The 19th century Foodie: Roomie's Birthday Afternoon Tea.. The Process.

Dear Readers will kindly remember I am working on a selection of gluten free baked goodies suitable for a modern traditional Afternoon Tea for my Roomie's Birthday.

7:15 am I begin to assemble ingredients for Battenberg Cake. This is the most complex recipe, so I will start with it. Disaster Strikes! I just KNOW I have baking powder around here somewhere!
After a frantic search of every cabinet and pantry and cubbyhole in the kitchen, we establish that if we have baking powder, it will not be found today.

7:30 am Emergency run to the grocers.

8:00 am Ingredients assembled, I begin the Battenberg Cake.

9:00 am As the cake for the Battenberg Cake bakes, I begin the Unadorned Scones. I really like this recipe, though it's much more crumbly than I'd like.

9:25 As the Scones are baking, I take a breather to have some breakfast and update the loyal readers on FaceBook with photos.

9:45am Here we are with another challenge. One of the pink sections of cake collapsed. Well, one Battenburg cake and one Victoria cake it will be then. I'm not about to let a good cake go to waste.

10:00am As the honoree is getting her breakfast together, I begin the Salmon Corn cakes. I decide we'll make a double batch since we really like these a lot and don't make them often. Each batch makes 11 cakes that fill two large baking sheets. That's 20 minutes cooking time for each sheet and four sheets. We'll be at this awhile.

10:30 am As the salmon corn cakes are having a hot time in the oven, I flour the counter and prepare to assemble the Battenberg cake. I've not done rolled marzipan work before, so I prepared by watching videos. I learned how to do the neat roses too. A quick caution, while marzipan would seem to be naturally gluten free, a few brands (including some from Odense, sold commonly here in the US) have some cross-contamination concerns. Make certain yours is labelled specifically gluten free.
The greatest challenge here was trimming the cake. The recipe was very moist and had the typical gluten free crumble, so it didn't slice well. Some apricot jam glued the pieces together.
My Battenburg Cake may not have been as pretty as a professional, but I think it came out very well.

11:40 am With the end of the salmon corn cake baking in sight, I put together the dough for the Cheddar Scones. I've already confessed this was a box mix, a really terrific box mix.

12:20 pm The oven is now ready for the cereal crusts for the tarts. Crushed cereal, butter, and sugar and then baked stiff... easy as pie.

1:00pm With only the sandwiches left, I take a break for a quick visit to furry friends.

2:30 pm Disaster number two strikes. I intended to layer the tarts with lemon curd, lemon pudding, and whipped cream. I bought cook-n-serve lemon pudding instead of instant and didn't have sufficient eggs to cook the pudding. Well, just lemon curd and whipped cream it is.

2:45 pm While peeling and slicing the cucumber for the sandwiches, I cut my finger on the mandolin slicer. Yep, fully expected to do this and here I did. Ouch!
The Sam's Choice Gluten Free Classic White Bread is kinda small, especially when trimmed up and the crusts removed. I used four pieces for two sandwiches. The sandwiches were very tasty and really hit the spot.

2:50 pm We set the tea water to boil while I put together the ham and havarti pinwheels. I used Mission Gluten Free Tortillas. They're fabulous when fresh, but gummy when they sit with toppings in them.

3:05 pm. With photos taken and plates assembled, we sit down to enjoy the eating of all this food. We're groaning about being over-stuffed and in a sugar coma in short order. Success!