Apricot + Passion Fruit Scones

11-08-2016 Local Black BookAfternoon Tea, apricot, baking, biscuit, British, classics, dessert, food, passion fruit, recipe, scone, sconesLeave a comment

I’m a bit late to the #afternoonteaweek (totally a thing!)… but no way I was going to miss out entirely on the opportunity to use the best excuse there is to have scones and cake and call it a meal!

Scones are my favourite part of afternoon tea, and having never baked any myself, I thought it was about time I give them a go.

The word on the street is that a good scone is actually more tricky to bake as you’d think, so I wasn’t really sure how it’d end up. Add to that the fact that I’m truly terrible at following recipes and had decided that adding fresh passionfruit to your dough was the way to go and it looks like a recipe for disaster!

Add yet, my Apricot + Passion Fruit Scones worked a charm, so I thought I’d share the step-by-step recipe below.

For 8-12 scones, you’ll need:

30g granulated sugar
60g cold butter, cubed
60ml whole milk
240g plain flour, plus more for dusting
2 eggs
1 package instant yeast
10-12 dried apricots, chopped
seeds from passion fruit

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180-200°C.

Mix together the sugar, flour and yeast. Add in the cold butter and combine until you get a sand-like texture.

2. Add the eggs and mix until roughly combined.

Apricot + Passion Fruit Scones | Cake + Whisky

3. Add the milk and knead lightly until the dough comes together.

4. Add the diced apricots and passion fruit seeds and knead for a few seconds until just incorporated.

5. Using your hands, stretch the dough on a sheet of flour-dusted baking paper.

6. Using a cookie-cutter (or a glass), cut up rounds of dough until you run out. Place the scones on a baking-paper covered baking tray.

7. Glaze each scone with a little bit of milk (or beaten egg), then bake for 10-15 min.

8. Serve immediately the traditional way with clotted cream and your favourite jam.

But then, salted butter and lemon curd isn’t half bad either!

PIN FOR LATER:

Little Nan’s Afternoon Tea at Sutton House

20-06-2016 Local Black BookAfternoon Tea, cake, cocktail, cocktails, Dalston, Hackney, Little Nan's, London, National Trust, pop-up, recommendation, Restaurant, review, scones, Sutton House, teaLeave a comment

Nothing lifts rain-drenched spirits the way Afternoon Tea does.

Especially if said tea is of the tipsy variety and involves a bit of history and a lot of vintage crokery!

Which is just what Little Nan’s latest pop up is all about!

Hosted in Hackney’s Sutton House and taking place every Sunday starting on July 10th, Little Nan’s Afternoon Tea is the perfect mix of traditional and kitsch.

If the weather is nice you can have your tea served in the Tudor courtyard or the breakers yard and enjoy the sunshine.

But if the summer weather doesn’t quite work out the way Facebook might make you believe it does, the indoor Georgian tea-room is absolutely charming as well.

Like any self-respecting nan’s dining room, the place is full to the brim with vintage furniture, lace doilies, freshly cut flowers and the most impressive collection of china tea cups…

And an equally impressive collection of quirky teapots…

That Little Nan’s sneaky grandchildren use to serve their latest cocktail creations!

The perfect camouflage (and the number one way to improve on your Nan’s tea!)

With just a few twists on the classics, the Tea itself is delightfully retro and much more in line with what your Nan would serve…

Classic Cheddar cheese straws

Finger sandwiches

Egg & cress, ham & mustard, carrot & hummus, smoked salmon & cream cheese (the unquestionable winner of the lot), strawberry jam… It’s a sandwich lover’s paradise!

Beautifully golden home baked scones, served with clotted cream and the best raspberry jam (that we may or may not have fought over…)

Followed by a selection of seasonal pastries & cakes (Almond & orange cake + Chocolate Rocky Road on our visit, both absolutely delightful!)

Plus your choice of nutty Carrot cake or creamy Victoria Sponge…

And like at any grandma worthy of the name, you’ll definitely be encouraged to go back for seconds and thirds!

Grandma’s house vibes + tipsy tea = the perfect way to perk up to a rainy day!

Book Little Nan’s Cocktail Afternoon Tea

Find out more about Sutton House (a visit of which is included in Little Nan’s Cocktail Afternoon Tea ticket)

Afternoon Tea at Park Tower, Knightsbridge

08-11-2015 Local Black BookAfternoon Tea, cake, Knightsbridge, London, luxury, nut, Park Tower, party, Restaurant, review, scones, Starwood, Starwood Hotels, tea3 Comments

With Christmas fast approaching, weeks are becoming crazier and crazier already.

So busy in fact that it’s becoming difficult to take time out to just enjoy something nice and relax.

Luckily, birthdays are nature’s way of reminding us to eat more cake, so afternoon tea was in order to celebrate Michelle’s (of Petite Tea Lover) & Binny’s (of Binny’s Kitchen).

So we all braved the rain and more-than-unhelpful Google maps and made our way to the Park Tower in Knighstbridge to forget life for a few hours over tea, cake, presents and giggles.

The Knightsbridge Lounge, where the afternoon tea is served, is one of the most beautiful rooms I have ever set foot in.

The walls are covered in flowering magnolia trees paying tribute to the ones flowering each year in nearby Hyde Park.

