Cat Food Cakes - Halloween subscription box

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - I hope you're ready for some spooky treats today!

I've been an admirer of the Cat Food Cakes creations for a long time now - the cakes always look so scrummy on Instagram and the flavours sound amazing. It's a bit of a mission for me to get over to her bakery, which is open on a Saturday morning....but I've discovered that she also offers mail order boxes of scrummy treats! Available as a subscription (a cake subscription is possibly the best subscription ever - just imagine.....cakes arriving through the post every month!) or as one-off boxes, it's a great way to enjoy some scrummy treats yourself or to treat a friend.

I decided to try out the Halloween themed box from Cat Food Cakes (you know I love a good themed cake!).....and I wasn't disappointed! The treats were all freshly baked and well packed, so they arrived in perfect condition. Each box has a cake pot, cake pops, brownies, a marshmallow and bar of chocolate - something for everyone...

Cat Food Cakes - Halloween Box

It was so exciting to receive the pink box through the post - what a wonderful treat! Unboxing the treats was also fun as it was all themed, including the napkin and bar of chocolate! Now you'll have to forgive me because I got a little excited and although I have sampled everything, there aren't photos of everything - whoops! 

The cake pot was divine - a pot of spiced pumpkin cake with vanilla cream cheese buttercream. It reminded me a little of carrot cake, but better! The cake was moist and well balanced with the buttercream. I ate mine in several sittings as the pot is quite big, it was really easy to decant the cake and buttercream from the pot.

The two spooky cake pops on sticks were huge! Made with vanilla cookie dough and dark chocolate chips, dipped in white chocolate. They were super sweet, but balanced with the dark chocolate chips. 

Now I'm afraid the brownie was where I managed to not take photos! In my box I had one slice which was stuffed with marshmallow and Oreo cookies and a slice of blondie decorated with sprinkles. Both were soft and scrummy, brilliant washed down with a cup of tea! The chocolate one was probably my favourite. Again the portion size is very generous, as you get a big bar of each brownie in the box. 

Finally you have the bar of chocolate (which I haven't tucked into yet) and the coconut marshmallow which will be going into my next mug of hot chocolate!

All in all you get a great variety in the box and the portion sizes are great throughout. You can cut the various bits into smaller pieces and enjoy a taster plate! The one-off box is £29.99 including delivery (you get a 15% discount if you subscribe), and the cakes are all fresh, well made and oh so enjoyable! There are different subscription / gift options - take a peek at the website for more information. 

Have you tried any other mail order cakes that I should know about (this is a brand new world to me!!), if so leave me a comment - I think I need to investigate more!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel 

Time for a spot of spooky afternoon tea!

Hello there!

Wow, it's been a long time! It's been a rather busy year for me personally, so I hope you excuse the lack of scrummy afternoon tea posts from me.

As some of you know, I love Halloween baking and always host a Halloween afternoon tea for my friends. So I thought I would break my silence by sharing with you this year's Halloween baking!

This year we had a selection of cakes and hand-iced biscuits, as well as a tower of egg mayonnaise finger sandwiches, mini coronation chicken rolls and handmade quiches to enjoy.

Over the years I have collected lots of Halloween themed table decorations and I love covering the table with skulls and handmade felt bats. I also love getting out my collection of vintage china to serve everything on and this year Becca made us cute little ghostly name tags for everyone.

Anika loves nothing better than a vanilla cupcake, so you will always find them as part of my afternoon tea spread. The monster cupcakes in my Halloween tea are vanilla sponge which I coloured green, topped with lashings of vanilla buttercream (with more food colouring) and some edibles eyes.....lots of edible eyes! 

Becca and I had great fun baking and icing the biscuits, we had pumpkins and bats with lime flavoured icing and tombstones and ghosts with lemon flavoured icing.

We used the flooding technique to ice the biscuits, outlining the biscuits first with a slightly thicker icing and then filling in the shape with a thinner icing. Finally details were added with the thicker icing. 

Among the other treats was a chocolate loaf cake which contained a cherry flavoured secret ghost in the middle! I love making cakes with hidden shapes in the middle, especially when the flavour isn't quite as expected! This cake went down especially well with a dollop of clotted cream!

