KD's Birthday Tea Party...

At last, the big reveal...

Diamond sugar crystals from Extraordinary Desserts in Little Italy. I dug up an old green floral silk placemat set I hadn't used in years (Pier 1). We had to use our red Christmas tablecloth as well. I thought it looked festive. You can also see the HP Sauce bottle (we tried that with the sausage rolls) and the Branston Pickle (before I moved it to the other room).The beautiful assorted platter of baklava in the middle was from King of Nablus Sweets. Man, D and I had a fun time that night gathering all of the sweets. The lovely tea set is courtesy of TORC...

Guess who got the cup with the flowers inside?

We started off with some of my "doctored up" lobster bisque (from Costco). First, I sauteed some onions and garlic in olive oil, then added red pepper flakes and smoked paprika. I then added this to the soup and let the flavors meld. The soup has lots of lobster pieces in there. Yay for my trusty crockpost.  The soup was a perfect starter for the variety of foods we were to sample...

Banana nut bread on the top tier (from Big Joy), Kastella cake (from Nijiya) and Marble Cake (also from Nijiya).

So many good treats. Not enough stomach space.

My favorite was the light and airy Kastella cake and Marble cake.

Marble sponge cake from Nijiya. Loved this! We had to cut each piece in quarters.

Mini croissants from Pangea. They weren't as light and flaky as I hoped they would be, but they still tasted fantastic with the English clotted cream and lemon curd. My original intent was to make scones which is more traditional, but I didn't have enough time to do it and I was tired. The scones recipe seemed easy enough but I was stressed trying to make sure everything was set just so. Nothing but the best for KD and our friends.

Some sort of cake (also from Pangea); I don't remember the name but it had nuts and cranberries in it. The top also had a nice sugary crust. It was a bit too dry for my liking but Bert liked the leftovers with his coffee.

The ring cake below the croissants we got from Nijiya. It was a like a rolled up thin sponge cake. TC wanted to unroll it but I wouldn't let her.  Next to that were suama, multicolored kneaded non-glutinous rice cakes, also from Nijiya (but made by Hogetsu). Those didn't really have much of a flavor but we got it for the girls. On the three tiered platter (handmade by yours truly), we had an assortment of chocolate truffles, followed by Fox's chocolate creams (it's a British cookie brand, found at Fresh and easy), and assorted Belgian cookies on the bottom.

The awesome Deviled Eggs on the lower platter along with Smoked Salmon with cream cheese and dill on the top tier of the double level display; the roast beef with horseradish was on the bottom. TORC made the salmon while Bert was recruited to do the roast beef. Since I couldn't find any watercress in the stores, we used baby spinach leaves instead.

In the lettuce lined bowl, Coronation chicken and pita crackers. The chicken recipe will post separately. In the bowl were my favorite Chicken Teriyaki Pineapple meatballs from Costco. I just warmed them with sweet and sour sauce. These were a favorite of TC and KD's daughter. We tried to keep things simple by using a mixture of store bought premade items.

Another view of the sandwich display. The other two tiered plate (I made this for TORC; it was a vintage octagonal plate set I found from a thrift store) held strawberries and grapes...

One last view...you can see the Parmesan Palmiers (appetizers from Trader Joe's), the Pigs in a Blanket, Mushroom turnovers (also from Trader Joe's), the English Sausage rolls, and Coronation Chicken with crackers...

In the amber goblets was "tea water" - tea diluted with water. The flavor was red velvet, again, courtesy of TORC.

Oops, we forgot to stick out our pinkies (me, KD, D, and TORC).

To answer the question at the beginning of the post, Bert was the lucky person who got the most "feminine" cup. He really liked that "his" cup was different and therefore, "better" than ours, haha.  There's a great photo of him holding it up with his pinky extended. It was quite the sight.

The tea party idea was TORC's and since she had the tea and the beautiful tea set, it was perfect. I volunteered to host because I am a control freak nice person and I figured it would be good to stay local. Plus we would lounge as much as we wanted to and not worry about getting booted out, like at a restaurant, ha ha.  D took care of most of the desserts while TORC made the sandwiches and took care of some of the appetizers. It was fun planning this as well as a challenge since I had never made some of those items before. But hey, it came out good in the end and everyone enjoyed themselves.

As always, it was a lovely gathering with my closest GF's. Meanwhile, in the other room, the girls (born three weeks apart) had a blast with their own tea pot, eating the sugar crystals, and sampling the different foods...

KD's previous birthday celebrations:
2011 - Pho Hiep Grill Chateau
2010 - Sab e Lee 2
2009 - Romesco's
2008 - Frida's (which is now closed but is soon to be a new location of El Vitral)