Complete with some of the comfiest, marshmallow-like chairs and delicate tableware!

A truly stunning room indeed!

Only matching for the truly stunning, nut-centred (almond, peanut, hazelnut, walnut, they were all there!!) afternoon tea that followed.

Starting with what might have been my favourite; a stunning, crisp and elegant mushroom quiche.

Made truly exceptional by a perfectly executed, paper-thin pastry case and the addition of toasted nuts complementing the wild, umami mushrooms brilliantly.

The sandwiches selection is rather classic, featuring British favourites, such as Salmon & cream cheese, Coronation chicken, Pastrami, and Egg and cress.

Simple but not boring, thanks to small twists to the old classics: walnut bread for the Coronation chicken (quite a genius move!), the addition of nori to the salmon roll, or this golden brioche encasing the eggs…

There were of course some warm scones, served with the traditional cream & jam, as well as some more novel chestnut puree.

And finally, the best part: the cakes, pastries and all other kinds of sweet treats!

Apple & berry cup, Chocolate & orange cone, Nougat, Turkish delights, Marshmallows, Macarons…

And all sorts of nut-filled cakes, cupcakes and tarts!

Making it quite hard to decide where to start (and find the psychological strength to eat that delightful swan-shaped chou!)

Favourites around the table included the Vanilla & pistachio mousee dome.

The Walnut and whisky cupcake (of course).

And of course the adorable Paris-Brest Chou!

Putting it simply, the afternoon tea at Park Tower Knightsbridge was NUTS!!

Park Tower Knightsbridge, 101 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7RN

Le Méridien Piccadilly Afternoon Tea and Unlock London by RIBAPix

08-09-2015 Local Black BookAfternoon Tea, architecture, cake, exibition, Jing, Le Méridien, Le Méridien Piccadilly, London, Restaurant, review, RIBA, RIBAPix, Royal Institute of British Architects, scones, Starwood Hotels, tea3 Comments

Having Afternoon Tea has been at the very top of my London Bucket List for quite a while now.

I mean, what is there not to love about a meal that’s basically cake, with a few bits around it?

Nothing. My point exactly.

So when Le Méridien Piccadilly and The Royal Institute of British Architects asked if I’d like to join them for a cake-and-scone-fuelled presentation of their current collaboration, a London-centric, architecture pictures exibition named Unlock London, I could barely stopped jumping all over the place (I was THAT close to add heart-eyed emojis to the RSVP email to be honest…)!

But is there any better reason to get overexcited than the prospect of a few of my favourite things (architecture pictures, bloggers and errrrr… cake!) all in one room?

Le Méridien Terrace Grill & Bar is one of the most stunning places I’ve ever seen. Nestled on the second floor of the landmark Piccadilly hotel, there’s so much to love about it, starting with the incredible glass ceiling.

The very well-stocked bar must certainly be another (and I heard the terrace itself is one of the best places for a drink come summer…) but I’ll have to leave those for another day.

For the time being, I was far too busy contemplating the three-tiered platter that had just been put in front of me…

Luckily I wasn’t the only blogger in the room and nobody touched a thing until we all took pictures to our heart’s content!

Then it was time for a London-inspired feast!

Starting with tea (obviously).

The Jing selection available at Le Méridien is both impressive and interesting and it left many in our group wondering which one they should go for.

But I knew it’d have to go for the Whole Rosebud tea as it is one of my favourites and it’s not often you actually find it on a tea menu!

Next came a selection of finger sandwiches (of which my favourite had to be the Smoked salmon one)

Then there were scones (both plain and with raisins).

And clotted cream of course.

Since I’m quite a newbie at that whole afternoon tea ritual, I obviously had no clue as to what the proper order to pile cream and jam up was, but thanksfully, I had an expert sitting right by my side.

We debated on the topic for a little while before deciding that jam on top was more Instagramable (definitely a word) and all embrassed our new-found less-than-traditional way to eat scones!

But the best was still to come!

The cakes!

A whole platter of them, even!

The ‘Helen of Troy’ poppy seed cake (considered to be the most beautiful cake of the 1930s) was definitely the prettiest of the bunch.

But if you want to win my heart, there’s no better way than a few of Traditional Bakewell tarts!

After indulging in all those treats, we learnt a bit more about the exibition that inspired them all: Unlock London.

The exibition showcases a selection of stunning photographs from the 1.5 million held in the Royal Institute of British Architects’ massive picture library (which is now available to browse online! ?).

Left: St Pancras Station, Euston Road, London (1949) | Right: Paramount & Plaza cinema, Lower Regent Street, London (1968)

Taken by leading architectural photographers from the 1930s to 1960s, these images show iconic London landmarks as well as some less well known or long since vanished.

Left: Leisure Kitchen Equipment, Regent Street, London (1954) | Right: Night street cleaning near St Paul’s Cathedral, City of London (1957)Escalator, St John’s Wood London Underground Station, Wellington Road, London (1940)St Pancras Station, Euston Road, London (1949)

Last but not least, we went on a little tour of the hotel, which ended up in the lovely Oak Room. Powder pink from the floor to the ceiling with touches of gold here and there, it’s a little girl’s dream come true. But we were not there to play dolls! Instead, we had a bit of a photography workshop.