A Victorian Tea Party, Mrs Beeton Style.

When I was a child both my parents were employed full time. My mum terrified that I might become a ‘latch key kid'; refused to let me have a key to the house until I was almost 16. Therefore, I spent almost every day after nursery and eventually after school at my grans house. Some of my most vivid memories come from the food my gran used to cook when I was small. Stew with diddy dumplings, syrup sponge with custard, chicken soup and sausages (obviously not all in one sitting.) I can still remember the smell wafting from the kitchen as my gran cooked and baked. However, if I had to choose the most prominent memory from my childhood (and a tradition she still carries on today) it would be the 3pm ‘cup of tea time’.

"It's a very good English custom
Though the weather be cold or hot
When you need a little pick-up, you'll find a little tea cup
Will always hit the spot

You remember Cleopatra
Had a date to meet Mark Anthony at three
When he came an hour late she said "You'll have to wait"
For everything stops for tea"
Everything Stops For Tea- Jack Buchanan

      This tradition is something I do not believe she could go without, like a ritual it happened every day and in the same manner. But I always wondered why. It became something I hoped was the remains of a forgotten tradition. The remains of the day when women would unite to have elegant tea parties and gossip about their neighbours, filtered down through generations to my gran who simply cannot go past 3 o’clock without drinking tea. Occasionally this ritual would involve cakes, which my gran would make in the morning while I pestered her to let me lick the bowl, and then enjoy with tea (juice in my case) at 3 o’clock. All of this has inspired me to create my own proper Victorian Tea Party.

      When considering creating a Victorian themed tea party, who else would I turn to other than Mrs Beeton. I picked three recipes from her book which I thought would be appropriate for a tea party;

Mrs Beetons Book of Household Management.
Beeton Victorian Sandwiches.

The Victoria sponge is something that has not exactly been ‘lost’ in time. It is still a nation favourite which is available in almost any store. I chose this cake for two reasons; firstly, what would a Victorian tea party be without the staple cake and secondly Mrs Beeton has a rather interesting love for eggs which intrigues me. She uses, for me, an obscene amount of eggs. What interested me most was the interesting directions for weighing the ingredients “4 eggs; their weight in pounded sugar, butter and flour”. It sounds more like a riddle than a recipe to me and I’ve never seen anything similar. My best guess would be that it is to do with the different weights of eggs in the time. However, it was still a relatively simple recipe to make.

Rock Biscuits.

When I think of a ‘Rock’ biscuit it conjures up images of my teeth breaking when I bite into this grey little hard thing. This is probably very naive of me as ‘rock cake’ is still available today. I personally have never had it but I assume this recipe is an ancestor of that favourite. In the recipe she specifies to make the mixture look “as rough as possible” with a fork once it has been put on a tray. Now, other than the fact this makes no sense to me my mixture came out so runny that any attempt at roughing it up was instantly absorbed and replaced with the sleek surface of the mixture. I’m sure Mrs Beeton will excuse the smooth exterior of my rock biscuits.

Everton Toffee.

I chose this recipe purely for my own gluttony. I adore toffee, though my teeth do not. This recipe which only needs a couple of ingredients excited me; if it was a success I would be able to easily make my own batch of toffee whenever I fancied it. Firstly if you are planning on cooking this you should heed my warning first. DO NOT leave the pan unattended to pick up the phone. DO NOT use your parents kitchen; especially if you are messy like me (toffee is really hard to get off the cooker), And most importantly DO NOT stick your finger in it to taste, it will burn you. These are all valuable lessons I learnt while cooking this toffee. Anyhow, I was slightly disappointed with the final result. Once it had cooled it was like crystallised buttery sugar cubes rather than the thick chewy toffee I love.

The Victoria sponge was cut into ‘fingers’ under Mrs Beetons direction, unfortunately when I tried to stack them they kept toppling over so they look slightly less impressive. I served these three dishes with sliced bread and butter and sugar cubes. This was an attempt to practice the “elegant economy” of Cranford. We sat and waited until 3pm exactly to serve the tea, at which point my gran would normally say ‘right I think its cup of tea time’, so we commenced.

         The rock cakes were stickier than I anticipated; they left their mark of currents and crumbs stuck to the plate. But otherwise they were quite enjoyable. The sponge, which I thought was unusually heavy for a cake, was too sweet for my gran. The toffee (or crystallised sugar) was a flop both for my gran and my mum, but I didn’t mind it. Clearly it was incredibly sweet and pretty much like eating a sugar cube; I’m fairly sure I could of put it in my tea if I wanted. Overall the recipes weren’t bad and for people with a sweet tooth it would be a nice addition to a recipe book. However, if like my family you aren’t keen on sweet things I would suggest these recipes aren’t for you.

N.B. I haven’t included the recipes this time but they can all be found in Mrs Beetons Household Management if you are interested.