Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Christmas baking - love this time of year!

 Well, with Christmas less than one week away now, I have been to more Christmas functions than I can count, and have been busy in the kitchen with Christmas baking. My obsession with Christmas cookies has continued, and my most recent creations are reindeer shaped. I got the idea from a friend's photos on facebook, but used google images to refine it. So I can't claim the idea, but they were lots of fun to make. The gingerbread recipe is amazing! A friend gave it to me not so long ago, and it is the best gingerbread that I've ever had (disclaimer: I don't usually like gingerbread).

To make reindeer, I used a small gingerbread man cutter and used mini-pretzels, jaffas, and mini M&Ms as antlers, nose, and eyes respectively. The legs of the gingerbread man provide extra support for the pretzels/antlers.

You can obviously make any shape you want using the gingerbread as the base cookie. I like using gingerbread for the reindeer because of the colour of the cookie, I've never imagined reindeer to be white like a sugar cookie.


Gingerbread

3 Tbsp golden syrup
75g caster sugar
1 Tbsp water
1 tsp mixed spice
1 1/2 tsp ginger
75g butter
1/2 tsp baking soda
225g flour

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.
2. Place golden syrup, sugar, water and spices in medium sized saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring well.
3. Remove from heat and add butter and baking soda. Mix well.
4. Add flour a bit at a time until a firm dough. Set aside to cool.
5. Once cool, cut out shapes and bake for approx 12 minutes until golden and crisp.

Enjoy the Christmas season!

H xo

Sugar Cookies

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
250g butter
1 cup castor sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp salt

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Add the egg and vanilla. Mix well.
3. Add in flour and salt. Mix well, the consistency should be that of pastry or similar.
4. Roll out and cut. Don't roll too thin.
5. Bake for 15 minutes at 160 degrees Celcius. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.

To decorate, your imagination is your only limitation. I just used home made icing, tubes of ready-made icing for detail, hundreds and thousands, chocolate hail, coconut and coloured balls to decorate them, most of which was already in the cupboard.

Back Again!

Hi everyone,

First, let me apologise for not posting anything over the last three months. Everything happened at once, and I ran out of time to blog.

Since last writing, I have submitted my final project for my Masters degree and spent a month in India. India was such an incredible country to visit, and I look forward to sharing some of my experiences here, including my chance to go to high tea in the City Palace in Udaipur.

Christmas is also on its way, and I am currently obsessed with Christmas cookies. Check out the batch my sister and I made last night, the recipe is here. They were really quick and easy to make, and we had all of the ingredients in the pantry already. The only time consuming part is the decorating! I do a lot of baking at home, but a lot of it is for my family. I have been reminded how nice it is to bake and give it away, so plan on gifting quite a few Christmas cookies over the next couple of weeks.

Watch out for further posts for a Christmas themed high tea. Christmas always excites me because it means summer (in New Zealand) and holidays are on their way. It means time with family and friends, BBQs and the beach.

But for now I must run, it is a gorgeous summer's day here and I'm off to Christmas in the Park.

H xo

Nainoma Bars

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I’ve been baking a lot lately, the kitchen is my space to be creative, away from work, Uni and other stressors. I love finding a new recipe and trying it out. Especially ones that are a little bit different, like this one.

If I’m honest, I would say that the first thing that attracted me to this slice was the name of it. Nainoma Bars, where did that come from? The recipe tells me that the slice is also known as Continental Fudge, but I like Nainoma Bars much better. My Mum had a couple of recipes books out on the coffee table, and I was flicking through them and came across this slice. I’ve been a little obsessed with the chocolate-coconut combo lately, to the point where I’ve developed my own ‘Chocolate Rough’ muffin recipe. I’m still in the developing stages of this, but it is tasting pretty good. Anyway, this slice also had custard in it (another winner in my books) so I had to try it out.

This slice is quite sweet, so you only want a small piece at a time, but it went down a treat with my family. I cut my batch into 60 pieces, so there’s plenty to go round. Another thing I like about this recipe is that it involves no actually cooking time, which means that you can make it as you have time. I made the first two layers, had to go out for an hour, then came home and finished it off.

