As a grown-up adult female, there are a few acceptable ways to celebrate your birthday. If possible you should try to incorporate as many of them into the days surrounding your birthday as possible, in order to reap the maximum benefit of getting another year older. First and foremost, milk it with your family (unless you have one of those families where your mum or granny is going to pinch your fat and ask why you're still single, then skip this step). Secondly, pick any night of the week and get outrageously, embarrassingly drunk somewhere, preferably while wearing a party hat or tiara. Extra points if you fall off something, dance on a table, or dramatically throw a martini in someone's face. Extra extra points if you do one of those things and it's a Tuesday. Last and certainly not least, assert your grown-upness by having a super-cute tea party with all your friends, with as much frill and fancy as possible. Ideally, just send really obvious hints to a friend with good taste and have them set it all up for you. This tutorial is for that friend, complete with an easy-peasy tea party treat recipe... so here goes!
Tea Party Table Tutorial
& Mini Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecakes
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| Glass jar, marshmallows, ribbon, doily = Perfect decoration. |
What you'll need to decorate:
- a colour palette (we chose pastel blue, pink, & white with a tiny bit of purple accent)
- your chosen colours of ribbon
- one or two plastic tablecloths
- paper napkins
- several sizes of paper doilies
- a few empty glass jars or big drinking glasses
- candy that matches your theme (we used pink and white marshmallows and some pink candy canes)
- teacups & a teapot, as well as dishes for milk/sugar/lemon etc
- a tiered cake/dessert stand, preferably clear or white
- fairy lights and/or bunting
- optional: fresh or fake flowers of your choice
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| Decorate your dessert tier with ribbons or frills to your heart's content. You can cut a doily to place around each tier if you like, or place the whole thing on top of one. |
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| Flowers add a little extra to the table, especially if they are brighter shades of your colour scheme. |
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| Fold the bottom corner of a paper napkin up an inch or two, and wrap the two side ends in towards each other to fill glasses for a table setting. |
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| Tie a ribbon around everything. The more bows the better. The more candy the better as well, if we're being honest. |
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| Cupcakes that also match your theme are pretty much a given. These are Raspberry Almond with Vanilla Buttercream Flowers & Swirls! |
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| Use your dessert tier as the table centrepiece- not only does it look adorable, everyone will be drooling over it the entire time. |
What you'll need for the Mini Cheesecakes:
(recipe makes 8)
- cupcake liners that match your theme
- a muffin/cupcake tin
- 8 round chocolate cookies
- 12oz or 350g Cream Cheese, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup chocolate-hazelnut spread
- big pinch salt
1) Preheat your oven to 375F, or 190C. If your oven is fan-forced, drop the temperature to about 175C. Line your muffin tin with 8 papers, and place a cookie in the bottom of each paper.
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| Something like this works perfectly- it doesn't matter that the cookie is crunchy, as it bakes it absorbs moisture from the cheesecake batter and turns into the perfect crust. |
2) Now comes the tricky part.......are you ready? Put all the other ingredients in a big bowl and whip them with a mixer for three to five minutes. Yes, that really is it. Divide the mixture between your cupcake papers, tap the tin on the counter to release any air bubbles, and bake them for 17-20 minutes.
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| Your batter should be smooth and silky, and taste like heaven. |
3) When they're puffy and not-quite dry-looking on top, take them out of the oven and cool for half an hour before refrigerating. They'll need 4-5 hours in the fridge before you serve them, but you can make them a day or two ahead if you need to as well! When you're ready to serve them, they can be topped with whipped cream, melted chocolate, or as I've done here, half a ferrero rocher.
