Pretty Teen Afternoon Tea Birthday Party
As I mentioned in our last few posts, we held a pretty teen afternoon tea birthday party recently at PaintSewGlueChew Towers for Abbi’s 14th birthday. Tiers ands tiers of pretty but teeny morsels of food.
Menu
The biggest problem we had in deciding the menu, was editing down the list of favourites to a manageable size. In the end we opted for around 10 savoury, and 5 sweet nibbles, finished off with mini scones. Even with mouth sized bites, this is a huge amount of food per person. I assumed the girls would pick at the things they liked, leaving the less popular items on the plates.
Wrong!
THESE GIRLS CAN EAT. Most of the guests ate EVERY SINGLE item, with only 2 girls leaving the ham sandwiches. Impressive stuff.
Decorations
The decorations were fairly understated, but we had a unifying theme of washi tape. Starting with the menu above, we decorated bunting, some vases, place cards and water bottles. I realised when I was clearing up that many of the girls took their name place cards or the mini flags as mementos.
Personalised Mocktail
Start off proceedings with a personalised mock cocktail – an Abbitini.
Abbitini
Equal parts pineapple juice & cranberry juice and a hefty squeeze of lime juice, served with a frozen berry garnish. The girls were particularly please to get these in proper martini glasses. For ease, make the cocktail in a jug and keep in the fridge until needed.
Mocktails drunk, the girls were ready to eat. I borrowed tiered cake trays from friends, so that we had 1 between each two girls. It was a bit of a squeeze to get all the goodies on, but the savouries went on the bottom two layers, and the sweet on the top layer.
First Layer Savouries:
Ham sandwich stacks, scampi bites (from Marks and Spencer), mini BLT’s, Humous Pots with carrots and three different cheese savouries (at the very back), as well as chicken gyoza (not seen behind the BLTs).
Mini BLTs
Mini finger rolls, spread with a think layer of mayonnaise on one side, and a thin layer of butter on the other. Fry rashers of bacon until crispy and add to the bun along with a baby gem lettuce leaf and a thin slice of tomato. Hold in place with a skewer.
Tiny Humous and Carrot Pots
The humous pots looked especially cute. I usually use them for chocolate mouse but they work very well for this too. Line the base of the pots with a circle of grease proof paper, before adding the humous. For ease, I used shop bought humous, but feel free to make your own. Top with mini carrots, peeled, but with the tops left on. 
Second Layer Savouries:
individual nachos, sausage rolls, mini pizza and yakitori chicken.
Individual Nachos
A regular fixture at PaintSewGlueChew parties. The recipe is here.
Miniature Sausage and Veggie Rolls
These are a frequent lunch treat at PaintSewGlueChew Towers, however we made especially tiny versions for the afternoon tea. The recipe for either size is here.
Itsy Bitsy Ham and Cheese Pizza
In the rush to serve everything up, I forgot to take pictures of these cooked. I used ready to roll puff pastry cut heart shapes in the pastry. Spread with tomato pasta sauce, a sprinkle of mature cheddar and a little heart shaped slice of ham.
Yakitori Chicken Skewers
The recipe for these skewers came from a friend. She serves with rice and a sprinkling of spring onions. Suffice to say, it is delicious. I will add the recipe in a future blog post.
Sweet Treets
The top layer includes mini meringues, chocolate fridge cake, mini eclairs (thankyou Tesco) and chocolate eggs.
Tiny Meringues
The recipe for meringues is my fool proof meringue recipe. We sandwiched two meringue between some double cream sweetened with icing sugar and a dash of pink food colouring. Add a few sugar stars for good measure.
Mini Pancake Stack with Blueberries, Crispy Bacon and Maple Syrup
There was no room on the cake tier for the pancake stack, so I brought these through separately. It also meant I could serve the pancakes slightly warm. This was my absolutely favourite course.
Mini scones with heart shaped butter and home made jam
And then finally, mini scones, cute butter hearts and some home made jam (made by Abbi at school). The girls actually managed to pack away two each of these!
To drink, the girls had the choice of pink lemonade (which they all chose) or tea. they drank it from the vintage tea set my step mother gave me last time I was up in Scotland.
I’m not going to lie. This party was a LOT of work. But as a concept for a party, the girls loved the afternoon tea. We originally looked at taking the girls to tea in London, but at £40-£50 a head, the price was prohibitive. This way, we were able to save a ton of money, and choose the exact menu that suited us.
If you wanted a slightly less stressed version of this party, consider more cold rather than hot nibbles, and or look in to premium versions of supermarket canapes. Especially around Christmas, they have special offers on very fancy canapes that will keep in the freezer for months.