Nainoma Bars (aka Continental Fudge)

Base

115g butter

¼ cup sugar

3 Tbsp cocoa

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

200g crushed malt biscuits (though I imagine wine biscuits would work too, throw them into the food processer to do this quickly)

Filling

55g butter

2 cups icing sugar

2 Tbsp custard powder

2 Tbsp hot water

Topping

150g dark chocolate (I used 62% cocoa)

1 Tbsp butter

1.     Line a shallow 30cm x 21cm tin with baking paper.

2.     For the base: Melt the butter and add sugar and cocoa, mixing together. Add the beaten egg, then the vanilla essence, crushed biscuits and coconut. Press into prepared tin and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3.     For the filling: Cream softened butter with the sifted icing sugar, custard powder and hot water. Spread over the chilled base and return the refrigerator.

4.     For the topping: Melt and chocolate and butter in the microwave (30 second bursts at medium) and spread over the custard mixture.

5.     Refrigerate for another hour and cut into small squares. I recommend a hot knife to avoid cracking the chocolate topping. I cut mine into 60 squares, but you can make them bigger or smaller according to your own preferences. Store in the fridge.

Recipe taken from Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Baking by Alexa Johnston.

So if you have a bit of a sweet tooth I would recommend trying this one out.

Happy baking!

H xo

The Art of Food - Part 3

Several years ago I left the cold and rainy New Zealand winter for the hot and dry USA summer in Colorado. While I was there I had the privilege of meeting and staying with friends of my grandparents near Denver. Their son-in-law was an artist, who specialized in still life paintings. I loved his work straight away, and had to share some of his works in the third part of this series.

Scott Fraser lives and works in Longmont, Colorado. Check out his website here.

And here are a couple of my favourites…

Scott Fraser, Metropolis, 2003

Scott Fraser, Study in White VIII

Scott Fraser, Thread

Have a great weekend!

H xo

The Heritage Hotel

Date of Visit: 2 September 2012
Location: Heritage Hotel, 35 Hobson Street, Auckland
Website: http://www.heritagehotels.co.nz/auckland/restaurant-bar/
Cost: $32 pp

GrabOne strikes again, I went to High Tea at the Heritage Hotel for my Mum’s birthday with my family. Although the high tea was nice, the general consensus was that it was nothing spectacular.

Again, we made the reservation well in advance, and the initial day that we wanted was fully booked.

There was a large selection of teas on offer, all of which were from the Harney & Sons range. I had the Paris tea, which I really enjoyed. It was a black tea blend that had carmel, vanilla and black current flavours. Definitely a good tea selection. My sister opted for a hot chocolate but she wasn’t very impressed.

The table setting was clean and uncluttered.

The food selection was ok. I’ll start with what I liked. Chocolate dipped strawberries – always a winner. I also loved that all of the sandwiches were freshly made and they tasted great because of that. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sultana scones. To me, they tasted like sultana buns, they didn’t quite have the right texture for a scone.

The service was good and quick but not as attentive as I would have liked. It would have been great if the waiter serving the high tea had described what was being served for high tea as a menu was not provided. However, other than that, I don’t have any complaints.

What I did like about this high tea was the high ceiling of the restaurant, which was lit by natural light. Natural light is a lot softer than artificial lighting and makes the environment a lot lighter. Apparently the Heritage Hotel is what used to be the old Farmers building, and my parents spoke fondly of the place. I however, have no memory of its former occupants.

A brief review, but I feel like that basically sums up this high tea. It was ok, perhaps they are just offering high tea because it’s a current trend? For $32 I think it's a little expensive for what you get.

Service: 3.5/5
Food: 3/5
Tea: 4/5
Atmosphere/Ambiance:  3.5/5
Layout (of restaurant): 4/5
Setup (of table):  4/5

Overall: 3.5/5

The Art of Food - Part 2

It's the last day of winter today (in New Zealand at least) and I'm rather excited to see spring is on its way with the sunshine streaming through my window. This is part 2 of my look at artists who paint high tea related subjects and I've been enjoying getting to know some contemporary artists.

In my Google searches, I stumbled upon this artist and was instantly hooked. Joel Penkman appears to specialize in still life artworks. A New Zealander by birth, he now lives and paints in the UK. I particularly loved his paintings of tea cups, it reminded me of looking into my grandmother’s china cabinet when I was younger.

