Tea Party | Marathons and Macarons

My friend from college, AJ, went to London with his family over the holidays.

They went to a very fancy High Tea, and he brought back an equally fancy jar of lemon curd.

He decided that the only reasonable use for this lemon curd was to make scones and invite us all over for a British tea party in his lovely apartment in Brooklyn Heights.

AJ is an excellent friend.

“Buttery, rounded and compulsively lemony”

Since most of us have a background in theater or at least a flair for the dramatic, I decided that we should speak in British accents all night. At first my friends couldn’t stop laughing that I was really sticking to my accent (which was bloody brilliant, if I say so myself) but they found it wearing off on them too, and soon all six of us were speaking in British accents at the tea table.

Costume pieces loosely inspired by Lady Sybil from Downton Abbey

Champagne toast with appetizers

Dinner was an arugula salad with walnuts and gorgonzola cheese, and three types of finger sandwiches

Makeshift two-tiered tray with the help of a Mason jar

After dinner, it was time for tea and dessert. We brewed two types of tea, and admired AJ’s fancy teapot with a tea candle below it to keep the tea warm:

Dessert wine

Our friend Chelsea’s Pearl Sugar Cream Scones (AJ used vanilla sugar instead of pearl sugar)

And Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones from his signed Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (AJ used blackberries instead of raspberries)

Strawberry preserves, lemon curd, and Brummel & Brown’s butter spread with yogurt – we were all impressed with how creamy and light this was, and tasted nothing at all like yogurt but was reminiscent of clotted cream or whipped butter

We ate with abandon, especially when the scones came out on the table. Afterwards we were so full of carby goodness that we found ourselves in a scone coma, which we quickly deemed a “scoma.” Not a bad way to spend a frigid January evening in the Heights of Brooklyn.

The next day, AJ reported back that he still had half a jar of lemon curd and had to find a use for it. He searched for some recipes and found one for cupcakes that used lemon curd in the cake and in the lemon buttercream frosting. So this is what Friday night looked like:

One of the reasons I love baking is that it really brings people together, as corny as that may sound. I love baking and decorating cakes and cookies, and whenever I bake something delicious I always want to share that deliciousness with other people. Last year in Sicily, I had so much fun sharing my American culture with my Italian friends through baked goods, and I introduced them to snickerdoodles, peanut butter cookies, brownies, and cupcakes, among other things.

But it’s just as wonderful being on the other side of that baking arrangement – having a friend who loves to bake organize a whole evening around scones, lemon curd, and a bit of British panache!