Camp Grandma #3 How to Host a Kids Tea Party!

Last week at Camp Grandma, we used cardboard, fabric, flowers, and feathers to make fascinators, the glam headpieces seen at society events. This week we had a kids tea party as an excuse to wear them.

Our tea party was a Camp Grandma activity for just the two of us–with mommy invited as our special guest, because it was designed as a learning experience for Miss T. But you can easily expand this party for a birthday or a summer celebration. Make fascinators as a party activity before having your tea, or skip it–you don’t need them for a great time.

What Kind of Tea Party?

First of all, let’s clear this up: “high tea” was really the supper of working-class folk, whose definition of “tea” is the evening meal. Because it’s consumed at a regular table, this was called “high” tea.

The sumptuous teas with elegant little nibbles were served on low side tables; therefore, this type of tea was called low tea or afternoon tea. Some hotels now promote “high tea,” because it’s easier to go along with the common misperception.

Ours, then, is an afternoon tea. We served sweets and savories at a fancy table, wearing our fascinators for good measure.

Planning a Kids Tea Party

This is a wonderful educational exercise for a child because it involves several interrelated steps:

• Plan an appealing menu of complementary flavors and textures.
• Work out a timetable so you can execute the menu efficiently.
• Prepare the dishes on the menu and check off each one as completed.
• Plan how to plate the dishes and present them.
• Take part in a grown-up activity to practice good table manners, including, what not to do at tea.

What’s on the Menu?

It was designed around Miss T’s tastes, so not all the items are traditional. I also wanted to make this easy for us to produce, to ensure that preparation wouldn’t become a chore.

The menu for our kids tea party balances savory and sweet. The dishes are meant to be prepared mostly by the child, with adult supervision. Miss T worked on all the menu items, except the scones, because she’s not fond of them. Since I couldn’t imagine a tea party without scones, I told her I’d do those by myself.

The kids tea party menu:

• Cream cheese and mango jam sandwiches
• Turkey and cheese sandwiches
• Deviled eggs
• Scones with honey butter (recipe below)
• Chocolate-covered strawberries
• Shortbread recipe by Scottish cooking authority Catherine Brown, as seen in Saveur
• Chocolate chip cookies recipe from The Great Book of Chocolate by David Lebovitz
• Tea of your choice
• Sparkling apple cider

Menu Notes:

• We cut the sandwiches with square and heart-shaped cookie cutters and garnished with carrot flowers and flower picks.
• For the deviled eggs, I had Miss T make the entire thing, including seasoning with mayonnaise and salt, adding a little at a time, to find the right flavor balance. Steam the eggs to ensure that shells slip off easily. There’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with shells that resist peeling. Miss T piped the filling using a pastry bag with a star tip.

• I made the scones and shaped them at half the size, froze them, and baked them off the morning of the tea party. Since we had such a small tea table, I mixed honey with softened butter as a one-dish spread for the scones.

• For the chocolate-covered strawberries, simply microwave good-quality chocolate chips in a glass bowl for 30 seconds at a time, stirring with a fork after each time. Chocolate chips are designed to hold their shape when heated, so unless you stir, you won’t know when chips are melting. When completely melted, dip strawberries into the chocolate and lay on a wax paper-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate until firm and serve the day you make them.
• Cut the shortbread into smaller wedges, for a dainty tea size. The butter you use really makes a difference in the shortbread quality, because there are only four ingredients: flour, rice flour, butter, and sugar. I use Kerrygold salted butter from Ireland (my former client)–best for its intense buttery flavor.
• I love this chocolate chip cookie recipe and I’ve made it many times from David’s book–I’ve known him for years. But these are huge cookies. Just make them smaller to be more delicately appropriate for tea. Miss T doesn’t like nuts, so we divided the dough in half, and added half the nuts to just half the recipe.

Making a Game Plan

We accomplished all our cooking over two days. Miss T came over the day before to prepare. First we reviewed the menu and then we decided which dishes could be made ahead, and which we would make the day of.

Our make-ahead projects:

• Shortbread–make in advance and store in an airtight container
• Deviled eggs–refrigerate for the next day
• Scones–shape and freeze to bake the next morning, unthawed

The Day Of:

• Miss T cut the bread with cookie cutters and made the tea sandwiches; we covered them in plastic wrap and refrigerated them until tea time.

