Can you guess our Style Era?

Tea With Me and Friends

Hello there,

Welcome back to a slightly different post from Tea With Me and Friends....as today as well as a little tea and cakes we're also going to be talking a little bit about style.

We were recently shown this fab online tool from Glitzy Secrets which, with the click of a couple of buttons, helps you find your ideal look from bygone eras. Lorna and I love nothing better than throwing aside our usual clothes and "dressing up"...whether that be in fab vintage finds or reproduction clothes.....or even the odd cowboy hat here or there! So we loved the idea of this tool and was keen to take a peek.

Now anyone who pops by regularly will probably not be surprised by our result....in fact we weren't really surprised either...but it was fun to click through the images. Yes, we got....The Rockin 50s!

Lorna rocking her 50s wiggle dress

The era of full skirts, petticoats, narrow waits and the odd neckerchief...not to mention strong lipsticks and beautifully style hair....both Lorna and I adore this stylish era (and the music was awesome too!). In fact we love it so much that each year in November we head off to Rhythm Riot, a 1950s rhythm and blues weekend held in Camber, Sussex. It's a weekend where we can let our hair down (or rather curl it up) and wear our favourite 50s styles for a whole weekend.

Our 50s style is probably influenced rather a lot by the American fashions, but as well as all the full dresses and petticoats you'll also find the odd wiggle dress as well....

Our passion doesn't stop with the evening wear though, we are also partial to a pair of high waisted turns up for the daytime. Surprisingly comfy and roomy...if you haven't tried a pair of high-waisted turn ups we'd highly recommend it....we've already converted a couple of our friends!

Tea With Me and Friends

Now, this got me thinking a bit....we love the 1950s fashion...but how could this translate into our other passion....afternoon tea? 

Well, I've had a 1950s Birthday party previously and I think some of the food I made then would also make a wonderful 1950s themed afternoon tea. Obviously we'd need to start with some savouries....but I would move away from the traditional finger sandwiches in this case and try something a little more American....

1950s style afternoon tea savoury treats

Mini burgers and hotdogs can easily be bought in packs now from supermarkets, but they are also really easy to make yourself once you have found the mini rolls. They also look incredibly cute on the table and I think would work well in an afternoon tea. We have experienced mini hotdogs and burgers once before when we enjoyed the Sex & the City par-tea at Hyatt Regency The Churchill. 

For the cake part of your 1950s afternoon tea adventure you could try making some cola flavoured cupcakes.....

1950s inspired cola cupcakes

These cupcakes were flavoured using soda stream cola syrup and were topped with cola icing and of course some mini cola bottles. They turned out surprisingly well, with a delicate cola taste which wasn't overpowering or artificial in taste. These proved so popular that I have made them several times since.

Another sweet treat could include a peanut butter muffin....

Admittedly slightly bigger than our usual afternoon tea sweet treat, but just as scrummy! Made with peanut butter in both the sponge and the icing.

Or how about some salted caramel cake....

This was a plain sponge layered with vanilla icing and a salted caramel filling - perfect if you wanted to serve a coffee for your afternoon tea adventure!

Other things you could include in your spread would be pretzels and bottles of coke.....

A 1950s inspired tasty afternoon tea spread!

I think our love of the 1950s translates really well into an afternoon tea adventure which would make a fun afternoon with friends and family!

So, over to you....what do you think? Are there any other treats that we could add to our 1950s afternoon tea spread? 

We're submitting this blog post into a competition run by Glitzy Secrets, take a peek here to learn more and vote for us!

Thanks for popping by today,

Tea With Me and Friends

Rachel & Lorna

Time for Tea....W Hotel London

This weekend Becca, Sheree and I decided to have a festive day in London - first we headed off to Harrods (because we're mad) for a spot of shopping and then onto the W Hotel in Leicester Square to enjoy their festive afternoon tea - Rock Around the Christmas Tea.

W Hotel usually offers guests a W Rock Tea, which is a traditional British afternoon tea with a Rock "n" Roll twist....but since its the festive season they have added a festive twist to their afternoon tea.

W Hotel is a modern, glamorous hotel situated on Leicester Square and the W Hotel Bar and Lounge is very contemporary. The hotel offers just ten teas with their afternoon tea, all appear to be bagged tea and are served in stainless steel teapots and white china teacups.

Modern teapots and china

Also on offer with the afternoon tea is a choice of three Christmas themed cocktails, they are priced at £10 each and Becca and I were both tempted to try one....

 

Festive cocktail anyone?

When the food arrives at our table it looked rather spectacular and was served on a bespoke three tier cake stand. Each tier of the stand was a record to fit in with the rock "n" roll theme....

 

Festive afternoon tea at W Hotel London

The food is well presented and looks very appealing and there is plenty of choice.

 

On the bottom tier there is a selection of savoury items including some controversial triple decker sandwiches! We could enjoy salmon and cream cheese and roast beef sandwiches, or small turkey and cranberry rolls or a veggie wrap. All were generously filled, but I would question how fresh they were as the bread on top of the sandwiches had turned a little hard already.

 

Controversial triple decker afternoon tea sandwiches!

Next we moved onto the scones, which were currant scones served with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Becca is unfortunately allergic to strawberries and when we mentioned this the waitress found some small jars of raspberry and apricot jam as an alternative for her.

 

The scones were the low point of this afternoon tea - they were over baked and not far off being rock cakes. Very disappointing.

 

After attempting (and failing) to eat the scones we quickly moved onto the sweet treats on offer, hoping these would be better......

 

Sweet treats galore!

On the next two layers we were treated to six different sweet treats...some were divine and some were not to our taste, but we definitely weren't disappointed with the amount of choice on offer.

 

The treats included "O Christmas Tree" which was a red velvet sponge topped with cream cheese frosting, "All I Want for Christmas is Choux" which was a choux pastry bun filled with eggnog crème patisserie and "Love This Angel Instead" which was a mascarpone mouse with cherry and chocolate.

 

But my favourite bits were the "Jingle Bell Rocky Road" a wonderful rocky road bite, topped with marshmallow and a candy cane and the "Holly and the Ivy" a very tasty gingerbread holly leaf, filled with a sparkly raspberry jam - I could have eaten loads of those!

My favourite sweet treats in the afternoon tea

The final sweet treat to be served was the "Mistletoe and Wine" which was a mulled wine jelly topped with Chantilly cream. Now I really enjoyed this, but if you're not a fan of mulled wine it will leave a bad taste in your mouth!

 

 

This tea is priced at £25 per person, which I think is reasonable due to the amount of choice on offer. However I am sad to report that despite the assistance with Becca's food allergy, the overall service wasn't up to scratch.

 

Admittedly there were only two waitresses working when we were there but it wasn't particularly busy in the lounge and yet no one came to see if we were happy with our tea or whether we needed anything else. We had to ask for more tea once we'd run out and we were never asked whether we wanted seconds of anything.

 

However, saying that we would give them the benefit of the doubt as we would like to try their normal W Rock Tea, as we enjoyed the concept of the tea and it is great value in terms of choice.

 

To finish our festive day we saw the famous Coca Cola truck that was paying a visit to nearby Covent Garden.....

 

The Holidays Are Coming!

If you've tried this festive offering, or any other festive afternoon tea, we'd love to hear about it - leave us a comment or send us an email!

 

Thanks for popping by today,

Rachel & Lorna