Bella and Crumb have a very good friend. Let’s call her Cat, for that is her name. Cat loves nothing (and we mean nothing) in the world more than a good coffee & walnut cake and a cup of Assam.
Poor Cat’s birthday always falls when everybody is away for summer, at weddings, surfing in Cornwall, at family functions… the list goes on.
So this year, she decided to have an Unbirthday. And it would have been cruel and wrong to deny her an Unbirthday tea, wouldn’t it? So that’s what we did.
Bella and Crumb Present: A Very Merry Unbirthday Tea
Darjeeling Tea
Fortnum & Mason Royal Blend Tea
Kenya Tinderet Single-Estate Tip Assam Tea
Gin, Apple & Elderflower Cocktails
Rather a lot of rosé sparkling wine
Cheesy Sticks (because Crumb lost the foot-shaped cutter) with Tomato Chilli Jam
Filo Tarts with Walnut & Mushroom and Pesto & Cherry Tomato
Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese & Cucumber Sandwiches
Freshly Baked Scones with Clotted Cream and Raspberry Jam & Homemade Lemon Curd
Coffee & Walnut Cake (of course)
Lemon Meringue Cake
Lemon & Ginger Cake Pops with Popping Candy
Chocolate Praline Mushrooms Growing in Chocolate Digestive ‘Dirt’
Birthday Cupcake Tower
Yum!
The lemon curd was too loose so the top layer of lemon meringue cake started to slide off and the cake pops tried to shimmy down their inappropriately long and skinny sticks. But how could we care when we were having cocktails from teapots and scones with our best friends?
One of the nicest things about this tea was having everybody at a big table with full-sized cakes and lots of sharing.
Oh, and we’d like to say thanks to Chris for the photos, because both Bella and Crumb are rubbish at photography.







