New Tastes...

Afternoon Tea at the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh

On Saturday it was my friend Laura's Hen Party, and it began with a very civilised afternoon tea at Peacock Alley, the restaurant inside the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh. We had a table booked for 4pm, and the first thing we had to do was choose which tea we wanted. It may sound like a simple decision, but there was a staggering array of different ones, ranging from the traditional Scottish blend (like English breakfast) to Strawberry Rooibos, Chamomile and Flowering Jasmine. Most of us went with the Scottish blend, except a couple who opted for Assam and Earl Grey, and then we were brought champagne to toast the Bride-to-be!

After about twenty minutes of waiting, the waitresses brought over our platters, which were shared between three of us. The bottom layer was savoury - little finger sandwiches made with white, wholemeal and brown bread. There were a variety of fillings, egg and cress, ham and mustard, cream cheese and cucumber and smoked salmon. Between us all we did some swapping to get rid of our undesirables (mine is egg and cress) so ended up with what we wanted, my favourite was the salmon, it was amazing! All of them were lovely though, you could tell they were freshly made, and had just the right amount of filling in.

The next layer up was scones, one plain and one currant one each. They were miniature ones with it being a proper afternoon tea, and served with a pot of clotted cream and tiny pots of raspberry and strawberry jam. I love a good scone, and these were the perfect texture, a bit rough around the edges, but soft and still warm in the centre, perfect with the cream and jam (raspberry for me!).

The top layer was perhaps the most exciting, as it contained the cakes and pastries, but after the first two tiers, we were beginning to feel a little full! We ploughed on though, and each of us chose a different one to try, so we could give our opinions on which ones to go for next. The first one I went for was the strawberry tart, which was a hard pastry case filled with confectioners custard, topped with a strawberry and a syrup glaze. The custard was nice and cold and not super sweet, so complimented the strawberry and syrup, and the pastry had a nice crunch to it to add to the overall texture. Next I had the tea cake, which was basically fruit loaf with nuts in, but was deliciously moist and had a savoury bite to it, which was good after my first choice. 

After that I had what turned out to be my favourite - the raspberry mille-feuille - which is two thin shortbread type biscuits, sandwiched together with vanilla cream, with a raspberry hidden inside. The raspberry was huge and really tart, which gave a great bite to the otherwise sweet centre. The only problem with it was it was difficult to eat; I chose to twist the two halves apart to eat them both individually.

Then I had cherry madeira cake, and a chocolate eclaire, which are both fairly self explanatory. I wasn't too fond of the eclaire, as the chocolate on the top was dark, and the cream in the centre didn't have much flavour to it. The madeira was lovely, although I was slightly disappointed that glace cherries had been used rather than fresh ones, as personally I find them too sweet and the texture a little artificial.

The last two things I had been saving; the Battenburg as it is a personal favourite, and the opera cake as it looked so impressive. An opera cake is layers of sponge sandwiched together with a coffee cream and vanilla cream, topped with a chocolate glaze. In theory it sounds delicious but t was so sweet and sickly that I didn't finish it, and that's a first for me! The Battenburg was really good though, glad I saved that until last. 

After we had just about stuffed ourselves to the extreme, we left and went home to continue the celebrations. Definitely the best afternoon tea I have had, despite the rather pricey cost of £34 plus an automatic 10% service charge!