Altogether we enjoyed a very spooky afternoon, watching movies as we enjoyed the treats! 

And the best thing about hosting an afternoon tea at your house.....you get to enjoy the leftovers the next day!

I hope you enjoyed seeing our afternoon tea spread and I promise to return soon with more scrummy posts! In the meantime if you enjoy a wonderful afternoon tea let us know all about it - we'd love to hear about your afternoon tea adventures.

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel

Afternoon Tea News - Halloween 2017 part 2

Hello there,

Welcome back to part 2 of the Tea With Me and Friends Halloween themed afternoon tea round up! Yes, today we have more spooky afternoon teas to share with you!

Let's begin with Tewin Bury Farm Hotel in Hertfordshire.....

This afternoon tea is available between 21st- 31st October and guests can enjoy the following sweet treats:

Cauldron mallow pop
Ghoulish white chocolate macaroon
'Dracula's Tomb' raspberry opera
Eerie sorbet filled 'chocolate eye'
Blackcurrant & 'Slime' pannacotta

Yes, you read that correctly.....you could be feasting on a chocolate eye!

The Milestone Hotel in London if offering a very limited Halloween afternoon tea, available on the 30th-31st October 2017.....and beware....it includes more eyeballs!

Sweet treats at this afternoon tea include:

Spooky coconut meringue
Bat praline millefeuille
Eye ball chocolate truffles
Poisonous pistachio cheesecake
R.I.P velvet cupcake

This menu made me giggle, calling the pistachio cheesecake "poisonous" - if I'm honest I'm not the greatest pistachio fan and so this name is very fitting!

Finally we found this super cute Halloween tea on offer at Lottie's Coffee Lounge at the Butterfly House in Sheffield:

And yes....there is another eyeball in this one too - clearly a theme in 2017! This afternoon tea is more rustic than the other teas, but I love the styling! This tea is available all of October from 1st October 2017 to 31st October 2017 between 12PM - 3:30PM.

We hope you've enjoyed part 2 of our Halloween round up. If you've enjoyed a Halloween themed afternoon tea this year we'd love to hear all about it!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Afternoon Tea News - Halloween 2017 part 1

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends! We hope you're feeling tea-riffic today!

With Halloween just around the corner we thought we'd share with you some of the Halloween themed afternoon teas that are on offer this October - be warned....they're tea-riffying!

Let's start with Amba Hotel Marble Arch....

The spooky tea being serve at Amba includes:

Witches fingers cookies
Brownie with walnuts
Mini muffin with Ghost meringue
Chocolate milk shake with raspberry couli

Guests can also enjoy sandwiches, scones and a glass of Bloody Mary!

This afternoon tea can be enjoyed between 23rd - 31st October.

Or maybe you fancy enjoying your Halloween themed afternoon tea whilst travelling around London....

Yes, between 28th October - 5th November you can enjoy this colourful afternoon tea feast with a spooky twist on the B Afternoon Tea Bus Tour.

As well as scrummy savouries, there are cupcakes, macaroons and a pumpkin pie!

Finally we have the creepy afternoon tea on offer at BlueBird Chelsea....

Available between 26th-29th October, guests will enjoy sandwiches and scones, along with:

Ghoul cupcakes, liquorice icing
Brownie coffins
Blood orange tart
Pumpkin sponge roll

I don't know about you, but my mouth is watering just looking at these afternoon teas! Don't forget to pop back later this week to see more spooky afternoon teas!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel 

Halloween 2016 Round Up - Spooky Afternoon Teas!

Hello there,

With Halloween just around the corner we thought we would share with you some of the spooky afternoon teas we've discovered this year....

Let's start with The Milestone Hotel in London....

Their selection of spooky pastries including....

Wickedly witchy cupcake,

Garishly ghoulish

Orange & chocolate macaroon,

Morbid mummy / deadly Dracula éclair

Spider's web vanilla cheesecake

£40 per person

The Park Lane Hotel is offering a slightly different Halloween afternoon tea this year...

Yes, it's a magic themed afternoon tea (for people like me who don't really like magic this is quite horrifying!!). To celebrate Halloween, The Park Lane Hotel have crafted a magic Afternoon Tea to pay tribute to Harry Houdini on the 90th anniversary of his death in this menu available 28th - 31st October. 