But really, these posts are all about the paintings, so here are a few of my favourites that I found on his website. Check out the website for yourself here.

Blancmange

First 9 Teacups

These paintings make me happy, it's funny how art can do that.

But anyway, I'm heading out to high tea at the Heritage Hotel this weekend so watch out for that review next week. Have a fantastic weekend and enjoy the sunshine!

H xo

Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry

While I enjoy writing my blog, I also enjoy reading other blogs. One that I follow regularly is High Tea with Dragons. A while ago, the author wrote about a recipe book called Sprinkle Bakes, written by the author of the Sprinkle Bakes blog, Heather Baird. Loving the public library as I do, I requested a copy to check it out. The author is an artist who uses the medium of baking/desserts. The book is incredible; some people have so much talent! The instructions are also really good, taking you through every step so you can achieve so same results yourself (hopefully).

See the resemblance?

So inspired by Wayne Thiebaud’s ‘Neapolitan Meringue’ and armed with a copy of Sprinkle Bakes, I set about making a Neapolitan Cake for my Mum’s birthday. And I was fairly impressed with the results. My icing was a little softer than I would have liked, so it didn’t hold together as well as I would have like, but I put it in the fridge straight after icing which helped a little bit. I also had a few issues with the cake layers sliding around while I was icing the final cake, next time I would put skewers into the cake to keep it all steady. I also had a few issues with our standing mixer, this may be because it is quite an old one, but in future I think I would make the cakes separately to make it easier to handle. This would take a bit longer but for me would make the large amount of cake batter a little more manageable. But overall, it turned out well, the cakes were moist and tasted really good. Plus the three colours were really effective when the cake was sliced.

 Neapolitan Cake

Ingredients

Cakes

375 grams butter

3 cups sugar

6 cups cake flour, sifted

2 Tbsp baking powder

12 egg whites, at room temperature

2 cups milk, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla essence

½ cup hot water

85g pkt of strawberry jelly crystals

¼ cup cocoa powder

Icing

500g cream cheese

250 grams butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

4 cups icing sugar

The Cakes

1.     Heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Line and spray three 9-inch cakes tins.

2.     Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy in a stand mixer.

3.     Sift together flour and baking powder.

4.     Beat the egg whites with a handheld electric mixer until stiff peaks form – do not over-beat.

5.     With the stand mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and milk alternately to butter mixture in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

6.     Gently fold the eggs whites and vanilla essence into the batter.

7.     Divide the batter into three equal parts in three separate bowls. One portion will remain. Pour the white portion into a prepared tin.

8.     Mix ¼ cup of the hot water and the strawberry jelly together in a small bowl/jug. Stir until the gelatin is almost dissolved. It is okay if a few grains of gelatin remain. Pour the gelatin mixture into a bowl of batter and mix until consistently pink. Pour into the second prepared tin.

9.     Mix the cocoa powder and remaining ¼ cup of hot water until dissolved. Combine with the remaining batter and mix until no white streaks remain. Pour into the third prepared tin.

10.  Bake the cakes for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean. (Check chocolate layer after 25 minutes as it will bake more quickly due to the added cocoa).

11.  Cool the cakes in the tins for 10 minutes and then remove onto racks to cool completely.

12.  Level the cakes with a serrated knife or cake leveler (cut the top off so you have a flat surface).

The Icing

1.     With a hand mixer in a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth.

2.     With the mixer on low, gradually pour in the icing sugar and mix until incorporated.

3.     Increase the speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. If the mixture is too thick, add a little milk to loosen it. If it is too thin, add additional icing sugar or put in the fridge to firm up.

4.     Ice and stack the cake layers.

Recipe adapted from Sprinke Bakes: Dessert Recipes to Inspire Your Inner Artist, by Heather Baird.

So if you’re up for a bit of a challenge, give this cake a go, and check out the Sprinkle Bakes cookbook or blog to find some more inspiration.

