Afternoon Tea

Inspired by the many cold and rainy spring (now almost summer!) afternoons, here comes the recipe for a true English Afternoon Tea - with finger sandwiches and scones.

Ingredients (for 25 small scones and 30 smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches in total):
350g flour
15g baking powder
1 tablespoon of sugar
150g butter
1L milk
1 packet of toast bread
150g smoked salmon
1/2 cucumber
Cottage cheese
Philadelphia
Wasabi
Chives
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
English Tea (Earl Grey, Assam or Darjeeling)
Clotted cream or 250ml of (unsweeted) whipping cream
Strawberry jam

For a "spring" version of the sandwiches (as in the photo):
100g (very thin) green asparagus
Stracchino (slightly bitter Italian cheese) or Philadelphia
50g Prosciutto crudo
Honey

Preparation:
1. The scones: Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and butter in a bowl, knead with your fingertips until you get a "crumbly" mass that looks like bread crumbs. Put the dough into the fridge for about 1h.
Preheat the oven at 200°C. Add 250ml milk to the dough until you get a soft, wet dough that sticks to your fingers. Spread the dough (roughly 2cm thick) on a surface covered with flour and cut out round forms roughly 5cm in diameter. Try to avoid touching the dough with your fingers as much as possible and use knives instead. Then place the scones on a baking tray, brush with milk and bake for 20 minutes.

2. If not using clotted cream, whip normal cream until it's thick.

3. The sandwiches: Finely chop the chives into the cottage cheese and season with salt and pepper (and finely chopped mint if you like); peel the cucumber and cut it into very thin slices. Then spread the cottage cheese on the toast bread and layer the cucumbers on top. Spread some cottage cheese on the toast bread that goes on top. Cut the sandwiches into triangles or fingers.

For the smoked salmon sandwiches, mix some wasabi into Philadelphia and then spread on the toast bread (the two halves). Layer with smoked salmon and cut as described above.









For the "spring version", steam the asparagus for about 2-5 minutes until they are softer (but not completely cooked). Then fry them in olive oil. Also fry the prosciutto crudo until it's crunchy.
Spread some Stracchino on the toast (or otherwise Philadelphia) and add a thin layer of honey. Then layer the asparagus (cut in half) and the prosciutto as seen in the photo. Cover with the top half and cut as indicated above.





Prepare the tea and serve it with the sandwiches, hot scones (put them in a basket covered in hand towels to keep them warm), cream, milk (for the tea) and jam. Enjoy!