Mother's Day Afternoon Tea 2016 - Part 3

Hello there,

Welcome back to another Mother's Day afternoon tea round up from Tea With Me and Friends....today we're sharing with you the treats on offer at Lancaster London.....

Mothers Day afternoon tea
Lancaster London

Lancaster London’s Lounge Bar is offering a tea-riffic Mother’s Day Afternoon Tea created by Head Chef Ben Purton. The selection includes tasty miniature treats such as: Honey and Chocolate Lolly Pops; Pear & Ginger Cup Cakes; and White Chocolate & Passion Fruit Cheese Cakes.

The Afternoon Tea is served from 2pm until 5.30pm, priced at £30 per person, or £40.00 with a glass of Champagne. In addition, Lancaster London has created a cocktail especially for Mother's Day.....treat mum to a Pink Fizz...

Mother's Day cocktail - Pink Fizz
Lancaster London

To find out more about these afternoon tea treats pop by the Lancaster London website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Christmas Afternoon Tea....Lancaster London

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends as we bring you yet another fab festive afternoon tea creation. Today we are featuring the Christmas creation of Chef Ben Purton at Lancaster London. You'll remember that we visited Lancaster London around Christmas time last year and we're impressed with the friendly service and tasty afternoon tea.

Let's take a look at this year's Christmas afternoon tea....

There are both sandwiches and savouries on offer with this feast, which include.....

Sandwiches:

Lancaster London home smoked salmon,

honey & grain mustard cream cheese

Free range Farm egg & wild cress

Roast English beef & horseradish

Cucumber, rock salt & crushed pepper

Savouries:

Warm turkey & cranberry tartlet

Pigs in blanket

There are also Christmas scones served with strawberry vanilla jam, orange marmalade and of course plenty of clotted cream.

The sweet selection includes:

White chocolate & raspberry lolly pops

Pistachio & Amarena cherries slice

Homemade mince pies

Mandarin custard tarts

Mini-Christmas Yule logs

I love that the tea includes pigs in blankets and the scones sound amazing! 

This festive afternoon tea feast is available from £30 per person between the 29th November 2015 and 4th January 2016. For more information visit the Lancaster London website.

If you try this afternoon tea we'd love to hear what you think, please get in touch!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Meet the Chef.....Ben Purton

Hello there,

Welcome back to another "meet the chef" blog post from Tea With Me and Friends, this time we are asking Executive Chef from the Lancaster London hotel Ben Purton our afternoon tea questions.

Executive Chef Ben Purton

You'll remember that Lorna and I enjoyed the afternoon tea created by Ben and his team just after Christmas and Lorna was rather impressed with his scones! So we decided we needed to find out more about the creative process behind this scrummy afternoon tea.

Afternoon tea at the Lancaster London

Chef Ben has worked at the Lancaster London since August 2014, and prior to this he was executive chef at The Royal Horseguards. So, let's find out if he is cream or jam first kinda guy.....

Q How long does it usually take you to create new afternoon teas?
It really depends - sometimes you can think of new ones all the time and others take longer to develop. We plan to have 4 changes per year and then a few themed ones thrown in too.

Q. Where does your inspiration for new teas come from? 
Everywhere and anywhere! It’s great seeing what other people are doing as you end up taking bits from all of them - sometimes you see things and think oh I have to do that. I love being creative and challenging the team - the bigger the challenge the better.

Q. So, what is your favourite part of your latest afternoon tea?
I love it all because it's a back to basics afternoon tea so we do the right things right etc but I have to say the flavoured savoury tarts and the raspberry and white chocolate lollipops are some of the best yet!!

Q. Do you enjoy a spot of afternoon tea yourself and have you tried tea anywhere else? 
I love it !! What's not to like, it's such a nice way to spend an afternoon - no rush, no hassle just tea, scones and maybe just a bit of bubbles. I love the Lancaster London afternoon tea (and who wouldn't) but I must confess that The Langham, The Goring and Browns do it very well too

Q. What is your favourite filling in an afternoon tea sandwich? 
Again I like them all but there is something to be said for a classic cucumber sandwich done right! Soft bread with salted butter layered with peeled sliced and seasoned soft flesh of cucumber - yum - most people don't like them because they don't do them right - we can all make smoked salmon and roast beef taste nice but there is an art to that one that I love.

Q. The all important question - do you put cream or jam on your scone first?
Oh come on - that's fighting talk and there is not an answer that will please everyone but as you asked ..... I'm a cream spooned on first making a perfect area for the jam to sit type of guy (I apologise in advance) When we pre split for passing at events etc we then top the scones with freeze dried strawberries too – lovely!

Q. If you could invite any guest to enjoy afternoon tea with you, who would it be and why? Wow - what a question! Too many to choose just one, but Bon Jovi is someone I'd love to spend an afternoon getting to know - I've always loved his music and passion for his trade and his songs are soundtracks to my youth and I'm sure he's a champagne, cucumber sandwich and cream first kind of guy too !!