H xo

The Art of Food – Part 1

Wayne Thiebaud, Four Cupcakes, 1971

When I began to do some work on this post, my intention was to tell you about an artist whose works I first saw at the Laguna Beach Art Gallery back in 2007. However as I did some Googling to pull up some of his prints, I stumbled across another artist who was amazing. And then I remembered another artist who had painted similar subjects that I admired. And so, it went from there. This is the first part of a mini series on artists that I admire who paint high tea related food as still life subjects  (that was a mouthful!).

Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963

I am an art lover. I am the one who will go to the Art Gallery in whatever city I’m in just to check it out. And yes, that includes the high profile art galleries like The Met and MOMA in New York, and the Louvre in Paris, but it also include art galleries that are less well known. Basically, if there’s an art gallery in a city I’m visiting I will make a visit (anyone who has travelled with me will attest to this). Which is how I ended up at the Laguna Beach Art Gallery in Laguna Beach, California a couple of years ago.

Wayne Thiebaud, Neapolitan Merigue, 1986/1999

Wayne Thiebaud is an American artist who was born in 1920 in Arizona, USA. He is probably most well known for his paintings of cakes and similar objects, but also painted landscapes and other subjects. I love Thiebaud’s use of colour. That is probably the first thing that attracted me to his works. The subjects are idealized and simplified. Many people have in fact referred to Thiebaud’s work as ‘pop art’ (the same genre of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol). I’m not sure if I would agree, but I’m no art historian. For more of a history on Wayne Thiebaud, click here.

I include a few of my favourite paintings by Thiebaud, they have in fact inspired my baking plans for this weekend. Will let you know how that all goes.

H xo

Britomart Country Club

Date of Visit: 18 August 2012
Location: Britomart Country Club, Galway Street, Auckland City
Website: http://www.britomartcountryclub.co.nz/#/Home
Cost: $20 pp

Another GrabOne purchase, I recently visited Britomart Country Club for high tea. I was interested to check this high tea out because it’s a slightly unusual place to serve one (it is predominantly a bar). I have been there in the evenings, but not during the day before. Unfortunately, the general verdict on this high tea is that they should probably stick to their ventures as a bar until they are able to serve fresh food…

I came here with my brother. I made a reservation almost a month out as the initial date that I wanted was fully booked and then we were both busy for several weekends. The website stipulates that they need at least 48 hours notice when making a reservation. Parking was easy in one of the downtown car parking buildings.

There was a large selection of teas offered which were of the Dilmah variety. I drink a lot of Dilmah tea these days so was fairly happy with this. I had the Mediterranean Mandarin tea, which was ok. I got quite excited to see that the tea was served in English bone china, it really adds something to the experience. My brother, not being a tea drinker himself, went for the coffee option, which he declared to be average. A nice touch though was the water jug that had orange and mint added to it.

The table setting was attractive. There was ample space for everything, including a jar with a flower and the water jug.

I don’t like to write anything bad about places, but sometimes you have to be honest. I guess the biggest thing I was disappointed about was the food (which is quite a big thing in a high tea). There were three sandwiches in the selection, all of which were made with white bread, which was dry and beginning to curl slightly. The scones were probably the biggest disappointment of the high tea, while they appeared at first to be warm, it would seem that they had been heated rather than freshly made. The result of this was a rock hard outer scone and which was chewy and essentially inedible. To add insult to injury, the cream was over-whipped and also starting to separate. The savoury muffin was actually fairly reasonable. Luckily for the Britomart Country Club, their sweet selection improved vastly on their savouries. The highlight here was the red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing, which was very tasty. The mini cheesecakes were also quite nice, however gave the impression that they were made the day before. In fact, as my brother pointed out, all of the food seemed to have that ‘made the day before’ look to it. Some foods keep better than others.

 

Although the food was not so great, the service was quite good. The servers were attentive, checking on how we were going and providing prompt service.

I enjoyed the setting of the Britomart Country Club. It has that outdoors feel (which is essentially is), and I loved the little hedge and the artificial grass on the ground. It is quite a unique environment. It is a casual setting, but I liked it. Weather is a huge factor for high tea here. Because it is quite open (though completed covered) windy, rainy days are quite cold. We were lucky enough to have a sunny afternoon, though it did become a little cooler as the afternoon grew later.

Come here on a nice sunny day but avoid the high tea. Maybe stick to the lunch menu or come in the evening for drinks? The pizzas looked good. In terms of high tea, they are one of the cheapest options around, however, that is no excuse to serve old food. I think they do have the potential to serve a good high tea; they just really need to get the food right.

