An American Version of British High Tea

Since this month’s book club featured The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley, I decided to whip up some food and beverages to honor the Scottish setting of the book. Since the Brits are big fans of High Tea, I took that idea and ran with it. A traditional High Tea generally consists of tea, finger sandwiches, cake, and biscuits (cookies and/or scones).

And by finger sandwiches we aren’t talking peanut butter and jelly or ham and swiss. Nope, we are talking real fancy fillings such as cucumbers and watercress. Because the UK is classy, y’all, and everybody knows that classy people eat their cucumbers sandwiched between two pieces of bread. So like most of my adventures in the kitchen so far, I had to completely relearn how to make sandwiches.

I started by googling high tea recipes and narrowed the bajillion fancy filler choices down to three. Since Egg Mayo seemed to be on every website’s sandwich list, I got to thinking it might be some sort of British Law to serve this particular variation at all high tea functions. Not wanting to have my UK visa revoked, I chose this as one of my three, despite the fact that I absolutely. hate. egg. mayo. sandwiches. Shhh…Please don’t tell the Queen!

I also chose a roast beef and watercress option, mainly because I didn’t know what the heck watercress was, and these days I’m all about learning new things. And because everybody knows that classy people eat watercress on their roast beef sandwiches, y’all.

After narrowing down the first two choices, I was down to one more selection. When I saw this recipe for a goat’s cheese and roasted red pepper spread, I knew it would round off my starting lineup of finger sandwiches. You had me at Goat’s cheese. Spoiler alert- it was delicious!

As for the desserts, I’ve already told you all about my rough go at making Millionaire Shortbread.

Other than that I served store bought Borders biscuits, and, as a healthy option, I put out some fruit, and some handmade cream-cheese based fruit dip. You know, healthy.

And just for fun, these were offered as well:

 Yep, you read that right. Haggis flavored crisps. A true Scottish delicacy.

I got lazy on the beverage portion of the spread. I was going to attempt to make a whiskey spiked tea, but all we had in the house was fancy whisky and I didn’t have Jon’s permission to use waste it on a cooking experiment. So instead I bought wine and copious amounts of cider.

I felt guilty for not buying British cider, but this Swedish stuff is just so good. And pretty. And I totally judge a cider by its bottle.

So if you’re interested in hosting your own high tea, here are the three sandwich recipes I used:

Egg Mayo Sandwich (**Mandatory by order of the Queen**)

Ingredients: 4 hard boiled eggs, 6-8 tablespoons of mayonnaise, butter spread, 4-6 slices of white bread, 1 large bunch of watercress

Directions (Yes, directions on how to make a sandwich. Pay attention.):

1. Peel the boiled eggs and put in a small bowl. Use the back of a fork to smash the eggs into small pieces, and then add mayonnaise for taste and desired consistency.

2. Butter white bread before spreading egg mayo mixture on one half and top with watercress before sandwiching with second piece of bread.

3. **This is a very important step** Cut off the crusts and cut into triangles. Everybody knows that classy people do not eat their crusts, and cannot be asked to eat a sandwich that is cut into squares. If you are living in the UK and it’s discovered that you do not cut the crusts off of your tea sandwiches and do not cut them into triangles, you will be sent home immediately.  

British Bunting = classy!

Roast Beef and Watercress Sandwiches 

Ingredients: 8 slices multigrain bread, butter spread, 2 tablespoons of horseradish, 2 tablespoons of chutney, About 12 slices of roast beef, 1 large bunch of watercress sprigs.

Directions:

1. Butter bread and then spread 1 half with horseradish and the other with chutney.

2. Then layer roast beef with watercress on top and sandwich together using bread. 

3. **This is a very important step** Cut off the crusts and cut into triangles. Everybody knows that classy people do not eat their crusts, and cannot be asked to eat a sandwich that is cut into squares. If you are living in the UK and it’s discovered that you do not cut the crusts off of your tea sandwiches and do not cut them into triangles, you will be sent home immediately.

Goat Cheese and Roasted Pepper Sandwich

Ingredients: 200 grams of soft goat cheese, 100 grams of cream cheese (I used Philadelphia’s Roasted Pepper variety. Delish!) 10 slices of white bread, 2 roasted red bellpeppers, 25 grams of walnuts

Directions:

1. Mix the goat cheese and cream cheese together and spread the mixture over 5 slices of white bread.

2. Slice the 2 roasted red bell peppers into strips and divide between the bread.  

3. **This is a very important step** Cut off the crusts and cut into triangles. Everybody knows that classy people do not eat their crusts, and cannot be asked to eat a sandwich that is cut into squares. If you are living in the UK and it’s discovered that you do not cut the crusts off of your tea sandwiches and do not cut them into triangles, you will be sent home immediately.

4. Whizz 25 grams of walnuts until fine (we’ve been through this. I don’t have a food processor and I have no idea what the verb ‘to whizz’ even means. So I just crushed them really really small. Please, please, please don’t tell the Queen.) Once the walnuts are whizzed, spread the edge of the triangles with the remaining cheese spread and dip into chopped walnuts.

Well that’s all of my new sandwich recipes, folks. But even though fruit dip isn’t necessarily part of a traditional High Tea spread (don’t tell the Queen!), I thought I’d share my delicious concoction with you anyway. 

Now I just made this up willy nilly off the top of my head so I don’t have precise measurements, but basically you just take a small package of cream cheese and mix it together with about 2 tablespoons of condensed milk, one teaspoon of brown sugar, and one teaspoon of vanilla extract.

I used low fat cream cheese and condensed milk, because I wanted to deceive myself (and my guests) into thinking it was healthy. Healthy smealthy; it was worth the calories either way.

In the end, I think my Americanized version of British High Tea was a success. Okay, maybe terming it a 'success' is taking it a bit far. Maybe instead I should say: My Americanized bastardization of British High Tea wasn't a complete and utter failure. At least I haven't been asked by Border Control to kindly hand back my visa....yet.