A simply SPLENDID afternoon tea

Afternoon tea is one of our favourite things. As long there are plenty of scones with jam and clotted cream my Matey and I are pretty content. Afternoon tea with friends on Sunday gave us the opportunity to use my grandmas surprisingly cool tea set and a bunch of daffodils and the dilemma of what else to have.

Sandwiches (with no crusts of course) were kept simple and easy with:

Cheddar with posh chutney: We usually go for whatever is on offer in the mature cheddar department so splash out on a really good chutney which makes a bog standard cheese taste amazing. This time we had Tomato, apple and rosemary jam from The Ginger Pig. Yes it is a bit pricey at £5.50 a jar but it lasts ages and makes whatever you have lurking at the back of the fridge taste great.

Marmite butter and cress: Nigella's marmite butter (mix marmite with butter then spread on the bread) with cress. My other grandma used to do this and the peppery cress works well with the salty marmite.

Goat's cheese with red pepper and walnut: This idea was nicked from the internet and simplified. Very soft goats cheese, (Making it spreadable, the original recipe called for mixing the goats cheese with cream cheese. I couldn't be bothered!) roasted red peppers and ground walnuts. Good  but not sure that i t was as good as it sounded or worth the effort.

Lemony honey chicken: Left overs from the night before. Simple but very tasty.

For the scones I played fast and loose with my usual method and tried out Mary Berry's recipe with eggs in it. Having never heard of scones with eggs in them I was deeply suspicious but the resulting scones were very good. If truth be told I wouldn't bother with eggs (and the extra expense) for gardening scones  but it's probably worth it for a fancier tea.

My favorite moment however was the deploying of the incredibly useful muffin warmer as a clotted cream cooler. Crushed ice was packed into where the hot water would go and we had lovely cool clotted cream all afternoon.

This was the day that my Matey and I discovered that we are on opposing teams regarding clotted cream placement. He thinks it should go on top of the jam I consider this to be nonsensical and put the jam on top of the clotted cream...it's only logical, you wouldn't put butter on top of jam would you?

Of course this was all washed down with copious quantities of rose earl grey tea and much chitter chatter.

As for the cake....oh what a cake it was! So much so it fully deserves a post of its very own.