday High Teas being planned now with all these ideas.......sounds lovely, enjoy!

[mickrog]

eat it on top of a ladder

[hedgehogy]

gammon and eggs

[Anngel123]

Coconut macaroon with cherries on top always look nice.

[douglas9401]

Lemon sole, chips, peas, bread & butter and tea. :)

[mike11111]

I always understood a high tea to be a knife and fork job. Not necessarily something hot - a ham salad, say, would fit the bill. Of course I'm a child of the 50s when the expression was very common.

[echokilo]

Lots of you are talking about hot food and forks .................. so I may have used the wrong expressions ...... do I mean Afternoon Tea? I don't want a hot course or cutlery, just little finger foods ............... sorry for confusion!!!

[jamesnan]

We went for Afternoon Tea at a very nice hotel and it consisted of Ham and mustard sandwiches, cucumber s/w, smoked salmon and cream cheese s/w, egg mayonnaise s/w, tuna s/w; about 5 varieties of little fancy cakes, two scones, with jam and cream each, a selection of teas and coffee, with champagne offered as an extra.
Lovely!

[nungate]

High tea was always a knife and fork thing, a ham salad or fish and chips with tartare sauce or something like that, lots of bread and butter and all finished off with lovely cakes. Haven't had one of those in years........

[vodkancoke]

Definitely Afternoon Tea echokilo. We recently went for afternoon tea at a hotel and we had:
Crustless sandwiches cut into fingers- the fillings were:
Rare roast beef, horseradish cream and watercress
Chicken with mango mayonnaise
Smoked salmon with lemon butter
Cucumber with soft cream cheese and black pepper
Prawn with lemon mayonnaise

We also had
Tiny fruit scones with clotted cream and jam
Fruit tartlets
Mini almond pastries
Little macaroons
Lavender shortbread
Tea
Coffee
Champagne