Service: 3.5/5
Food: 1/5
Tea: 3/5
Atmosphere/Ambiance:  3.5/5
Layout (of restaurant): 4/5
Setup (of table):  4/5

Overall: 3/5

Stop and Savour the Moment

Life has become a little more hectic lately, and between Uni, work, trip planning and life in general there doesn't seem to be much time to get everything done. This blog has suffered a little lately because of this, but do not fear, I'm off to another high tea on Saturday, so watch out for that review coming soon. A month or so ago I came across a segment in 'Sideswipe' that intrigued me, and I've been thinking about it every so often ever since. I post it below.


"Addicted to busy-ness
Are you feeling like you should be getting on with something else? You're probably suffering from that all-too-familiar modern day complaint of being super busy and you need to sit down, take a breath and read this insight from satirist/cartoonist Tim Kreider's book, We Learn Nothing on the subject: "It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: 'That's a good problem to have.' Notice it isn't generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the ICU or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. It's almost always people whose lamented busy-ness is self-imposed ... . They're busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they're addicted to busy-ness and dread what they might have to face in its absence."

Sourced from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10816906

I've been thinking about what it is about high tea that really attracts me to it. It's not just the cute, bite size afternoon tea items, or the fun of going out and drinking tea in an elegant setting. I like that high tea allows me to stop and savour the moment with whoever it is shared with. I like that high tea is a reason to stop, to reflect, to celebrate. High tea is not a ritual that cannot be rushed. I love that you can't really have high tea on your own, it's meant to be shared with another person.

So the next time you stop to enjoy a high tea, don't forget to stop and let go of all of your busy-ness and truly savour the moment and person/people you're sharing life with at that moment.

H xo

Apricot Slice and All Things Nice

One thing that I consider myself to be rather good at is procrastination. It’s that time of year when assignments are starting to pile up and on a sunny day like today, I can think of at least twenty other things I would rather be doing than working inside on the computer. One of my favourite forms of productive procrastination is baking. And yes, that half a tin of condensed milk in the fridge needed to be used up right away. Clearly, it was a highly urgent matter that I had to attend to. That said, this is one of my favourite slice recipes. It is simple and quick, requires no baking, and most importantly, is delicious! A fabulous addition to any high tea menu.

 

My main piece of advice in regards to this slice is don’t compromise on the quality of the dried apricots. They will make all the difference. We currently have some Otago dried apricots, which tasted amazing in this slice (and also very good on their own!).

Apricot Slice

100-150g dried apricots

¼ cup orange juice (I use whatever  type of juice we have in the fridge at the time)

75g butter, melted

½ a 400g can sweetened condensed milk

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup coconut

1 packet (250g) Wine or Malt biscuits (biscuits of preference: plain Girl Guide biscuits)

extra coconut

Line the base and sides of a pan about 18x28 cm with baking paper.

Finely chop the dried apricots using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife and cook them in the juice in a large pot until there is no liquid left. Add the butter to the apricots and stir over low heat until melted. Add condensed milk and brown sugar, then heat gently, stirring often until the sugar is no longer grainy, and the mixture is golden brown. (Caution, this will stick to the bottom of the saucepan if the temperature is too high or if you leave it too long without stirring.)

Remove from heat and stir in coconut and the finely crushed biscuits. Stir everything together well.

Sprinkle the lined baking paper with the extra coconut, and then tip in the mixture. Press in evenly to the depth you like. Sprinkle the mixture with more coconut, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cutting.

Recipe taken from 100 Favourite Muffins & Slices, by Simon and Alison Holst.

And voila! You have a delicious slice that keeps for a least a week in the fridge and you can continue on with your day. Extra condensed milk disaster averted.

Happy baking!

H xo

Silent Movies and Lemon Tea

The last weekend was one that brought with it exciting news for me. On Saturday morning I found out that I have been accepted into a weeklong course in India at the end of November this year. Plans have quickly been falling into place and it looks like I’ll be heading to India a couple of days after submitting my research project, a mere three months away. My head has been spinning with vaccination requirements and itineraries for the last couple of days. And I’m getting excited about everything that I’ll get to see and do over in India (hopefully check out a high tea?), all the while trying to stay grounded in reality and how much actually has to be done before I go.

