Afternoon Tea with AMAZING Rhubarb Scones and More!

[Music] Good morning everyone. I am so happy to see you again. My friend Victoria is coming later today to rehearse our two piano program. So I thought it would be fun to have afternoon tea all set up when she arrives. And for that tea, I'm going to use some ingredients from the garden. For instance, I'm going to make rhubarb scon or scon with rhubarb from the giant plant that lives in the corner of my kitchen garden. I made these same scon a couple of years ago, and boy, they were really, really delicious. And they're very easy to make. And here is the rhubarb which we need to dice. I already removed the leaves from the rhubarb stems. So I just need to trim the ends of the stems. So, I need roughly one cup or 100 gram of the diced rhubarb, plus some extra diced rhubarb for studing the scon. And I will link the recipe I'm following in the description box below. It's my own recipe. Now we need flour, regular granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. I like to weigh out my flour. Zero out my scale. Then I need granulated sugar. Baking powder. In you go. Salt. Clean the decks here. Now, I need to preheat my oven to 375° F or 190° C. Want to give my dry ingredients a quick whisk. I need my paddle attachment. I need to add cold diced butter. to the dry ingredients. And then I'm going to blend the butter and the flour mixture together until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. That will take about 3 minutes. And I will do this at low speed. Okay, we are looking nice and crumbly here. And I do want to measure out my heavy cream. Add the cream and a splash of vanilla extract. And now that my dough has come together, we can add the rhubarb. And I'm going to mix at low speed just until the rhubarb is incorporated. We are mixed. A very kind viewer sent me this nifty silicone. I think it's intended for kneading bread doughs and also quick breads like this. It's called a baking mat platinum silicone. It's very nice. Figured we should use it today. I'm going to knead this dough very quickly just to make sure there are no stray bits of flour. Then I want to lightly flour my work surface here. Now I can roll this dough into a 1 in thick circle after I flour the top. [Music] And now we can press out 2-in diameter rounds. Going to put a little flour here so I can dip my cutter into it. Oh, these are very pretty. [Music] I can link these silicone mats in the description below if you are [Music] interested. Then I can gather the scraps and continue forming [Music] scon. Move this out of the way. And then I want to stud these scon with two or three pieces of extra rhubarb just to make the scon look extra [Music] glamorous. Then I can sprinkle the tops with a little granulated sugar. You could use derara sugar here. or no sugar at all. And into the oven the scon go until they puff and color lightly. That will take about 25 minutes. [Music] Oh, my friends, these scon look and smell just incredible. I'm going to let them cool on the baking tray. Meantime, I can run out to the garden to fetch some ingredients to add to a chicken salad. So, I grabbed some chives from the garden and a stem of lovage. Now, lovage has a strong celery flavor and I think the stem when diced will add a beautiful crunch to the chicken salad. Oh, I didn't even tell you we are making chicken salad tea sandwiches. So, I will put these scon on the middle rung of this three- tiered stand and the sandwiches down here. And some sweet little treat up top. And I may or may not add the lovage leaves to the chicken salad. And we can chop up the chives. I want another lovage stab. I'll be right back. And here it is. Now, if you watched yesterday's video, you know that I have an enormous lovage plant up in the kitchen garden. Lovage is a great standin for celery. And here are the ingredients for my chicken salad. So earlier today, I shredded a chicken breast from a whole chicken that I had cooked in the Instant Pot. So I want to add some softened cream cheese to the chicken and a bit of mayonnaise. Stir this up. Then we can stir in the lovage and the chives. Mixy mixy. Pinch of salt. Black [Music] pepper. I want to have a tiny taste of this chicken salad. Make sure it doesn't need anything else. Oh, this is wonderful. I love the little crunch from the lovage. Now, before we assemble the sandwiches, I want to grab some butter lettuce from the herb garden. [Music] These sandwiches are going to be a little different from all of the other tea sandwiches you've seen me make because I'm going to use mini croissants that I bought from the supermarket for the bread component. I need to cut the croissants horizontally down the middle. Voila. Worked very well. I love this Japanese bread knife. It's the best bread knife I have ever owned and I can link it in the description below if you are interested. Now, I do want to spread