I read and re-read old issues of Tea Time Magazine on a seasonal basis. The collection I own goes back to 2011 I think. Each year and season, I have read many recipes for tea treats and rarely create any of them. Mainly because they’re all large batch servings and I really just want to make four or five.

I was rereading two of the issues whilst soaking in the bathtub, as one does, and decided to make three recipes that looked very good and not too difficult to manage.

With Easter coming up, it would be a special treat for us and also provide some appetizers for tea and for the meal.

The first one was Lemon-Ginger Cake Stacks. I’ve never made a cut-out, layer cake before. I’ve also never made my own buttercream frosting from scratch before.

The cakes were very easy to make. Cutting them out was very easy and created a nice even shape. Even though my baking pan was a little larger than needed and the cake wasn’t even, it still worked, if not a wee bit lopsided. The touch of ginger sprinkled throughout gave a nice zing to the lemon.

The Lemon Butter cream wasn’t difficult, but it made a LOT.

The 2nd recipe was for Creamy Celery & Blue Cheese Triple-Stack Sandwiches. These required a little bit more work, but still very doable. Again, I’ve never made a stacked, or layered tea sandwich like this. I believe I’ve read in other recipes that chilling the sandwiches before cutting them allowed for stiffer bread and made cutting with the serrated knife much easier. I should have done that because they got a little bit mushed. However, they were VERY tasty. The combo of blue cheese and the crushed fennel seed was a unique flavor.

The 3rd items were Honeydew, Coppa & Feta Canapés. I loved the sweet and salty combo in this one. I over-toasted the baguette slices, so they were a little tough, but the rest was lovely.

I wasn’t sure what coppa was, but it’s similar to prosciutto and I love that. I was able to find some and it IS very similar to prosciutto. A little heavier and with some spice.

One ingredient in this recipe was preserved lemon. I had never heard of preserved lemon and didn’t even know if I could find it locally. I did find it, but not sure it was worth the money on the large jar to only use 1/2 Tablespoon. Not to mention it was difficult to prepare and I cut my finger. Yes, as the recipe says, it DID add a nice citrus note to the top of the appetizer, but I’m not sure I’d do it again.

Because we had an event to attend on Friday night, I baked the cake and cut it out that afternoon, then made the frosting and frosted them on Saturday. All this while making the other two appetizers. It was an hours-long escapade in the kitchen.

All of these goodies then required a wee photo shoot. I’m not crazy about shooting indoors and it was a LOT of work to get this set up so the lighting was decent, but it’s okay.

I grabbed my Ellgreave ironstone teapot from Wood and Sons of England with its pretty embossed, yellow roses, and gold trim.

To compliment the yellow in the teapot, I used one of my new inherited yellow teacup. Unfortunately, due to the very thin nature of the teacup, once hot tea was added to it, the yellow disappeared from the cup and became almost gray. It’s a highly delicate teacup.

Hot tea was a loose Ying Ming Yunnan from Elmwood Inn fine teas. Although good for mornings, the tea stood out to the strong flavors of the blue cheese, the coppa, and the lemon cake quite nicely.

My pretty two-tiered tray that I purchased from The Brooklyn Teacup provided a blue touch to complement the yellow and it displayed my handy-work in the kitchen nicely. The light-blue plate was also inherited.

I created a wee bunny napkin setting using an egg as the “face” and the napkin as the bunny ears. All items were placed upon my Irish lace table cloth.

The appetizers and cakes may not be perfectly perfect, but for my first efforts, I am pleased. Regardless of how they looked, they all tasted wonderful! Mission accomplished. I’m not sure I’d attempted THREE such recipes on the same day again. My brain was exhausted at the end of the day balancing the three recipes and the photo shoot.

Today it will be a simple rack of lamb and a minty, mushed-peas.

Happy Easter!