My trip to India was not the only good thing that happened over the weekend. Sunday was the last day of the New Zealand International Film Festival. And as usual, I had every intention of seeing some of the films, but didn’t actually make it to any of the screenings. Except for the last one. It was a showing of the digitally remastered silent movies, ‘Easy Street’ (directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin) and ‘Blackmail’ (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) with original music performed live by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra. I had been a little skeptical about the whole experience given my dependence on sound in films, but actually found it to be rather enjoyable. Afterwards, my friend and I met up with some of her French friends and we went out for a drink. While the others had beer, I found myself craving a cup of tea, and felt like a bit of a weirdo when I ordered a lemon tea. However, I have no regrets, that was one good cup of tea (Lipton too, which I'm not usually a huge fan of), and the moral of this story is that one should never be ashamed of ordering a cup of tea at a bar…

Afternoon Coffee, Venice, by Cecil van Haanen (1883)

My friend and I got into Auckland city a little early and so spent some time up at the Auckland City Art Gallery in my favourite room, the Victorian art gallery. Here’s one of the paintings – the name intrigued me – Afternoon Coffee, Venice. I love the chaos of it and it reminded me of the article I posted a link to a couple of weeks ago on ‘High Coffee’.

Anyway, plans to make and baking to do. Another recipe coming at the end of this week.

H xo

Mmm Cake

Happy last day of July! There are now only 5 months left in the year – wow!

Today I follow up on a promise I made several weeks ago and share my favourite carrot cake recipe. This is a BIG cake and my go-to for a café style cake. You can make it as two cakes – ice one and freeze the other, or as one big cake. I made one last night to take to a community café and iced it this morning with every intention to photograph it for this. However, I ended up being pushed for time, and completely forgot about taking any pictures. And there weren’t any leftovers either.

What I like about this cake is that it’s pretty much fail proof. Some of the preparation takes a little bit of time, but it’s absolutely worth it. The oil makes it really moist and it’s full of carrot, apple and pineapple, so that must make it kind of healthy right? This is the recipe I used when I made mini carrot cakes in the straight-sided mini cake tin (check out the review here). My sister made these again last week, but reduced the cooking time, gaining a much better result in the tin – there wasn’t so much of a ‘crust’ so I'll willing to give them another chance.

Carrot Cake

420g (2 cups) castor sugar

315 ml (1 ¼ cups) canola oil

2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tsp grated lemon rind

3 eggs (lightly beaten)

270g (2 cups) carrots (peeled and grated)

195g (1 cup) apple (peeled and grated)

250g (1 cup) unsweetened crushed pineapple (drained)

65 ml (1/4 cup) pineapple juice (juice from the crushed pineapple)

40g (1/2 cup) desiccated coconut

420g (3 cups) flour

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celcius. Spray and line with baking paper two 8-inch round cake tins or one 10-inch cake tin. Ensure they’re at least 7.5cm deep
2. In a large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla and lemon rind with a hand whisk. Do not use an electric mixer as you will create too much air.
3. Add eggs and mix well. Stir in carrot, apple, pineapple, pineapple juice and coconut.
4. Sift dry ingredients, add to bowl and gently fold in.
5. Pour batter into prepared tin/s and bake for approximately 1 hour for the large cake or approximately 40 minutes for the smaller tins or until a cake skewer comes out clean, and the cake bounces back when prodded.
6. Allow cake/s to cool in tin for 10 minutes, then remove from tin and leave to cool completely on a cooling rack.

Ice with your favorite cream cheese icing recipe. I quite like a citrus cream cheese icing for this cake. I use the cream cheese icing recipe here and add the juice and rind of half a lemon.

Carrot cake recipe is adapted from Ruth Pretty Cooking at Springfield.

Enjoy!

H xo

High Teas in Auckland

I realized this week that this blog has changed a lot from what I originally hoped it would be. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I realized that what I really wanted to do was have one place where you can find where the majority of the high teas in Auckland city were and if they were any good. Now this has turned into something a whole lot bigger than I originally anticipated, and my research has located around 20 different high tea locations in Auckland! (And this seems to be always increasing). So I’ve decided that a start at least is to list all of the locations that I know of for high tea in Auckland with appropriate links so you at least have one place where everything is compiled.

