Life's too short to let any afternoon tea opportunity pass you by. Here are some unusually scrumptious offerings.
Pistachio Heaven
Jane: Is this the most delicious cake ever? The grown-ups all think so and, surprisingly given the general nuttiness and lack of gooey icing, the children are pretty keen too. This is a good rich winter treat, which can even be substituted for pud with a dollop of cream on top. When I’m feeling lazy I forget about the vanilla pod and the cake is just as tasty…
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Firecrackers
Tamsin: There is more than meets the eye or rather the ear when you bite into these chocolate crispies – a surprise that is perfect for Bonfire Night. A hidden ingredient, ‘space dust’ or ‘popping candy’ gives them an extra snap, crackle, pop and fizz. (Reminded me of the firecrackers, now banned, that we use to let off in the garden and watch as they jumped around perilously near us.)
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Yummy Apricot Shortbread
Jane: This
is the time of year for lovely comfort puds like crumbles and roly polys and
here’s a fantastically stodgy teatime equivalent beloved of all members of our
family. It’s a heavyweight buttery shortbread with a sweet and fruity layer
that makes you think spring might be on the distant horizon. It’s also good to
make as a traybake for school dos as both children and adults like it a lot,
and you can make 24 or so slices in one batch.
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Love Heart Biscuits
These funky biscuits are very easy to make, so everyone in the family can join in mixing,
rolling and wielding the cookie cutters.
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Godmother's Special Choc Chip Cookies - The Best!
Helen: Carla was very keen to make chocolate chip cookies during the school holidays and I was even keener. The cookies travel very well and we have tested out their flavour at several locations. Firstly, in the bowl in raw state rather a lot of the cookie dough was eaten by Carla, with assistance from Maudie and Edie. It must have tasted good, because around 10% of the mixture disappeared. Secondly, once cooked, Joe tested the first cookie while still hot from the oven. This test showed that flavour is obscured by heat and does become stronger once the cookies have cooled and the choc drops are no longer in danger of burning your tongue. Thirdly, the cookies were taken to the beach to experience the seaside; after a bracing walk in the wind, they tasted fantastic in the semi-arctic conditions.
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Blackberry and Apple Slices
This is delicious hot, but even better cold a day or two later.
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Handy Biscuits
Tamsin: Last year we made Biscuit Feet (see blog 6th August 2007). This year I decided to do Biscuit Hands using the hand-shaped cookie cutters I've had at the back of my drawer and never used. I made the same shortbread dough as for the feet, since it keeps its shape so well. When the biscuits were cooked we decorated them by thinking of all the words or phrases that had a prefix of ‘hand’.
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Red and White Party Cake
This red, slightly chocolately-flavoured sponge is a great novelty cake for children's parties – you can make it into a fire engine, Spiderman or sports cake, or decorate with buttercream as a red and white celebration for St George's Day.
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Almond and Coffee Espresso Cake
I love coffee cake and this is one of my favourites - a little bit different from the norm. It's adapted from 'Cake' by Joanna Farrow.
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The Best Chocolate Cake
This dark and delicious chocolate cake is the kids’ absolute favourite – the one they always ask for as their birthday treat. The gooey chocolate topping and the fresh fruit in the creamy filling make it totally scrumptious!
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Lemon Drizzle Cake
Drizzled with a zesty lemon sauce, this makes a great cake for afternoon tea. Make it in round or heart-shaped tin, decorate around the base with fresh flowers and it will look as good as it tastes.
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Two-Cheese Scones With Tomato Salsa
This makes a good savoury start to a proper afternoon tea. If the children don't like goats' cheese, any other soft cheese will do.
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Raspberry & Apple Palmiers
These are stunners – a mouthful of heavenly puff pastry with yummy confectioner's custard. Just dreamy!
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Hedgehog Cake
A funky cake that children can decorate themselves with fingerlicking lashings of chocolate butter icing and buttons.
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Amber’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Is there a better choc chip cookie recipe than this? Crafted to perfection by Amber (and her Dad) after long hours toiling over a hot oven, these yummy cookies are enjoyed by children or adults.
