High Tea Society 2011

Yesterday was our first meeting of The London High Tea Society held at 'The Villas' aka my home. We have stolen this idea from my lady pals in Brisbane who have been doing this for awhile now and we have finally set up the London chapter. It is basically an excuse for myself and all my London lady pals to catch up and enjoy delish cakes, biscuits, sandwich's - or even pie, over a lovely cup of tea.

This High Tea was also the first for 2011 and was held for the return of a great lady pal, Meg, who has just returned to London for a few months after leaving us last May. Since it was such a special occasion we also allowed the boys to attend and they shirted up and acted like proper ladies.. I mean men!

We went through three stages, starting with some Earl Grey and Orange Darjeeling tea from Fortnum & Mason, you know that place where the Queen shops apparently. First up on the sweets side was my low fat gluten free brownies (made with beetroot..shhh!!!) which won some praises around the table and went down well with a dollop of cream on the side. And I caught Lady LauraK sneaking a second piece later that night. My scones were also a hit with some amazing strawberry and champagne jam which the guest of the evening also got from F&M. I wasn't 100% happy with my scones as I know I can do better, but everyone seemed to enjoy them, including myself.

Also in the first spread were sandwich's, chocolates, strawberries, macaroons, iced vovo's, shortbread and much more...

Guest of Honour ... Lady Meg

Second round was the cheese stage and Lady Lauren showed up just in time with her some smoked brie.. amazing! Also on the table was my housemate Mad Men Marco's delish bruschetta, I think this is definitely one of my favourite things he makes, I won't even attempt it when he's around.

And the last round was the Pumpkin Pie. I would love to say I made this one, it was delish. My housemate Lady Laurak made this one and it was amazing and perfect for round three.

All in all I think the first High Tea meeting was a success and the gym is going to be my friend this week.

Happy Baking x

ps. excuse the bad photos, I only have my iPhone to take photos on now as the heat seemed to destroy my camera in Australia, I will hope to rectify this soon.