Grandma's Birthday tea party

My sweet Grandma's birthday was last weekend and we wanted to throw her a small party with her nearest and dearest to celebrate her years.

Birthdays are my favourite, and now with a small person in the family I am SO incredibly excited for the next ten years worth of birthdays and parties! Food and drink usually makes up a pretty big part of the occasion, and is a big talking point for an event or party. So it is important to get it right.

We chose an afternoon tea party theme and decorated the dining room with ditsy florals, pink balloons, birthday bunting and confetti. I found the floral napkins in Waitrose - they have a really lovely selection of napkins, paper plates and cups, ideal for parties. I bought the birthday bunting, balloons and confetti from Sainsbury's. Note the tumble dryer pictured in the corner of the room - adds a little je ne sais qouis don't you think?!

I spent the entire day before baking up a storm in the kitchen (quite literally - imagine flour and icing sugar everywhere including my hair and clothes) in preparation. I set out with a plan, and chose three different recipes, as well as scones and a fresh cream victoria sponge layer cake which we made on the day.

For a savoury option, I decided on four different sandwich fillings, and made nine finger sandwiches of each which I displayed on a platter. The fillings were; salmon and cream cheese; egg mayonnaise and cress; ham and cheese; tomato, basil and mozzarella. These were incredibly easy and quick to make on the morning of the party and easily wrapped in cling film and stored in the fridge before guests arrived.

Mum was in charge of scone making, and made twelve standard size scones with currants. To make things easier for our guests we cut each scone in half, and spread raspberry jam with a large dollop of clotted cream on top of each.

The lemon sponge recipe came from a trusty Google search. I made it as a tray-bake which I then cut into mini squares, perfect for afternoon tea nibbling. The lemon curd icing was what caught my eye, and although my attempt wasn't quite as pristine as the photograph shown on the recipe, I was happy with how it came out. It went down a treat with my family so I'll definitely be making this again.

I chose a chocolatey option in the form of 'Brookies', a recipe I've used so many times originally shared by beauty blogger, Lily Pebbles. These brownie cookies are bite size and with the icing sugar dusting look really effective at a party. The recipe makes so many! So, aware of how many cakes I'd planned to make, I halved the amounts given and made roughly 30 brookies, and we have a few left over.

Unfortunately, the white chocolate and raspberry cookies just weren't all they cracked up to be. I hadn't used this particular recipe before and my cookies were more scone than biscuit, which was really disappointing. As a result, there were a lot of these left over and I may have to donate them to colleagues at my Mum's office. They certainly looked good though and I think my Dad was quite a fan - thanks Dad!

For Grandma's birthday cake, the main event, the centrepiece, the piece de resistance, I made a fresh cream and strawberry victoria sponge cake - the perfect summer time cake. I followed my Mum's good old sponge recipe: weigh four eggs and use self raising flour, sugar, butter of the same amount plus a drop of vanilla essence. Pour mixture into two sandwich tins and cook on 180 for 25 minutes. Easy peasy. I then whipped double cream and mixed two spoonfuls of strawberry jam with a large punnet of chopped strawberries and used the two to sandwich the two sponges. I used a paper doily to act as a stencil for the top of the cake and sieved icing sugar over the top. My friend bought me the chandelier style birthday candles holder which went really well with the overall party theme and added a bit of glam to the cake. It tasted amazing!

For drinks, we made two large pots of tea and kept it filled up all afternoon, there was juice for the kids and a bottle of prosecco for the adults of course!

The afternoon was really good fun and the food was very well recieved. My Grandma even took home a 'doggy' bag and we have leftovers that will last us all week (I can kiss goodbye to my healthy diet!). It's a great, and a pretty cost effective way to entertain a party of people. This kind of thing could be done for a hen do, baby shower, coffee morning or even at a wedding party - you can be as indulgent as you like! There are so many ideas for hosting an afternoon tea party on Pinterest, one of my favourite places to get ideas for entertaining, recipes and decoration - so if you're planning an event, I'd definitely recommend taking a look if you haven't already. Warning: you'll get hooked!

What was the best party you've been to?

Kate xo