each of these croissant halves with a little softened butter just to keep the bread from becoming soggy. And I'm applying only a very thin layer of the butter. Butter seals the bread so that any liquids in the filling cannot seep through. One of these days, I think I will try to make my own quoissance. Let me know if you'd be interested in seeing that episode. I'm going to quickly wash and dry my lettuce leaves. [Music] [Music] I love butter lettuce because it is super tender and flexible and it's very easy to grow. I want to transfer these little sandwiches to a kitchen towel lined baking tray because we are not ready for afternoon tea just yet. And then I'm not going to Well, maybe I'll just cover them like this. And then I can pop this into the refrigerator until it's closer to tea time. Then I'm going to clean up here and then we can head outside to see what flowers are available in the garden. I'd like to make an arrangement for the tea table. Actually, before I even start to clean up, I want to taste one of these scon. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, these are a 27. Just incredibly delicious. The rhubarb is tart. The scone itself is moist and flaky and a little crisp on the bottom. Utterly delicious. I have my clippers, my sunglasses. Let's head outside to look for flowers. [Music] [Music] Set some cardboard down. Here's my vase. Flower preservative. I was very surprised to find so many flowers in bloom today. Well, I knew that the that white flower, the bridal wreath, was in bloom because it's in my front yard. I see it all the time. But I did not know that the lilacs were starting to bloom or that my white jella in the serpentine garden was in bloom. This is why jella. Uh the variety is called wine and roses. It's a very pretty color. I think we can start by adding some upright U. This is the New York fern that grows beside my front porch. Delicate and lacy. Delicate and ferny. So delicate that I just broke the stem. So, this bridal wreath is actually a spyhea. And I can already tell that this arrangement is going to work out. You never know until you try. And boy, it is really humid outside. In the comments, let me know if you live in a humid climate. I do not like humidity. This is what we have so far. What's the matter? Goldie is meowing. He wants someone to play with the toy that you and I bought yesterday. If you watched that episode, this is Giant Alien. I only had three in bloom, but that's enough white jella. This is dwarf lilac from my serpentine garden. I put those plants in, I think it was around 2008 or so, maybe 2009, and they have delighted me every spring since. They're super fragrant. And this is coline that I winter sewed one year. It's a perennial with gorgeous blue flowers. You can't see what I see just yet, but this arrangement is coming along wonderfully. Well, for a cornucopia of free garden flowers, I think this arrangement turned out reasonably well. We can set this over here for a moment while I clean up and then finish assembling the tea tray. Tea time is drawing near. Tea time and rehearsal time. I'm going to arrange the sandwiches on the lower tier of this three tiered stand. Scon on the middle tier. I don't have any clotted cream on hand, but I do have mascap pony which makes a terrific substitute for clotted cream as does creme fresh. I don't think we need any strawberry jam to go with these rhubarb scon because the rhubarb is fruit and it is well it's really a vegetable but is super flavorful. And we can put the the not the clouded cream but the mascar pony right there. Add a spoon for it. Now, my choices for a sweet treat for the top are or is the leftover strawberry cake that you and I made together for Mother's Day brunch. Or we can really cheat. Oh, and I did freeze this cake. Or we can use these little lemon curd filled treats and I can add a blueberry and a mint leaf to them which I think will look very pretty. So should we do squares of the strawberry cake or the lemon curd cups? That's the decision. I think we're going to do the lemon curd cups. [Music] and to gild these little liies, I'm going to add a tiny mint leaf to [Music] each. I think this looks rather attractive and I cannot wait for Vicki to try well one of the sandwiches and one of the rhubarb scon. Of course, I also want her to try this little cheater dessert. So, I have my plates, my saucers, my cups, my spoons, my little knives, some half and half. Now, we need the tea. And I think this orange spice tea that you and I bought together at Tiara Farm will go very well with both the sandwiches and the rhubarb scon. Well, this smells wonderful already. Victoria just texted. She is approximately 1 minute away. I need to change out of this apron and go set the table. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being you. And I can't wait to see you next time. Bye for now, friends. [Music] [Music] [Music]