And here it is. I’ll keep it updated under the ‘High Tea Reviews’ tab to make it easier to find. The locations are varied, from hotels to historical houses to cafes, there is a high tea that will suit everyone’s taste and budget.

North Shore

Peace and Plenty Inn

Stafford Villa

Takapuna Beach Café and Store (download the menu to see this one)

The Tea Lady

South Auckland

Agave

Fisher House

West Auckland

Auckland’s Waitakere Estate

The Alberton 

The Brigham Café

Central Auckland

Britomart Country Club

Cornwall Park Restaurant

Cotter House

Nostalgia (previously Prohibition)

Parnells on the Rose Garden

Stamford Plaza

The Heritage Hotel

The Langham Hotel

The Orbit

Zarbos 

This list is certainly not conclusive, as I am sure that there are some that I have missed. Feel free to add your comments to the selection and add any that I may be missing.

Please note all high teas require that you book in advance.

Twinings High Tea

Yesterday afternoon I had a delightful high tea at The Langham, in Auckland City. It wasn’t your typical high tea at The Langham however, as it was one hosted by MindFood and Twinings of London as a PR event for the release of their new tea ‘New Zealand Earl Grey’. High tea was served in Barolo Restaurant rather than The Winery because of this. I’m told though that the high tea delicacies served were similar to those served at the Langham’s Tiffin Afternoon Tea (their version of the high tea).

 

I have not been to The Langham for high tea since February 2011, but since then their impeccable service has not changed. The wait staff were very attentive without being intrusive, refilling water glasses and ensuring that everyone had plenty of tea. The Langham really seem to have the service aspect of high tea down to a fine art. I am continually impressed. Although this is not an official review, they get a 5 out of 5 for service.

The event was hosted by Stephen Twining and Matt Greenwood of Twinings, who made a witty pair, they were both informative and entertaining. Stephen Twining and Matt Greenwood came and spoke to the individual tables, and actually sat down and had conversation with us. We sat at a table of 6; I had come with two other dining companions. I really enjoyed the company of the people at our table - high tea seems to facilitate good conversation.

The high tea, well, what can I say? The Langham, I believe, probably offer one of the largest high tea selections. Of particular note were the rum and raisin scones, the smoked salmon mousse on brioche, the macadamia nut macaroon and the mulled wine-spiced opera cake (which tasted like tiramisu to me?). In my opinion, The Langham probably does one of the best ‘sweet’ tiers of any high tea that I’ve been too. The savouries were ok.

One cannot forget the tea, as that is what this afternoon was all about. The following Twinings blends were served throughout the afternoon to accompany the high tea: Twinings English Breakfast, Twinings New Zealand Breakfast, Twinings Green Tea and Cranberry and Twinings New Zealand Earl Grey. My favourite of the afternoon was probably the Green Tea and Cranberry variety. It had a distinct cranberry flavor without being overly sweet and was brewed beautifully as the green tea was not bitter at all. Although I am usually more partial to a black tea, green teas lately are becoming a new favourite. Trivia fact from the afternoon, apparently tea served without milk is less than one calorie! Twinings New Zealand Earl Grey, the new tea, was good, quite fragrant, and I preferred this one with milk.

Overall, it was a fantastic afternoon.

High Tea Etiquette

As I so often say, high tea is really about the experience, rather than one single element. That said, I thought I should do some research into the proper etiquette of a high tea.

I was surprised on beginning my search that there are actually quite a few resources out there on afternoon tea etiquette (ok, this is the internet, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised). I had heard this in the past, but high tea is not the proper term for the afternoon tea we know it as today. However, I think that like many other words, meanings over time have changed and so I still consider it appropriate to call it ‘high tea’.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I direct you instead to an interesting article on high tea etiquette that I found in my searches.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/EllenEaston/EtiquetteFauxPas.htm

 

I leave you with a quote from the author of the above article: 

“Afternoon tea was created to foster friendship.  May your afternoons always be filled with good tea and good friends.”

H xo