Libby Klein I love Afternoon Tea with a passion. My girlfriends and I started going to Afternoon Tea twice a year for our birthdays many years ago because our birthdays were really close together. That morphed into four times a year because we kept adding friends to the group. Then came the year that for whatever reason we decided that I would make the afternoon tea. And when I say "we decided," I mean "they decided." I've had a long history of being volunteered to bake things. My first tea party was so huge and so tasty... That genie would not go back into the bottle. Have you ever been to Afternoon Tea? Let me know in the comments.
Poppy hosts her first tea party in Beauty Expos Are Murder with a lot of the recipes I used at my first tea party. I've included the tea recipes in the back of the book. I have many afternoon tea sandwich recipes that I love, but my favorite is the gold standard - cucumber and cream cheese. And if you have nothing else at a tea party, you have to have scones. With proper clotted cream, jam, and lemon curd. Here is my recipe for gluten-free scones, and here I've put raisins in them. You can serve them at your next fancy-do and no one will know they are gluten-free.
Disclaimer - Read all your labels to make sure your ingredients are gluten-free. Gluten can be sneaky.
Gluten-Free Cream Tea Scones
Serves 12
Ingredients:
3
cups Gluten Free Flour blend that contains xanthan gum or add 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum to the mix
1
tablespoon baking powder
1
teaspoon salt
1/3
cup sugar
8
Tablespoons Cold butter
1
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1
¼ cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in water and drained
Additional
heavy cream, to brush on top of scones before baking
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with
parchment.
Into a food processor bowl, combine gluten-free flour, baking
powder, salt, and sugar. Pulse until well combined.
Add cold butter by the tablespoon and pulse until combined.
Add the vanilla extract to the heavy cream. Pour in a little
at a time while pulsing.
You should form a lovely cohesive dough. Not sticky, but no
flour left in the bottom of the bowl either. Lightly dust your counter with
gluten-free flour. Turn the dough out and let it rest for a minute.
Place rounds on a prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops with heavy cream.
Bake for 15 minutes and check for doneness. I usually cut that
last ugly one I mashed together with the leftover dough in half to see if the
middle is baked all the way. If they need a little more time, put the pan back
in the oven for five minutes. If the tops are getting too brown, turn the oven
down to 350 degrees for the last five minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool until you won’t burn your mouth. Serve warm and spread with Devonshire Cream and Jam or Lemon curd. Or all three. I’m not judging.
Easter weekend on the Jersey Shore is hopping. Poppy's Bed and Breakfast is busier than ever, but she needs to leave things in the hopefully capable hands of Aunt Ginny--and paws of Figaro the black smoke Persian. She's selling her paleo muffins and keto cookies at the Health and Beauty Expo in Cape May's Convention Hall. Normally sharing a booth with the love of her life would be a treat, but she's recently discovered secrets that throw her new romance into chaos.
But more secrets are about to be exposed at the expo. In his keynote address, prominent cosmetic surgeon Dr. Lance Rubin reveals his breakthrough anti-aging technology. Unfortunately, someone has one-upped him with a truly foolproof anti-aging formula: murder. With the plastic surgeon dead under his own UV mask, and bedlam reigning in the hall and back at the B&B, Poppy needs to follow a twisted trail marked by glowing footprints to unmask a killer... See it here.
classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/