Diners can indulge in a complimentary elusive cocktail alongside a range of themed treats while enjoying some top class close up magic from magician Tony Middleton, who has appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool us and is the star of the hit London show, The Magic Hour.

Or how about the Halloween edition of the Lancaster London ARTea....

How amazing does that look...let's see what it includes...

A collection of Sandwiches & Savoury bites...

Smoked in the fires of hell salmon on granary

Axe carved beef with horseradish

Smashed egg and crazy wild cress on blood bread

Cucumber coffins 

Devilled chorizo tartlet

Fried until dead veggie Scotch eggs

"Slate of the Art" Scones 

Plain and raisin the dead scones, congealed jam and blood clotted cream

Pumpkin scones with cremated blood orange marmalade

Artists tube of home-made strawberry jam 

Artists tube of Cornish clotted cream . 

When you have brushed the rest aside enjoy a gallery of devillicious sweet bites

Chocolate graveyard

Spider web lollipop

Shattered glass cupcakes

Frankenstein macaroons

Bloodied finger éclair

ArTea  is available at £26.25 Per Person

Bea's of Bloomsburys has created all kinds of spooky sweet treats...

A ghoulish Halloween gift box with 6 hauntingly creepy decorated cupcakes, including 2 Red Velvet; 2 double chocolate and 2 pumpkin vanilla.

Or how about these spiced pumpkin macaroons....

Not going to be in London this Halloween....never fear we've also found some spooky offerings slightly further afield!

If you fancy combining a day out at The Tropical Butterfly House in South Yorkshire with a spot of spooky afternoon tea, this October you can have an extra special Halloween themed Afternoon Tea for Two for £34 including admission to the Wildlife Centre.....

Monsters, ghosts and eyeballs.....something for everyone here!

Even Disneyland is getting a bit spooky with their  “Trick or Tea” afternoon tea...

The sweet treats include chocolate-dipped strawberries decorated to look like Jack Skellington’s suit and a jack-o’-lantern pumpkin!

If you enjoy a tea-riffic Halloween themed afternoon tea we'd love to hear all about it - send us a photo on Twitter or Facebook!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Spooky treats from Sweetheart Cake& Bake Shop!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends!

Sweetheart, Covent Garden’s newly opened Cake & Bake shop, is kicking off the autumn season with a spooktacular selection of cupcakes, biscuits and sweet treats during the run-up to Halloween. They are so cute we couldn't wait to share them with you.....

From 10th–30th October, the shop will be offering a line-up of devilishly delightful cupcake flavours, including Evil Pumpkin Oreo, Witchy Chocolate Orange, Trick or Treat Blueberry, RIP Chocolate Heaven, Ghostly Nutella and more. A spellbinding range of tasty cakes, biscuits, teas and beverages will be available for purchase as well.

Owner Polly Antoniadi said: “Halloween is one of our favourite times of the year, and we’re getting as creative as possible with our seasonal flavours and designs! Over 80% of our display will be Halloween-themed versions of our cupcakes, and the shop will be fully decorated, so be sure to visit us in Covent Garden to celebrate the occasion.”

Despite the supernatural theme, all of Sweetheart’s products are made from top quality, pure and natural ingredients such as British butter and fresh milk, handcrafted in-house with TLC and baked with a personal touch.

Cupcakes are available in-store or take-away for £3.80 each.

If you pop by the shop don't forget to take a photo - it sounds like a tea-riffic selection of bakes!

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Afternoon Tea News - Halloween ARTea Afternoon Tea at Lancaster London

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends! As we make out way through October we're getting closer to that spooky time of year - yes Halloween! Today we're sharing with you a spook-tacular Halloween themed afternoon tea from Lancaster London.

This Halloween, indulge in a truly ghoulish experience at Lancaster London with the hotel’s exclusive Halloween-themed ARTea Afternoon Tea.

