90th Afternoon Tea

It’s been a while I managed to write a post, I was too busy planning and baking for two parties.
One of them was a big 90th birthday party for my father-in-law. It wasn’t that big in term of number of people attending, as only immediate family got together for a weekend, but it was ‘big’ in terms of significance. If 90th birthday party isn’t a big deal, what is? (Well, 100th, I guess. )

We decided to go for a BBQ + garden tea party, I didn’t need to prepare much foods. I just concentrated on sweet treats.

Ta Darrr…. garden afternoon tea.
I really loved that we could use mum-in-law’s cake stands for grandad’s (father-in-law) birthday party. These cake stands used to come out for special tea time when my husband and sisters were young.

(Top: Blackcurrent macaroon, lemon macaroon. Middle: Cherry shortbread, coconuts cocoa biscuits. Bottom: Rocky road, lemon square, rice crispy)

I burnt a good batch of macaroon first, then failed to make another good batch. Ended up with lots of failed shell of macaroon to eat at home.
Heart cherry shortbreads (middle tier, back) were made by my boys who saw it on Cbeebies’s “I Can Cook”.  Boys set up their ‘biscuits shop’ and sold them for penny to their uncles and aunties. They had a such fun.

 

(Top: coffee jelly with cream, key lime pie, raspberry mascarpone cheesecake. Bottom: scone with butter+strawberry jam)

These small cups are lovely in tea party. I got this idea from a friend of mine, she made lots of green tea mousse cups for Japanese party some month ago. Those little cups are plastic shot glasses which we can buy at party corner of large supermarkets nowadays.

As for the birthday cake, our auntie ordered a huge iced Victoria sponge cake from a home bakery. It was massive, biggest single tiered cake I ever seen, but I forgot to take any picture of the cake itself.

I also baked black forest gateau for my sister-in-law on Sunday, as her birthday was next day. But with too much of partying (not drinking, but getting things sorted and all that), I forgot to take our camera. So no photo. But this classic cake was received well, too.

It was a lovely sunny weekend for all. My boys had a such fun playing in the garden with their cousins. And granddad had a really special time surrounded with his family.