English pot luck contribution

[AnnaDelvorkina]

International day at school, (we don’t live in UK), DD13 has to take an English contribution - food. Can be sweet or savoury, a big plate to share or individual items, snacky or a meal/dish. She will arrive at 8am and it will be eaten at 1pm. No fridge and no way of heating up, but crockery and cutlery provided. The items are on a buffet then eaten sitting at a table. Enough for 30-40 people to have a taste.

From my point of view it would be better to avoid pork, but that’s not a rule.

Ideally it would be something not too expensive to provide.

What is typically English and will go down well?

i would avoid sausage and meats. bad for the environment and there is likely to be waste

Lemon drizzle cake.
A Bakewell tart in traybake form (tray bakes are very popular in NI). Or cherry bakewells like Mr Kiplings.
Hot cross buns.
Eccles cakes.
Garibaldi biscuits.
Scottish tablet (a lovely fudge that's easy to make).
Scottish shortbread (also easy).
Authentic, homemade "English muffins".
Sticky toffee pudding.
Welsh cakes.

Cucumber sandwiches will be mushy by 1pm. How do I know this

Marmalade sandwiches

A small jar of jellied eels. Will easily feed 40 and will get by the issue of no fridge as it will come home unopened 😁

Victoria sponge or lemon drizzle.

Both will be fine neither refrigerated nor heated. Both very British. Both can be divvied up to give everyone a taste.

Cucumber sandwiches do have potential but you'd need to make sure the butter totally sealed the bread or they'll go soggy.

Sausage rolls are better hot and mince ideally wouldn't sit out the fridge all morning.

Love the party hedgehog idea! How about summer pudding? It's more unusual than the other cakes suggested which in my experience of these types of events is a good thing - people love quirky!
You could also try Bread and Butter pudding but no fridge/reheating might put me off that one.

If you can buy it where you live I would do cheddar cheese, water biscuits, Branson pickle and chutney.

Scones with clotted cream and jam are a good call if you can buy the cream, and I think that you’d be able to find a way to refrigerate.

I'd go for cucumber sandwiches or cheese scones - someone has suggested cream cheese but that wouldn't be traditional. They'd need to be plain cucumber, butter, light seasoning and no crusts. Absolutely delicious. You would need to prepare close to the the or the edges dry out.
If it's mainly for kids, I like the idea of the cheese and pineapple hedgehog for the entertainment value.

Mini Sausage rolls, construct the night before and bake in the morning, then they will be totally fine out until eaten.
(This is how we sell them from our business, complying with all food regs)

Pork pies

Proper biscuits. Shortbread probably.

Scotch eggs are very English I think. But I don't know how to make them!

Cheese straws.

Cheese and pineapple a good shout. Or Cheese and tomato ona stick

Are rice crispy squares English???

What are the other nationalities? Bog standard ham or cheese sandwiches with white bread and butter aren't necessarily solely English i suppose but are definitely western.
I'm 100% English and never had a cucumber sandwich 😅.

Fruit cakes
Hotcross buns

That's Peruvian surely?

Remember your daughter is an ambassador for English food! make it something delicious. I think a solid cake would be best that can be cut into many slices/squares.

Shortbread or digestives (with or without chocolate), victoria sponge or lemon drizzle cake.
Can you put the items in a tub/tin, then in a bag with a cool pack?

Thank you to everyone for All of these ideas. We have a bit of time to practise so will see which ones DD wants to make and turn out well.

My first thought was cheese and crackers, but English cheese is almost impossible to find here; once a friend had some Stilton but it had cost the earth! However I think I have seen Branston pickle once or twice (maybe people order on Amazon or bring it back / ask visitors to bring?)

DS always takes a trifle in situations like this. Dutch children love it!

Shortbread? Nice and easy.

Victoria sponge cake or gingerbread or a traybake of sticky toffee pudding with custard.

Cornish pasties, made with beef and some veggie ones.

Lots of people the world over love fresh scones with cream and raspberry or strawberry jam.

I always used to make scones and flapjack. (I once overheard the teachers slagging off the latter, oh the shame!)

As there is no fridge, hewlth and safety, i would opt for mini veggie "sausage" rolls

A fruit cake - bara brith or dundee cake or something like a yorkshire parkin.

Another vote for cheese scones. Split and pre butter them and they won’t be dry. They went down well when my DC took them into school parties. I made them really small just about an inch across

Apple crumble

Rocky road. They’ll be intrigued.

I think some seem to have not read the "English" in the title.

I think scones are your best bet.