Halloween-themed ARTea Afternoon Tea - Lancaster London

Available from 17th until 31st October 2016 and priced at just £35 per person, the Afternoon Tea includes a host of spooky sweet treats such as: Spider web lollypops; Shattered glass cupcakes; Frankenstein macaroons; and Bloodied finger éclairs. Fresh-out–the-oven pumpkin scones will be served warm, with cremated blood orange marmalade plus artists’ tubes of home-made strawberry jam and Cornish clotted cream.

The Afternoon Tea also includes savoury classics with a fantastically frightful twist such as: Axe carved beef with horseradish; Smashed egg and crazy wild cress on blood bread; Cucumber coffins; and Devilled chorizo tartlets accompanied by a selection of fresh loose leaf teas.  

The fun Afternoon Tea will be served in the hotel’s sumptuous first floor Lounge Bar from 2pm until 5.30pm. If you miss this afternoon tea never fear - Lancaster London offers tea-riffic themed afternoon teas throughout the year, tying in with special dates, movie releases and London events. 

If you try this afternoon tea you have to tell us what blood bread tastes like!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel& Lorna

Afternoon tea news....a spooky afternoon tea from Lancaster London!

Hello there,

Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends - we are feeling a little bit spooky currently as Halloween is fast approaching and so we thought we'd feature some of the Halloween inspired afternoon teas on offer.

Let's start with the Frightful Fancies Halloween Afternoon Tea from Lancaster London.......

Halloween Afternoon Tea 2015
Lancaster London

Priced at just £30 per person, the tea includes a host of spooky sweet treats such as Eye ball lolly pops (chocolate, raspberry and passion fruit flavour); Black macaroons with a pumpkin filling; Butternut squash tartlets; White chocolate and pistachio opera cakes; and Pumpkin cupcakes.   

Plain and raisin scones will be served warm, with home-made strawberry jam and Cornish clotted cream.

The tea also includes savoury classics with a contemporary twist such as Roast beef filled Yorkshire pudding with horseradish cream; Wild mushroom, chicken and tarragon tartlets; Lancaster London smoked salmon sandwiches; Egg & wild cress sandwiches; and Cucumber sandwiches accompanied by a selection of fresh loose leaf teas.

This spooky Afternoon Tea spread will be served in the hotel’s  first floor Lounge Bar from 2pm until 5.30pm.

Those eye balls sound delicious (a phrase you don't hear very often)!

If you try this spooky feast we'd love to hear what you thought of it - leave us a comment or send us a photo on Twitter or Facebook!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for a little spooky tea....Ampersand Hotel

Hello there,

Happy Halloween!

Welcome back to another afternoon tea post from Tea With Me and Friends. Last weekend, Lorna and I celebrated Halloween a little early with a visit to the Ampersand Hotel in South Kensington.

Now, if you've popped by our blog before you'll know this isn't our first time to the Ampersand. This is our third or fourth visit to the hotel for a spot of afternoon tea, in fact we first visited this lovely boutique hotel for Halloween afternoon tea in 2013. We love the work of pastry chef Ji Sun Shin and couldn't resist going back to sample the Halloween tea again.....

Halloween afternoon tea
Ampersand Hotel

Now, all the afternoon teas served at the Ampersand follow a similar format of savouries (either open sandwiches or savoury gougeres) followed by scrummy white chocolate scones - however it's the sweet top tier of the afternoon tea stand where Ji Sun lets her imagination and creativity run wild and that's where I want to focus this post.....

Sweet treats - afternoon tea - Ampersand Hotel

Although this tea looks like similar to the Halloween tea that was served last year, there are some subtle differences this year which we all enjoyed.

The sweet treats include a cute orange pumpkin cake, a blackberry jelly skull on a sable breton, a red velvet cupcake and a raspberry, rose & redcurrant blood shot. 

I particularly enjoyed the jelly skull on the sable breton, the combination of the silky jelly on top of the sable breton was brilliant - especially if you chose to put the entire thing in your mouth in one go! The blackberry jelly has an amazing flavour too. Altogether a lovely treat!

You might have noticed this little cutie in the photo.....

I saved my orange pumpkin cake to last as it's so cute and I didn't want to cut it up straight away. Once you take the plunge and cut through the icing, you find a wonderful orange sponge cake inside - which is beautifully flavoured.

