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Plan a High Tea
It is easy to plan an elegant afternoon in your garden or even in your dining room for a group of women. This kind of party is defined by the food and beverage you serve to your guests. Much of the food preparation is simple and can be done the night before. Also, you can assign each guest something different to bring since most of the food is served cold.
High tea is a prolonged lunch with various courses. Start by serving hot tea, scones and fruit salad. Then serve a variety of tea sandwiches such as cucumber and cream cheese, egg salad and curry chicken salad. You can serve a variety of desserts like chocolate-covered strawberries, shortbread cookies, and carrot cake.
Activities:
Scrap-booking and card-making go well with sipping tea and lively conversation. Ask your guests bring their own supplies to share for these crafts.
If you enjoy games, you could create a "Tea Trivia Quiz" and include questions about the history of tea, significant tea events like the Boston Tea Party, and other random facts about tea. Reward the guest who has the most correct answers. You could provide a teacup or a potted plant as prizes.
If you want your party to be a little more low-key, you could rent a Jane Austen movie like "Emma," "Pride and Prejudice" or "Mansfield Park."
Menu:
Fruit Salad: Cut up strawberries, melons and grapes. Top the fruit salad with a dollop of cream made of Cool Whip and cream cheese.
Scones: These are easy to make the day before. Look for a recipe that calls for Bisquick to reduce the amount of ingredients.
Tea Sandwiches: It is best to use day-old bread for these. You can make the filling the day before, but don’t assemble the sandwiches until a couple hours before the party. To keep your sandwiches from getting soggy, spread a thin layer of margarine on the bread before adding the filling. Use a round biscuit cutter to make more elegantly shaped sandwiches. Popular fillings are egg salad, curry chicken salad and cucumber with cream cheese.
Chocolate-covered Strawberries: Melt chocolate chips on the stove on the lowest setting or in an electric fondue pot on the warm setting. Use one bag of semisweet or milk chocolate per pound of strawberries you use. Wash and dry the strawberries. Cut wooden skewers in thirds and put them in the stems of the strawberries to make it easier to dip them. Place the dipped strawberries on wax paper, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. You can make these the night before.
Carrot Cake: There are so many good and easy box mixes for carrot cake. Make sure to get the cream cheese frosting to go with it. If you prefer, make individual cupcakes instead of a cake.
Decorating Ideas:
Use potted plants as centerpieces.
Plant small individual pots as favors for each of your guests and put them at each place setting.
Ask each of your guests to bring her own teacup and saucer. The eclectic assortment of teacups is a great conversation starter. And this is good solution if you have the problem of not owning enough cups and saucers for all your guests.
