Welcome back to Tea With Me and Friends!
This week I was sent a lovely gift - a pre-order copy of the new Eric Lanlard book - Afternoon Tea. With over 80 afternoon tea recipes for both sweet and savoury treats, the book contains all the cakes, pastries, tarts and biscuits you could wish for! In addition, menu ideas offer the perfect combination of flavours helping you create your perfect afternoon tea adventure at home.
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| Eric Lanlard's Afternoon Tea |
If you're not familiar with Eric Lanlard (aka Cake Boy) - he is a Master Pâtissier and twice winner of the prestigious Continental Pâtissier of the Year at the British Baking Awards.....he has also baked for celebrities and had several TV programmes on Channel 4.
Therefore when this book arrived in the post I thought I would be in for a treat! As you know from our previous book reviews....we always like to test the books out ourselves....and with this many recipes to pick from I was spoilt for choice! I therefore thought I'd run this review over several blog posts, featuring different recipes in each post......and to start with I would try out some biscuit recipes!
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| Homemade biscuits from Eric Lanlard's Afternoon tea book |
The book itself is very beautiful - full of tea-riffic photography and simple to follow recipes. From information about matching teas and food and how to make the perfect cuppa to suggested afternoon tea menus and so many recipes - it really is a comprehensive book.
The recipes are divided into macarons and choux, savoury tarts, sandwiches and scones, cakes and sweet tarts, patisserie and biscuits and includes delights such as tequila king prawn sliders, brie and red onion marmalade gruyere eclairs, aperol sultana scones (are you drooling yet??), triple marble bundt cake and chocolate ganache hearts to name a few!
From the biscuit section I opted to bake something new and something old.....for the something new I picked Eric's Palets Breton recipe....buttery shortbreads, a traditional biscuit from Brittany. And for the something old I followed Eric's Viennese butter biscuits (a big favourite in my household!)
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| Baking with Tea With Me and Friends! |
Both recipes were simple to follow and included photos of the finished biscuits (there aren't photos for all recipes - but the photos that are included are scrummy!).
My Viennese butter biscuits turned out really well - light and delicate and they looked just like the photo! They passed the taste test from both me and Joe....and they tasted even better the day after I baked them.
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| Homemade Viennese Butter Biscuits - Eric Lanlard's Afternoon Tea |
The Palets Breton were a slightly different story.....although they tasted amazing....they really didn't look like the photo in the book.....nor any other photo of Palets Breton that I have seen since I baked them!! I'm really not sure what went wrong.....but they still tasted wonderful!
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| Homemade Palets Breton biscuits from Eric Lanlard's Afternoon Tea |
The biscuits melt in the mouth and I can see how they can be used as a base for other recipes as well as being enjoyed alone....with a cup of tea or coffee!
The book Afternoon Tea will be available from June, but you can pre-order copies now. Over the next month we'll taste test a couple more recipes - don't forget to pop back and see what we try!
Please note that although we've received a complimentary copy of Afternoon Tea, this hasn't affected our thoughts on the book....and all opinions expressed in this blog post are our own.
Thank you for popping by today,
Rachel