Slightly more alarming is the red velvet mini cake, complete with "glass" shard and eyeball....

The red velvet cake melts in the mouth, and is topped with a tangy drizzle of raspberry. Again it's the perfect size for popping into your mouth in one go if you are so inclined! 

Each time we visit the Ampersand we are amazed by the cakes and pastries created by Ji Sun, she creates items that look so pleasing to the eye, yet she never compromises taste. I had the pleasure of meeting Ji Sun earlier this year when she kindly answered some of my nosey afternoon tea questions....take a peek at the post to read more about how she creates her amazing afternoon teas.

Halloween afternoon tea - Ampersand Hotel

The Halloween afternoon tea costs £32.50 per person and is available until the 9th November 2014, to find out more visit the Ampersand website.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....Halloween Afternoon Tea with Rachel and Lorna!

Hello there!

As some of you might know last weekend I hosted a Halloween afternoon tea at my house for a group of my friends. Assisted by Lorna and Becca we served up a feast of sweet and savoury treats, copious amounts of tea....and some pumpkins!

Out of all the afternoon teas that I create for my friends I think Halloween is my favourite one....you can be so creative with your food....plus you get to carve pumpkins!

Earlier this year I planted ten pumpkin seeds in my garden with the hope that I would have some pumpkins to carve this Halloween....I have to say that I was rather impressed with the results....

Here is Tinker modelling my five home grown pumpkins!

So, I had pumpkins to carve....now I just needed a feast to serve! After a lot of thinking here is what I came up with.....

 

 

As well as a plate of various different finger sandwiches (Anika would have stopped talking to me if I missed out her favourite egg sandwiches) I came up with several Halloween themed savoury treats....

 

In the middle of the platter I have some snails - these are ham wraps with a little gherkin for their heads. I also cut some tombstones out of brown bread, and topped with a slice of chorizo and a slice of tomato.  

 

Becca also arrived at my house armed with tins of wonderful treats...she made some cheese and wholewheat Halloween shapes which were ever so tasty....

 

And the cutest little ghost meringues that I have ever seen! Becca is apparently not a baker (she tells me this all the time) but I am pretty impressed with her baking talents!

 

 

Aren't those ghosts cute? And they looked so good sharing a plate with my iced pumpkin biscuits (not to be confused with grumpy looking tomatoes!)

 

Lorna provided her wonderful scones which I served with whipped cream and home made blackberry jam.

 

 

After the savouries and scones we then indulged in the sweet treats....

 

 

I made eyeball cake bites - for the eyeballs I used vanilla cake combined with vanilla butter icing and coated in white chocolate. They were super sweet, but very moist and tasty. I also made chocolate cupcakes topped with coloured butter icing.

 

 Finally I made some cute little cobweb millionaire shortcakes. The recipe for the shortcakes came from The Pink Whisk - I was really pleased with how they turned out. Ruth's recipe is really easy to follow and she has photo steps to follow, which I always find really helpful.

As well as the pumpkin biscuits I also made iced ghost biscuits....not sure if they are scary or just cute!!

 

 

One final sweet treat that I made were white chocolate fingers, that had a strawberry green filling. The insides weren't quite as oozy as I had hoped...but they still looked pretty good! I used a Baked By Me mould to make the fingers, they have a great selection of different moulds - all really easy to use.

 

My guests all enjoyed their spooky afternoon with me....and were rather full once we'd finished eating!

 

 

However this didn't stop us getting creative with the pumpkins.....

 

All in all we had a lovely afternoon....and I can't wait for Halloween 2014....I wonder what I will bake next year!

 

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

Time for Tea.....The Ampersand

Hello fellow tea lovers!

We hope you are well.

Today we want to share with you the wonderful afternoon tea experience that we enjoyed at the Ampersand Hotel in South Kensington today. This fabulous, quirky hotel offers a traditional afternoon tea all year round, plus a themed chef's afternoon tea at various times throughout the year. Recently they have featured a chocolate afternoon tea and a tea to celebrate London fashion week....but the one we wanted to sample was their Halloween afternoon tea.

We love a themed afternoon tea...when its done right!

The tea is served in The Drawing Room at the hotel, which is a wonderful light and airy space punctuated by an amazing cake table in the middle of the room and lots of brightly coloured, comfy furniture.