• Miss T dipped the strawberries in chocolate and let them set up in the fridge.
• We made the chocolate chip cookies (this recipe also could have been done the day before)
• I baked off the scones and mixed up the honey butter.
• We decided which serving dishes we would use for each food item and put a post-it note in each dish so we would know at a glance which food would go where.
• We set the table, adding a menu at each place setting.
• Just before mommy arrived, we plated the food, donned our fascinators, and were ready to greet our guest.
• After the tea party, Miss T’s mom volunteered both of them for clean-up duty, but I thanked them and sent them on their way. Nothing breaks the magic of a special afternoon more quickly than switching from upstairs guest to downstairs help after the party is over.

Setting the Mood for a Kids Tea Party

Pull out all the stops. Unless the kids are klutzy and you are afraid of breakage, use your good china, silver, and cloth napkins. One exception is stemware, which is more prone to being toppled. I used Ikea champagne flutes for the sparkling apple cider.

If you have a tiered rack or tiered serving platter, use it to glamorize your grandchild’s culinary creations. Arrange flowers. Play classical music.

I had planned for an outdoor tea party on the deck but the weather was bleak; we moved the party indoors to our atrium. The table is small, so we arranged our food on the coffee table.

Note: Cloth napkins are a magnet for chocolate-dipped strawberries and chocolate chip cookies, so you might not want to use your best. I soaked mine immediately in cold water and tried to rub out any stains, then washed the napkins in cold water. Magic.

Make-Ahead Scones

This is a recipe from from Bev, a co-worker in the culinary center I headed years ago. Bev used to make them to celebrate our birthdays.

2 ½ cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons sugar, plus additional sugar for sprinkling
½ cup (8 tablespoons) butter, chilled
1 egg
¾ cup milk
1 egg plus 2 tablespoons water for egg wash

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut butter into ½-inch cubes. With your fingers quickly rub the flour with the butter making flakes the size of peas until the butter and flour are incorporated. Whisk 1 egg with the milk until blended, then pour into the flour mixture. Using a wooden spoon, mix just until the flour is moistened. Do not overmix.

Gather the dough into a ball in the bowl and spoon out into 12 balls on a baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment. Dough will be sticky. Flour your hands, then flatten the balls into small disks about ¾-inch high. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze on the baking sheet. When disks are frozen, remove from the baking sheet and transfer to a plastic freezer bag with squares of parchment or waxed paper between the disks to keep them from sticking together.

When ready to bake, heat oven to 400 degrees F. Take out as many disks as you need. Set them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Make an egg wash by beating remaining egg with water; brush the tops of the disks and sprinkle with sugar. Bake about 20 minutes until light brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12 scones. Note: I made smaller scones, more in keeping with a tea party.

What We Learned from this Activity

This activity was so much fun, and rich with learning opportunities for an eight-year-old child. We learned about:

• Planning ahead, thinking through a project, and executing it in steps over a two-day period.
• Preparing a checklist to keep track of what must be done to ensure a successful event.
• Developing a sense of aesthetics around food–setting a pretty table and arranging food on platters for an attractive presentation.
• Growing confident in cooking by taking ownership of some dishes–having to season the deviled eggs herself and making the chocolate-dipped strawberries, for example.
• Having patience. This was a two-week project, starting with making the fascinators and waiting a week to have a party to wear them.
• Developing an appreciation for fine things, from table setting to food to taking part in a fancy social event that she helped to prepare herself.
• Having a respect for time–to have all our dishes ready and plated before our guests arrived.
• Experiencing a sense of accomplishment for having completed a fairly complicated, successful event.

While you can invite more people to this tea party, for a first effort, it’s good to have just one other person. This ensures that you can focus on the child and teach life lessons, without either of you feeling harried. While the tea party could have been for just grandma and grandchild, having a guest ensures that the two of you step up your game.

More than an entertaining event, this tea party was designed as a teaching opportunity for my grandchild.

While this activity was part of an entire Camp Grandma series, you can also do this activity as a one-off, when kids are bored during the summer and looking for something to do.

Next week, we’ll follow Little N on a Camp Grandma day.

News from Camp Grandma

We haven’t forgotten Little N! Next week we’ll showcase what this five-year-old has been up to at Camp Grandma.

Every Wednesday, for the next three weeks, I’ll share what we did at Camp Grandma and how it went–what worked, what didn’t, and what I learned. You’ll find ideas for one-off activities to do with the grandkids or to incorporate into a complete, Camp Grandma program.

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