Juliet Sear's Mother's Day afternoon tea
From easy jam tarts to foolproof scones, Juliet Sear is here with some simply delicious ideas to create the perfect DIY afternoon tea at home for Mother’s Day.
Classic Scone Recipe
Ingredients
230g Self Raising flour (plus a little extra for rolling)
60g cold butter, cubed
30g golden caster sugar
150ml Milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg (for the egg wash)
Jam and clotted cream to serve
Method
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and line a baking tray with parchment paper
In a bowl, rub the flour and butter together until they resemble breadcrumbs, then mix in the sugar
Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in the milk and vanilla then bring together to form a soft dough
Dust the surface with a little flour then roll out the dough to approx. 3cm thick and cut out rounds
Place on the tray, brush with a little egg wash and bake for 12-15 mins until golden
Serve with jam and clotted cream
Flower Jam Tarts
Ingredients
For the Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
175g plain flour (plus a little extra for dusting)
75g icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
115g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into cubes
2 medium egg yolks
A dash of ice-cold water only if needed
For the filling
Lemon curd /Strawberry jam /your own choice of jam
You will also need
Mini tartlet/cupcake tin/s or jam tart tin/s (the mini cupcake tins will give you a taller cup shape, the jam tarts a little more shallow)
Rolling pin
Flower shape cutter
Method
Place all the dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse a few times to mix it all up. Add the cold diced butter and blitz until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the egg yolks and blitz. If the dough doesn’t come together add a few drops of ice cold water until it just starts to come together, don’t over mix.
Once this mix begins to form together, tip it out and bring it together with your hands into a ball. Flatten to a disc and wrap in cling film and chill for about 30 mins before rolling out.
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees
When ready to bake, roll out the pastry with a little extra flour for dusting the surface and top of the pastry, then roll out even thinner until you have a sheet of pastry about 3mm thick
Use the flower cutter to cut out shapes, and gently press them into the cavities of the cupcake tin or jam tart tray. Flatten at the bottom and allow the petals to over hang. You will need to leave a space in between each well, so for a 12 hole tin, you’ll get 6 flowers in the tin, for a 24 hole mini cupcake tin, you’ll get 12 at once, so bake in batches unless you have multiple tins. Prick the bases with a fork.
You can re-roll the off cuts again to make more tartlets and use up the pastry
Place the tarts back in the fridge to chill for another 30 minutes or so before baking (or pop in the freezer for 10 - 15 minutes)
Bake for about 12-15 minutes until the flowers are crisp and golden. Leave to cool on wire racks in the tins while they set hard.
Once they are cool, you can fill them with any fillings you wish. If you want to make ahead, you can do the cases 2 or 3 days in advance and keep airtight and then just fill before you want to eat them.
Use little spoons to fill, or to be very neat, you can pipe them in