 

Isn't that a cool table? So very tempting!

 

Once you have decided whether to have a traditional afternoon tea or a Chef's afternoon tea, your next decision to make is which tea to enjoy. There is a good tea menu on offer, with something for everyone...from traditional breakfast tea to a zingy lemon tea and a refreshing green tea.

 

I had seen a couple of photos on Twitter of this afternoon tea when it was being developed, thanks to Head Chef Chris Golding and his fab photos on Twitter, but I wasn't prepared for the amazing tea that was served to us....

 

Yes, that's dry ice adding to the spookiness of the tea! Isn't it brilliant?? It definitely was a stylish afternoon tea...but what did it taste like?

 

On the bottom tier of the afternoon tea we had the savoury items. These were traditional afternoon tea sandwich fillings served in wonderful Gougeres (savoury choux buns), they were light in texture and extremely tasty. I haven't tried this type of savoury before, but I really liked it and it made a nice change to the usual finger sandwiches that normally accompany afternoon tea. The fillings we enjoyed were Gloucester Old Spot ham, smoked salmon, coronation chicken and cheese with fruit chutney. My favourite filling was the coronation chicken which was light and creamy and extremely tasty.

 

Next we moved onto the scones - each person had one plain and one white chocolate scone which was studded with white chocolate chips. The scones were warm and served with clotted cream and an amazing strawberry, chocolate and balsamic vinegar jam (which was made at the hotel).

 

 

The scones were wonderfully fresh and a good size. The jam was full of flavour and topped off our scones and cream really well.

 

Finally we made it to the top tier....and what a brilliant top tier it was! We had a cute little pumpkin cake, a green apple jelly skull, a wonderful vanilla mouse and a bloodied chocolate Tonka cupcake. Each sweet treat was fresh and extremely full of flavour....in fact I'm hard pushed to tell you which was my favourite one!

 

That jelly skull melted in the mouth and was extremely refreshing in flavour. The mousse was light and creamy and the chocolate cupcake had a really rich flavour, topped with cream and raspberry - a great combo!

 

The little pumpkin cake had a wonderful flavour too and was very moist, it was complemented with a light cream filling. The detail on the icing was wonderful, and everything was made in house.

Once we had finished our afternoon tea, Chef Chris invited us to see the kitchen where everything was prepared and to meet the team who made everything. What a brilliant experience and a lovely surprise!

 

 

We were all surprised at how small the kitchen space was! Here I am with Becca and the team who were preparing afternoon tea today. From the left we have Hedieh, Josh and then on the far right Christof - everyone was so friendly and happy to let us see their workspace.

 

Unfortunately we didn't meet Ji Sun, Head Pastry Chef who creates all the afternoon teas as it was her day off...but Chris showed us around and explained how everything is made in-house and how orders are put together as they are ordered in the restaurant. Nothing sits around waiting to be served, meaning it really is freshly prepared when it gets to your table! Scones are also baked three times a day - ensuring everyone has warm scones with their tea!

 

It was a brilliant experience to see a professional kitchen first hand and to meet the team who had put together such a wonderful afternoon tea. Thank you

 

Chris for inviting us into your kitchen!

 

For more photos from the kitchen take a peek at Chris' blog.

 

While in the kitchen we also saw a traditional afternoon tea, which looked wonderful too. In the traditional tea you have open sandwiches with traditional sandwich fillings. Scones served with clotted cream and jam. Currently the sweet treats served include a chocolate brownie, a mini lemon meringue tart, Victoria sponge, fruit cake and an English breakfast tea chocolate bonbon.

 

 

Afternoon tea is served everyday in the Drawing Room between 2:30pm-5:30pm. The traditional afternoon tea is £25 per person (£37 with a glass of bubbles) and the Chef's afternoon tea is £27.50 per person (£39.50 with a glass of bubbles). If you want any extras all you have to do is ask!

 

In my opinion this is a wonderful afternoon tea, freshly prepared and served in a quirky environment. We'll definitely be going back for another afternoon tea soon!

 

Thank you for popping by today,

we hope to see you again soon!

 

Rachel & Lorna