Roomie's Birthday Afternoon Tea...yes, it's gluten free

My Dear Readers will forgive me a quick trip into the modern era, I hope.
My Roomie enjoys the British tradition of Afternoon Tea. I suppose it makes her feel elegant and special. Every lady ought to feel elegant and special on her birthday. BUT... as a sufferer of Celiac disease on a gluten free diet, the baked goods of an Afternoon Tea leaves her drooling sadly at the bakery window. That will just not do for this special lady, so I'm turning my hand to some traditional afternoon tea components in gluten free recipes.

The Menu

Layer of Scones

Cheddar Scone

Unadorned Scone (cream and jam)

Layer of Sandwiches

Cucumber Sandwich

Ham, Havarti roll-up

Salmon Corn Cake

Layer of Cakes & Pastry

Battenburg Cake

Lemon Tart

Tea

For the Cheddar Scones, I'll be using LiveGFree's Cheddar Biscuits box mix. Roomie bought this Aldi's product in quantities and wrote the company begging for it to be made a permanently available item. That's high praise.

For the Unadorned Scones, I'll be baking. Here's the recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour (Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Flour)

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

4 tablespoons butter

2 large eggs

3/4 cup yogurt

Fills... 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 cup fruit (no fills for us, thanks)

Oven at 400*

Mix Flour, Sugar, Baking powder, Baking soda, spices

Add butter

Add eggs and yogurt

Add extras

Turn onto a floured surface and shape into a round 1" thick by 7" wide.

Cut into 8 triangles.

Transfer to baking sheet

Bake 8-10 minutes.

For the Cucumber Sandwich, we had to delve into which gluten free breads will stand up to such an august sandwich. Gluten Free breads are notorious for being crumbly, gritty, and coming across stale from the start. Roomie often solves this by toasting. I had to ruin the surprise to have her opinion. We agreed to give Sam's Choice a try.  Roomie prefers cream cheese to the traditional butter, so that's what I'll use.

For the Ham & Havarti Pinwheel, I'll use Mission's Gluten Free Tortillas. Knowing the Bread Issue, I wanted something else for a second sandwich offering. 

The Salmon Corn Cake is a family recipe that Roomie adores. I've made a few tweaks from Grandma's recipe.  Here is the recipe with gluten free tweaks:

1 can of responsibly caught salmon flaked, clear out the skin and bones

1 can of whole kernel sweet corn, drained of packing water

4 eggs

1 box of Lance Baked Original Crackers, crumbed into grainy pieces

Pre-heat the oven to 400*

Prepare the salmon and cracker crumbs.

Mix the salmon, corn, eggs, and cracker crumbs together in a large bowl.

Grease a baking sheet. 

Form the mixture into cakes and place on the greased sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes, flip, and bake another 10 minutes or until both sides are a light golden brown.

The Battenburg Cake required some British to American measurement conversions. Thanks to Traditional Oven, this task wasn't too difficult. This is Roomie's most dreamed of Tea goodie, so the pressure is really on. I'll do a separate post detailing this addition to our tea table.

The Lemon Tart gave me an excuse to try some fun recipes, including breakfast cereal pie crust. Here's a recipe for this:

2 1/2 Cups vanilla Chex cereal

1-4 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons melted butter

lemon pudding, lemon curd, whipped topping

Oven at 375*

Crush cereal.  Mix with sugar and butter

Bake-7-9 minutes.   Cool completely and fill.


And that's The Plan. What could possibly go wrong? Check back tomorrow and I'll tell ya.