Ideas for food and drink to serve at an afternoon tea at home

[ScoobyAndScrappy]

Hi everyone

I'm hosting a few people next month for Afternoon Tea as it is one of my neighbour's 80th birthday.

Aprart from the obvious-sandwiches, scones and tea what else would you like to eat/drink if you were attending?

I'm going to buy a few bottles of fizz and a birthday cake too but wasn't sure if I should do sausage rolls/cheese and pineapple/crisps etc or is that silly?

Any ideas gratefully received

Sounds a lovely idea
I always think afternoon teas have ALOT of cake and I like cakes but like the savoury stuff too…

how about

little mini quiches
plum bread (sweet) but with cheese
blini’s with cream cheese and smoked salmon
cheese scones with caramelised red onion
bowls of nice crisps

then the usual scones and cake selections ( I always buy the mini batterburgs as I think they look nice!)

I guess there’s a danger of it turning into a full blown buffet! Are you using 3 tier cake stands or just general serving platters?

Victoria sponge.

Thanks both.

I'm not sure yet whether it will be stands or platters-do you think one is better than the other?

Like I said I'm an Afternoon Tea virgin-I have eaten too many some but never made one myself at home.

I mean I guess it depends how many people it’s for - stands are nice to arrange but it depends how many you need.

I did my own catering for my sisters 40th wedding did an afternoon tea at home and I bought some stands online just plain white ones dunelm or similar - they do look nice on the table and you can get them fairly cheaply or even the disposable cardboard stands still look nice.

I think there will be around ten people in total-I wish it could be more but I only have a small house.

I will look online or go to Dunelm for some stands. Thanks for the suggestion.

I would do some homemade sausage rolls but avoid too much else as, like a pp pointed out, it becomes more of a buffet than a refined sort of delicate affair!
we did some crab/lime/chilli mixture in crostade things (I might have made that up, they were thin pastry bowls the size of a small vol au vent case bought from Sainsbury’s!) too when we made one a few years ago for our mums on Mother’s Day.

Thank you-yes, I will include some small sausage rolls.

Hmmmm - I would do some sandwiches but NOT savoury pastries like sausage rolls or quiches, as that makes it more of a 'meal' than afternoon tea to my mind.

I would do 3 varieties of little finger sandwiches, some individual sweet pastries like mini choux buns, vanilla slices, that kind of thing, a couple of simple cakes such as Victoria sponge, Battenburg or Angel cake, these could be individual, maybe something like Viennese whirls, and then of course the birthday cake, which should be whatever the birthday person likes best. I wouldn't do scones because they need dealing with - cutting, spreading etc. and I think afternoon tea should be just finger food. However I don't like scones so I may be biased.

It does depend on what time you will be having this afternoon tea. If it's quite late some of your guests may confuse it with 'tea', meaning the evening meal, if that is the case I would feel obliged to offer more savoury options.

I wouldn't do sausage rolls but definitely as Delilah suggested, some finger sandwiches.
Scones are compulsory however.

Good advice here: https://www.crumbsonthetable.co.uk/planning-an-afternoon-tea-menu/.

I'd agree there's a difference between an afternoon tea and a "buffet". Less is more for afternoon tea, you don't need to lay on a full spread. Finger sandwiches, scones, cake, that's the bases covered.

You can't have an afternoon tea without scones! 😱 And absolutely nobody will confuse it with their evening meal. Have you ever actually had an afternoon tea?!!

https://www.fortnumandmason.com/diamond-jubilee-tea-salon

have a look at the menus on here for inspo.

@NoYouCantComeToTheWedding I have had a LOT of afternoon teas! Scones are served at a cream tea, not an afternoon tea, usually.

And if, say, I was to serve afternoon tea at 5pm I know plenty of people who might expect more of a buffet meal than a light repast, which if what afternoon tea should be.

I’ve always been served scones at any afternoon tea I’ve ever been to 🤷‍♀️