My First Pop-Up Tea Party - Indian Afternoon Tea

On Sunday I hosted my very first food event! An Indian inspired afternoon tea featuring Gujarati snacks, sweets and Indian inspired bakes - and of course lots of tea. On the menu were two savouries, various sweets, two cakes and masala chai.

My venue was the fabulous Cambridge Cookery School - which was a dream to cook in - especially being as my kitchen is the size of a postage stamp. There were 5 ovens, or maybe 6! I lost count. I had a lot of fun prepping in there. I had the help of Miss Sue Flay, Cambridge's afternoon tea expert extraordinaire - her experience was much appreciated!

My guests arrived and I greeted them with a refreshing glass of Mango Lassi. My lassi was spiced with cumin - based on the traditional Gujarati dessert of 'Rus' - which is mango puree sprinkled with cumin and salt, eaten like a cold soup. Mango Lassi often comes with just a little salt, or fennel, the cumin was a nice change - and very nostalgic for me! My mango lassi recipe is here.

My afternoon tea consisted of two savouries, three sweets and two cakes. As you would traditionally start with finger sandwiches my guests dove into the savouries first.

Dhokra - steamed chickpea & semolina sponge, with chilli & ginger

Pea Katchoris - crispy pastries filled with peas, potato, cumin and mustard seeds

Tea station

Whilst everyone worked their way through savouries I made two big pans of masala chai with Kandula English Breakfast Tea and a sprinkling of Jacob's Jam's Chai Masala. Masala chai is made by bringing water, sugar, masala and loose tea to the boil then adding milk and bringing to the boil once again. If my guests wondered why I was staring so intently at it, it is because it can boil over in seconds if you take your eye off it - a watched pot does boil, full recipe here.

Onto the sweets - again as is traditional for afternoon tea - they made up the majority of my offering for the day. I really wanted to include some mithai on my menu, as they are integral to sweets in Indian culture - served during all celebrations - weddings, births, Diwali and when welcoming important guests.

My personal favourite mithai is ladoo - made up of tiny deep fried sugar balls which are then formed into large rounds and spiced with cardamom and decorated with pistachio nuts. These are something of a challenge to make, so they didn't make it on to my menu - but if you see them anywhere - buy them!

Kopra Pak - coconut and milk sweets with saffron and a sprinkling of chocolate

Ghor Papri - ghoor/jaggery and sesame seeds with pistachio for prettiness

Crumbly and lightly spiced Nankhatai biscuits are ideal with a cup of tea, and they were a hit with my guests. Thumbprint cookies remind me of Nankhatai - although the Indian biscuits are filled with nuts or sometimes spices. Mine had pistachio on top, and for a few brave types - cumin seeds.

What is afternoon tea without cake? First up was my Honey Sesame Dream Cake - not a based on a traditional Indian recipe but the flavours are quite Indian! I made a double batch for an extra tall cake.

My centrepiece was a Masala Chai Cake which had three components - a light sponge which was then soaked in spiced tea syrup before being sandwiched with cream cheese buttercream with a final flourish of syrup and some pistachios. My cake icing skills need a little work, I have to admit, but I was happy with the flavours. I'm planning on making that tea syrup again, but putting it into a cocktail instead!

Putting on a food event is such hard work, I'm used to organising conferences as part of my day job, but food is something else! I spent the whole weekend prepping plus all the planning before, list making, shopping, recipe collecting - but it was so FUN. I learnt lots, and some new techniques - a lot of the food I'd eaten before but never cooked before so it was a steep learning curve.

The majority of the pictures in this post were taken by Ozzy - thank you for capturing my event so perfectly. :)

Thanks so much to all who came to my tea - particular thanks to Tine at the Cookery School for the venue, Miss Sue Flay for being a fabulous assistant, Gemma at The Linton Kitchen for lending me her gorgeous china and my lovely husband for being my sous chef/assistant/calmer downer.

I'm doing this all again soon! Next is a supperclub which will be a 3 course Gujarati (vegetarian) feast. I'm still working out a date so stand by your inboxes (sign up to get emails here) or follow me on Twitter for tickets. Soon!

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A Very Indian Afternoon Tea

I’m holding my very first food event! After lots of talking, thinking and encouragement from the lovely people who make up the Cambridge food blogger ‘scene’ (not sure I like that word but it fits) I have decided to hold two events celebrating Indian food.

First up I’m starting with afternoon tea, which seems like the natural first event for me, someone with such a sweet tooth. After that I will be holding a supperclub where I’ll be cooking up an all vegetarian Gujarati feasts for around 15 guests.

 Indian Afternoon Tea – Sunday 4th August, 3pm – 5pm  - a few places left
A central Cambridge location, not far from the rail station 

 The much loved British afternoon tea but with an Indian / Gujarati twist. Savoury nibbles (think Indian street food) to begin, sweet treats, a masala chai cake (pictured) and of course tea!
 £19 per person
To book places for the afternoon tea email me at deepa@lazygiraffe.com with the number of places you'd like, I'll then send you a PayPal invoice for the tickets. 

Gujarati Supperclub – no date as yet but it will be late August / early September. 
I’m still scouting around for the perfect venue, plus perfecting a stack of perfectly round rotli (chapatti). 

I’m really excited to be bringing you my ideas for these two events, I’ve had a lot of fun planning the menus for both and I really hope my guests will be wowed. Email me if you’d like to book or for more details. See you in August!

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Adventures in Tea

I am normally a very boring tea drinker. The usual everyday brew with milk, quite weak. I've tried other tea before but I never like it as much as 'normal' tea - boring. I had some lovely tea at the Secluded Tea Party recently and this inspired me to try and broaden my tea drinking habits!

I bought some Rhubarb and Custard tea from Tea Box Online. A loose leaf tea which is faintly sweet and really refreshing, and I liked the name!

Then I picked up some Tea Pigs Darjeeling Earl Grey tea temples (tea bags!) from Waitrose which is much much nicer than normal earl grey, the bergamot flavour is real and not fake orange. The tea is lovely without milk and with a slice of lemon.

I have been trying to cut out milk from tea but I can't stand the usual tea without milk (although that is mainly because the limescale in the office kettle is horrendous), these are better without.

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The Secluded Tea Party

Yesterday I attended the very fabulous and utterly scrummy Secluded Tea Party hosted by Miss Sue Flay - what a great alias!

I've never been to a pop up restaurant or foodie event before so this was my first, it was held at the Cambridge Cookery School, a shiny and new food school in Cambridge - perfect for the tea party.

I found it via Twitter and me and a few other Cambridge foodie friends ( Nora, Ireena & Sarah ) went along to join the party.

We had some brilliant tea from Tea Pigs and Tea Box Online - I had the rhubarb and custard tea from Tea Box and it was yummy, just right on its on and slightly sweet. The Earl Grey was much nicer than any I'd had before, not the fake orangey-bergamot you get from mass produced earl grey, that was from Tea Pigs.

But now, on to the food! We had red onion jam & pancetta tartlets, little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, chocolate macarons sandwiched with vanilla cream (my favourite), huge fruit scones with peach & amaretto jam and cream, and lastly a rich chocolate cake with chocolate ganache.

We left with very full bellies, all going home for a nap!

There will be more tea parties in the future so keep an eye on the Secluded Tea blog for dates, each one will be in a secret location!

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