It's good to know that Chef Ben prefers cream dolloped on his scones first and its brilliant to hear from someone so passionate about afternoon tea! I have to agree with him that the raspberry and white chocolate lollipops are really quite amazing!

Raspberry and white chocolate lollipops
at Lancaster London

I'd like to send a huge thank you to Chef Ben for his entertaining answers to our nosey afternoon tea questions! If you'd like to know more about the afternoon tea created by Chef Ben and his team pop by the Lancaster London website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for our Last Afternoon Tea of 2014.....

Hello there,

Welcome back to the last afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends for 2014, and we have ended a tea-filled year with a rather scrummy afternoon tea!

Recently we were invited to try the new afternoon tea on offer at the Lancaster London Hotel, a four star hotel in London. I have followed the Lancaster London's newly appointed Executive Chef Ben Purton (Ben moved here in October 2014 from the Royal HorseGuards Hotel) on Twitter for a while now (yes, I am well aware that I now sound like a stalker!) and was keen to try the new afternoon tea on offer.

The Lancaster London is very proud of it's afternoon tea, with all the preserves being made in house as well as the salmon being smoked on site. Our waiter was very friendly and knowledgeable about the afternoon tea, suggesting that we started our experience with a glass of Laurent Perrier champagne.

Novus Tea at the Lancaster London

The tea served at the Lancaster London is Novus Tea, which is a selection of loose leaf teas served in individual teabag portions. The selection is good, and includes black, green and white teas and also herbal infusions. Lorna and I both opted for white teas on this occasion - I went for the White Pear and Ginger Tea, which was sweet and warming. Lorna chose Pai Mu Tan Tea, which was a subtle and light tea. When the teas are served, they come with a little timer and a card telling you how long to brew your tea for.

Once we had enjoyed our bubbles and the tea had been ordered our afternoon tea savouries and pastries were served....

Quite a dodgy photo of us with our afternoon tea!

Let's take a better look at the savouries on offer....

Afternoon tea savouries at the Lancaster London

We were each give a plate of five different items and we were told from the very beginning that if we wanted more of anything we just needed to ask. The savouries included:

Lancaster London smoked salmon sandwich,

Egg & wild cress sandwich, 

Cucumber sandwich

Wild mushroom, chicken and tarragon tartlet

Roast beef filled Yorkshire pudding with horseradish cream

The sandwiches were fresh and tasty with no crusts in sight. I particularly enjoyed the tartlet, which surprised me as I am not a huge fan of mushrooms, but the pastry was light and tasty. The mini yorkshire pudding filled with beef was also a good size and enjoyable.

Next came the scones.....

Afternoon tea scones at the Lancaster London

We each had one fruit and one plain scone, served with strawberry preserve and a wonderful marmalade, along with clotted cream. The scones were small and perfectly formed....Lorna even declared these were the probably the best scones she has enjoyed! They had a lovely texture - crumbly and light in the middle with a good crust on the outside.

The marmalade was something we haven't tried on scones before, and we were both pleasantly surprised! The tart orange tang worked really well with the creamy clotted cream. 

We enjoyed the scones so much that we might have asked for another round! In the second serving we were also treated to one of the Christmas afternoon tea specialities....a Christmas pudding scone....which I have to say was amazing! Warm and spicy, full of flavour!

Afternoon tea scones dressed the Tea With Me and Friends way!

Finally we made it to the top tier of the cake stand....those dainty sweets and pastries which we had both been eyeing up since they were served....

Sweet treats at Lancaster London

Now, this was definitely a good looking plate of sweets, everything was a good size and well presented, but would it also taste good?

The selection included:

white chocolate and raspberry lollypops, 

apple and honey cupcake, 

lemon fruit tart, 

caramel & hazelnut tranche,

passion fruit & raspberry macaroon

I'm not sure where to start really.....because every last bite was delicious! 

The macaroon was bite sized, but full of flavour with the passion fruit really cutting through the sweetness of the macaroon. The tart was made with light, crumbly pastry and filled with a delicious lemon filling - again the perfect size.

The caramel & hazelnut tranche was well balanced and looked beautiful. One of the stand out items for me was the apple and honey cupcake which was like eating the most light apple pie! It was delicate, but full of flavour with a touch of cinnamon - truly delicious!

Which only leaves the white chocolate and raspberry lollypops, which I don't want to write too much about....only they are amazing...make sure you leave room!

Afternoon tea pastries at Lancaster London

Service at the Lancaster London is relaxed and friendly, and the environment is warm and welcoming. It's not the poshest space we have enjoyed afternoon tea in, but it was comfortable and we felt right at home. A lovely place to enjoy afternoon tea with friends or family.

The afternoon tea itself costs £30.00 per person, which is brilliant value as the food is exceptional. If you want to enjoy a glass of champagne with your afternoon tea that will cost £40.00 per person.

To find out more about this afternoon tea please visit the Lancaster London website.

Please note that although we were guests at the Lancaster London all comments in this blog post are our own. We would like to thank Chef Ben and all the team at the Lancaster London for their hospitality.

Thank you for popping by today - we hope you join us in 2015 for lots more afternoon tea adventures!

Rachel & Lorna