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Cherry Shortbread Mice
Joe made these cute little mice last year for his teachers. He placed each mouse on a triangle of cardboard and wrapped it in a cellophane sheet, tied with a Christmas ribbon.
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Speculaas Biscuits
These traditional Dutch biscuits – eaten during the St Nicholas celebrations in December – fill the kitchen with spicy, Christmassy smells.
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Giant Teacake
Two ways to create the most gigantic teacake you’ve ever seen. The Real Giant Teacake looks authentic but is trickier to make, so we’ve added a cheat’s version too.
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Invasion of the Bug-eyed Spiders
If you’re looking for something different to give your trick or treaters this Hallowe’en, try these spooky red five-eyed spiders.
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Austrian Apple Cake
This apple cake fills the kitchen with delicious yeasty smells that the kids love. Make life simple by using a bread machine for the dough.
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Plum Squares
This is such a simple dish – shortbread dough pastry with plums arranged on top – but the cooking brings out the flavour of the plums and makes for an extra tasty afternoon tea.
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Orange and Walnut Loaf
A moist loaf bursting with tangy orange flavour and with a sweet, glazed topping. Perfect for autumn tea.
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Pumpkin and Orange Muffins
You can make the pumpkin purée for these delicious and nutritious muffins by steaming pumpkin pieces for about 15 minutes, then blending them to a purée. Or use tinned pumpkin – though you may need to add more orange juice to get the right consistency.
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Chocolate Workies
Mike: These are a childhood favourite of mine and I have managed to add them to Joe and Carla’s list of favourite puddings. Just pineapple rings, digestive biscuits and melted chocolate. They’re called ‘workies’, why I don’t fully know but it has something to do with my father eating them at work – either as a pudding served up at his canteen at Tate & Lyle (in the days when everyone stopped for a big cooked lunch in the middle of the day) or as a dessert at a works ‘do’ he and my mother attended.
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Blackberry Polenta Cake
My sister was recently very disparaging about polenta, saying it was one of those pointless and trendy ingredients that everyone suddenly goes mad about. But I love cakes with a bit of polenta to add bite and texture. And this one is a stunner.
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Basic Four-Egg Sponge
This basic Victoria sponge recipe makes a fantastic cut-and-come-again family cake. For a two-egg sponge use half the given amounts and cook in one round 20 cm (8 in) tin for 20 minutes or 12 cupcake cases for 12 minutes.
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Basic Muffins
This is a sure-thing muffin recipe you can play around with to make your favourite muffin flavours, for example adding 75g chocolate chips, chopped nuts or dried fruit to the dry ingredients, or sprinkling the uncooked muffin mix with Demerara sugar and cinnamon before cooking to give a spicy crunch.
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Biscuit Feet
I made Anna-Louise's Redcurrant Tart yesterday so that I could photograph it and following her suggestion of using the left over shortbread dough for biscuits we cut them into feet shapes. Using 'Writing Icing' tubes we turned them into sandals, flip-flops, devils, angels, hippy, stripy and spotty feet. Mike then suggested that we photographed them in different positions, this proved to be great fun and we came up with ...
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Dainty Toasties
When we were growing up, sardines were always the top teatime favourite of storybook children like the Famous Five. But eating sardines straight from the tin doesn’t hold much allure... Here’s a way to make them palatable for kids today. Best eaten smothered in tomato ketchup.
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Hot Cross Buns
You can make the dough in a bread machine - fast and easy - or by hand with quick-rising yeast. Home-made buns don't look as perfect as the ones in the shops but they taste 1,000 times better!
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Buttermilk Cake
Use bought or home-produced buttermilk in this deliciously moist no-frills mix – a big hit with children who like slabs of plain cake for tea.
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Maypole Cake
This is a basic Victoria sponge decorated with flowers and ribbons to celebrate the arrival of summer.
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Using Up Excess Easter Eggs
Last year, a friend's twins were given 17 Easter eggs each while her older daughter got a comparatively modest 12 - which meant they had 46 chocolate eggs around the house. Here's some ideas to deplete the egg glut: make huge batches of Extra-Chocolatey Easter Muffins (just double/triple the chocolate in a muffin recipe), and donate the muffins as after-school treats to all your children's delighted friends.
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