Time for......a little chocolate?

Hello there,

Welcome back to another sweet post from Tea With Me and Friends - we hope you are well today!

So....hands up....who loves a bit of chocolate? Well, you're in luck then because did you know that next week is Chocolate Week? The UK's biggest Chocolate celebration runs from 12th - 18th October 2015, culminating in The Chocolate Show, which runs at Olympia National Hall, London between 16th-18th October. This is actually the eleventh year that Chocolate Week has run and this year chocolatiers and chocolate companies, as well as hotels, bars and restaurants will be celebrating by hosting talks, tastings and demonstrations. Sounds scrummy to us!

So we thought we'd bring you a little round up of some of the things you will find next week.....

Paul A. Young Chocolate Afternoon Tea

Harvey Nichols have teamed up chocolatier Paul A. Young, to create a stunning Chocolate Afternoon Tea that treats the taste buds to a chocolatey dining experience.The tea includes delights such as Moroccan spiced chocolate pot, Rose crunch cake and a Chocolate and pecan tart.

Paul A Young Chocolate Afternoon Tea

This scrummy looking Afternoon Tea is priced at £20 per person or £28 per person to include a glass of Champagne. Available throughout October, Monday to Saturday.

Chocolate Afternoon Tea at the Ampersand

A colourful and intriguing sweet plate is on offer at the Ampersand in South Kensington. The sweet elements of this Afternoon Tea menu consist of white truffle oil cremoso on an intense chocolate and pecan crunch tart, dark chocolate mixed spice crumble cake, mango milk chocolate mousse and white chocolate macaroon and milk chocolate flavoured jelly with raspberry and dark chocolate mousse.

Chocolate Afternoon Tea - The Ampersand

This menu is available 12th - 25th October 2015 and is priced at £32.50 Per Person

Chocolate Afternoon Tea at InterContinental London Park Lane

This limited edition Chocolate Afternoon Tea is available from the 28th September to the 21st November and will surprise even the most educated chocolate connoisseur. The mood boosting menu features chocolate marshmallow scones and a selection of indulgent cocoa desserts including Dark chocolate frangipane tart and Milk chocolate mousse .

Chocolate Afternoon Tea - InterContinental London Park Lane

This is priced at £42 per person including a Champagne Cocktail

Divine Chocolate Afternoon Tea and Desserts at Lancaster London

The chefs at Lancaster London have created an Afternoon Tea to indulge chocolate connoisseurs.

Guests can experience unusual flavour combinations such as: Chocolate and black olive tartlets; and Warm savoury feta cheese and dark chocolate chip tarts. Freshly baked Divine Chocolate scones will also be included, served with a chocolate praline spread. Other sweet treats will include: Honey and chocolate lolly pops; Coffee and chocolate opera; Milk chocolate brownies; as well a selection of finger sandwiches. The Afternoon Tea will be served with a selection of Novus teas or an indulgent Divine hot chocolate

Island Restaurant will be serving two delectable desserts to celebrate chocolate week: a Divine dark chocolate mousse with honey glazed pear and raspberry sorbet; and Divine white chocolate Crème brûlée with passion fruit and shortbread.

However, as well as chocolate afternoon teas we also discovered some other chocolate experiences that chocolate fans can indulge in this Chocolate Week.....

Chocolate & Cranberry Indulge Spa Package at K West Hotel

Chocoholics will be in sweet chocolate heaven at K West Hotel in Shepherds Bush. Cocoa bean connoisseurs can go one step further in indulging their obsession, by being wrapped up and massaged in the good stuff too.  Available only during Chocolate Week, the limited edition K Spa package is priced at £125 per person and includes a Cranberry Body Wrap, a deliciously aromatic Chocolate Balm Massage, and access to the hotel’s Wet Spa facilities.

K-Spa at K West Hotel

Ensuring that guests feel indulged both inside and out, the package finishes with an antioxidant cranberry drink served in the Relaks zone, plus a bar of Divine dark chocolate with cranberries.

Michelin Star Lobster & Divine White Chocolate Dish at Bohemia  

Steve Smith, Head Chef of Bohemia restaurant in Jersey, has created a sublime dish to celebrate National Chocolate Week. Forgo the usual chocolate puddings, tarts, and mousse in favour of an altogether more exciting flavour combination. Steve has created a white chocolate & lobster starter, made with Butter Poached Lobster, Cauliflower and Divine White Chocolate, with Sorrel & Caviar.

Lobster & Divine White Chocolate Dish at Bohemia

 The chocolate dish will be a special starter on the restaurant’s Classic Menu, priced at £59 for a three-course dinner, including the lobster dish.

We hope you've enjoyed our round up of chocolate treats....if you indulge in some treats to celebrate Chocolate Week we'd love to hear about them!

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....Grange Tower Bridge Hotel

Hello there,

Welcome back to another fab Guest Post from Tea With Me and Friends, this time we are joined by the lovely Becca who recently enjoyed afternoon tea at the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel as part of a weekend of Hen Party celebrations. Becca is all too familiar with the blog and suffers "don't touch that yet, I haven't taken a photo!" when she enjoys afternoon tea with us and so I knew we would have some lovely photos from her afternoon tea adventure in London!

Afternoon tea
Grange Tower Bridge Hotel

This afternoon tea was booked as part of a package based at the hotel for a Hen Party I organised. We were a big group of eleven, and the hotel accommodated us in our own private room, which was modern and comfortable. The china was all plain white...

The sandwiches included beef and tomato on white bread, egg and cucumber on brown bread, coronation chicken also on brown and the rolled up sandwiches in the photo below were salmon! 

Afternoon tea sandwiches - Grange Tower Bridge Hotel

I forgot to inform the hotel of our dietary requirements until 9.30am that morning (a strawberry allergy and a gluten free) but the hotel managed to not only give us individual sandwiches, they also gave us individual trays for our sweet treats as well. 

Carole (our gluten free guest) said the sandwiches made for her were delicious, normally she receives sandwiches that are dry and not very tasty so she was pleased with the offering.

The scones very big and extremely tasty, served with clotted cream and raspberry or strawberry jam. 

We also enjoyed chocolate covered strawberries, mini trifle desserts with chocolate spoons, chocolate cups filled with a yummy cream filling and topped with fruit, small pastry tarts, blueberry mousse slices and tasty little chocolates too! 

Afternoon tea - Grange Tower Bridge Hotel

We had a selection box of Twinings tea bags to choose from, and the hot water was topped up frequently so we could help ourselves to tea as we desired. We were also asked if there was anything else we wanted or needed frequently. 

Time for Tea!

Considering there was eleven of us in the group the afternoon tea was very good and the added benefit of having our own room meant we were free to play silly hen games too! The tea was very relaxed and we were not rushed at any point. Most importantly the bride really enjoyed it! 

Doesn't that sound wonderful....perfect for anyone who enjoys chocolate treats! I love the look of those blueberry slices.

Afternoon tea is served in the Knight’s Lounge daily between 2pm-5pm. For more information about their afternoon tea offering please visit their website.

A big thank you to Becca for sharing her afternoon tea adventures with us. If you've enjoyed afternoon tea somewhere and would like to share with us please get in touch - you can email us, leave a comment here or on our Facebook page.

Thank you for popping by today,

Rachel

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