Queen of hearts desserts

The desserts for my queen of hearts tea were super easy.

(I really liked my black and white tiered teacup tray for this party!)

The "unbirthday" cake cupcakes I decorated with "painting the roses red" icing.  Its super easy to get the striped look--I just take a chopstick and put some food coloring on the tip, put it on one side of the icing once it is already in the bag (or in my case, my Wilton's cheating decorating pump thing) then pull it out, dragging the coloring.

The white cake recipe is a cheat that I found on the internet (at Recipe Girl, here) that uses a white box cake as its base.  I've used it a couple times and it is always super moist.  It calls for vanilla extract, but adding almond and/or orange would also work well. I think I added a bit of almond to this batch with the vanilla. 

Next up are the "knaves of hearts" chocolate dessert which were also super easy.  I made a boxed brownie, cut out hearts with a slightly smaller heart cookie cutter.  I spread some Nutella on one heart and topped it with another.  A quick batch of ganache (good quality chocolate I melted in my chocolate melting pot and added a bit of heavy cream) spooned on top and let cool, and there we go!  I did keep these in the fridge.

The "stolen tarts" are a simple shortbread/butter cookie recipe I've used several times that works well with a cutter (from Allrecipes here).  This is a great go to cookie cutter recipe.  Before cooking, I pressed my thumb in the cookie to make an indent, added jam, and done!  

Queen of Hearts and a very unbirthday Tea

I haven't thrown a tea party since the last time I was updating this blog (so 2017 probably), but this past February I had a Queen of Hearts themed tea for my unbirthday birthday!  My friend's daughter (almost 3) enjoys having pretend tea parties and I knew I had to invite her over for a "real" tea party before she moves to Texas (which is now happening next month, so I am super glad I was able to have this party before all the shut downs).

The adults had two types of teas, Mad Hatter (which I bought at Disneyworld at the Grand Floridian where they serve an afternoon tea) and a blooming tea.

 The children had their own menu with Strawberry Lemonade and Hot Chocolate.

I was super excited I found a whole set of Alice in Wonderland paper tea products on Amazon that I ordered for the party.  There were three designs on the plates:

The clock,

Alice,

and the White Rabbit.

Tea started with a glass of sparkling strawberry wine (for the adults) or pomegranate sparkling cider

before I brought out the savories:

ham and cheddar croissants on a separate plate,

with the remainder on a three tiered tray.

I was really proud how the cucumber roses came out.  They weren't all that difficult--I found a how to on the internet for making a cucumber rose garnish.

I had looked all over for some flamingo picks for the egg salad and finally found a pack at Michaels.  These were the perfect picks to go with the egg salad croquet balls from the Queen of Hearts favorite game.

Next for the scones--berries and chocolate

and vanilla bean.

Next up dessert, but I'll share more on them in a different post.

 Before guests took their favors, little boxes of chocolates.

And remember, it's always tea time!

Disney Princess Tea

Once Upon a Dream

In a Tale as Old as Time

a Whole New World

opened up, because a dream,

is a wish your heart makes,

and now I'm Almost There

now that, at last, I've Seen the Light.

And you can join me, as I invite you to pull up a chair as the dining room proudly presents-- a Disney Princess Tea!

It has definitely been a while since my last post!  I am way behind as you might guess, so lets go back to the end of June when I held a Disney Princess themed tea for some of my sister's friends!

First tea start with a glass of Peach Muscato while waiting for everyone to get there--you can see one at the opposite side of the table, left side--Katie (my sister) and the first guest had stepped outside to greet another guest and I decided to take pictures really quick because the lighting was so good with the front door open--I'll have to remember for the next time I take pictures.  Katie loves peach flavored things.

I really was extremely excited about this tea--each place setting had a menu and a favor specialized for each princess "guest."  The favors I put in little white boxes with silver ribbon and a sticker of the princess on each side.

I also served an item of each of the Princesses during the party:

Savories:  Ariel's shimp salad on a croissant, Rapunzel's cucumber flowers, and  Jasmine's hummus on pita bread.

I really loved these napkins, shown above with the Rapunzel place setting--I really wanted some that said Once upon a time, but didn't see any I could easily get online or in stores, and then two days before the party I saw these little beverage napkins at homegoods!  They even had gold accents to match my new small set of goldware.

The last savory was Tiana's chicken creole bites on the light green stand I got from the last teacup exchange around a frog prince in his top hat finery.  This place setting is Tiana's of course.

(Jasmine's place setting)

(Belle's place setting)

The scones were Belle's peach buttermilk scones.  I even put a bit of yellow sugar on top to give them a golden look.

And next for dessert:  Cinderella's pumpkin cupcakes with salted caramel buttercream, and Snow White's apple rose tarts.

(Cinderella's place setting with my Cinderella's castle music box)

And finally, Sleeping Beauty's cream puffs with vanilla pink and blue filling.

(Sleeping Beauty's place setting)

I served three teas at this party--Mulan's mystic dragon tea (a green tea with ; Elsa & Anna's chocolate tea (a black tea with chocolate and a hint of vanilla and whiskey); and Moana's pineapple blooming tea.

The favors were a Lip Smacker's lip gloss for each princess and a pink wrapped Godiva truffle.

A Springtime Fantasy Teatime

Well, I'm definitely ready for spring (and the weather where I live keeps osculating between 70 and 30s/40s), so when my sister mentioned she wanted to go to tea with a couple of her friends and my mom suggested that I could just throw her one, I immediately jumped to ideas for pretty pastels and flowery china!

After I found the pretty unicorn cards on sale, I knew they would be perfect for this whimsical tea.

Guests were asked to choose a hat,

(some of the hats my mother and I made a couple of years ago)

and were given a glass of sparkling wine with blood orange and passion fruit flavors.

I set the table with different Royal Albert trios, the following four I found at Homegoods!

(Rose confetti)

(Love lilac from the Candy collection)

(Gratitude from the Miranda Kerr collection)

(Sitting Pretty from the Candy collection)

I think this is my first time using the pretty silverplate spreaders I found that look so nice with my flatware. 

Below is the menu for this tea:

Tea sandwiches:

carrot cake on cinnamon raisin bread, ham salad butterflies, curry chicken on a croissant, and cucumber flower sandwiches.

I served a black tea with roses and orange petals I purchased a couple of years ago in a small shop in Provins, France.

I served tea with cream and these cute pink teapot shaped sugar "cubes."

Next, scones served with clotted cream and Victoria plum jam, vanilla bean

and one of my classics, lemon cherry.

After the scone coarse I put a blooming tea on the table.  It was the first time my sister's guests had seen one and they seemed to really enjoy watching it opening up.

And, now that we were pretty stuffed, it was time for dessert!

(A new Christmas gift--a cheeky pink tiered tray!)

Starting at the top, lemon blueberry cheesecakes, Neapolitan cupcakes, and raspberry iced shortbread cookies.

Each guest also received a small favor of a chocolate and a teabag.  I used some left over black and white bags I already had, and found a pink decoration on sale at Michaels.

(Lady Carlyle)

This tea was really easy to put together and I really enjoyed mixing all the pastels with some colored glass water goblets and a pink glass creamer sugar. 

Thanks for joining me and "May all your dreams come true"!