Sometimes my favorite meals and menus are the ones that allow the guests to graze, rather than plating each dish, A huge and gorgeous spread can be created for everyone to grab what they like and when they like!
This was the finished product and a total group effort from the members of my school's music department. #grazefullyyoursbysamantha lent her skills and this entire spread came together in no time! Some store-bought, some homemade, and all delicious!
A white tablecloth covered with a large sheet of white butcher paper is the perfect blank canvas.
I took care of much of the homemade portion including these fantastic Cranberry Orange Scones. Scones can be made with pretty much any flavors and the combinations are endless. I love the combination of dried cranberries with orange zest. Usually I glaze these with an orange sugar icing, but since this was high tea and people would be dunking them in the tea, I opted to leave off the glaze.
I also made a quick and easy batch of Sugar Cookies with Jam. This is slight variation on thumb print cookies and added nice height and a splash of color to the table.
You cannot have high tea without tea sandwiches so I whipped three - Truffled Egg Salad, Smoked Salmon and Cucumber, and Turkey - something for all palates! I bought three different types of bread, made the egg salad, and assembled the ingredients for organization, The egg salad sandwiches were made on whole wheat bread, the turkey sandwiches were made on seeded multigrain bread with an herbed cream cheese mixture, and the smoked salmon sandwiches were made on which bread with a garlic herb butter. I removed the crusts and cut into different shapes - some rectangles, some squares, and some triangles.
There was also an abundance of jams, jellies, clotted cream, dips, butter, fruit, vegetables, meats, cheeses, crackers, chips, and breakfast egg cups. Plus some beautiful flowers - edible and decorative!
Beverages of course included a large selection of tea made by our good friends at Persnickitea and of course, mimosas. It truly was brunch meets tea!
The music dream team - SaMaKaJo!
Each person's plate was its own work of art!
So which one was the winner - English High Tea or American Brunch? The answer is yes.
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