Penny Reviews: Restaurants- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Afternoon Tea

*Note:This week is a little different as I'm reviewing a restaurant that served afternoon tea*

(Image Credit:http://www.onealdwych.com/food-drink/afternoon-tea)

I turned another 20-something this year, and got a special treat for my birthday. After doing a little research on the best afternoon teas in London, I found a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Afternoon Tea at One Aldwych in Covent Garden, which looked much like the Mad Hatter Afternoon Tea that I have attended before. This time I went with my friend Sofia.

Entering the hotel, we were shown to the Indigo Restaurant by the friendly staff, seated and the menu explained. The staff asked if we were preferred just tea, champagne or a Cocktail Charlie. Sofia and I went for a Cocktail Charlie, which consisted of Scotch Whiskey (Sofia went booze free), grapefruit juice, cherry syrup and chocolate bitters. It was sweet and smooth on the tongue, may I say that it looked pretty awesome! I believe that it was dry ice that made it delightfully smoky.  

Next the savoury selection entered our sight, the presentation was minimal and clean. The selection itself was pretty standard for an afternoon tea, but executed very well. I was impressed very much with the leek and stilton quiche, which was Sofia's favourite too. We thought that we could have used more savoury items, however, the staff were very patient in explaining that we could request more, if we pleased. And we did. Quite a lot! We ordered about 8 quiches and lots more smoked salmon and herb creme friache sandwiches. I mean, we really took the piss and ordered lots more savouries as we felt the initial portion wasn't really enough. 

After 2 more savoury orders, we asked if we could have the sweet course. Again without missing a beat, the staff asked if we would like tea. We both finished our cocktails and opted for different teas. I wanted English Garden, which was a refreshing mix of lemon, spearmint, cornflour and strawberry. While Sofia opted for the Sugarcane Black and Mango Noir teas. 

A short while later the sweet course arrived, and it looked stunning! I went straight for the candy floss, which tasted like rhubarb and custard.

I moved up to the lemon cake pops, which also had a dusting of freeze dried raspberry, which was a little disappointing as it was a regular cake pop and I felt that the lemon could have been more pronounced. 

Eton mess was sweet, creamy and looked very appealing. The chocolate caramel milk was one of my favourites, as it was like drinking a mini milkshake, which hinted at sticky caramel.

One of the coolest parts of the afternoon tea was the golden egg, that was filled with vanilla and mango cheesecake. I don't actually like cheesecake, but this was so delicious. I was surprised to see real vanilla seeds in the mixture with a mango layer on top of the egg. The chocolate was thickly layered so it was hard to break but worth it.

Next were the scones, they were nice, soft and served with clotted cream and apple compote. Next I tried the blueberry broiche, which I thought was a little dry but I added for apple compote to make up for it. One of the best treats, was the cocoa bean financier, which was a small brownie shapped in a cocoa bean. It was sticky, sweet and warm chocolatey goodness in a small package. 

Overall, I felt compared to other afternoon teas I have been too, the food was lovely with a good variety, but I felt that the treats could have more unusual considering that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is so wacky in the book. Also, I felt that the price was a little high for the quality of food that we got (£49 for a cocktail afternoon tea). The staff are definitely the reason I would come back again, they were attentive and they sung me happy birthday too, with a little cake! They really made the effort to make the day special. 

 Thanks for reading.

Fat Friday #7 Mojito Cocktail Cupcakes

Its Fat Friday Time. This week we're looking at Mojito Cupcakes-a cocktail in cupcake form. The base is lime flavoured while the buttercream is mint and rum flavoured. I made these ages ago and they were very well received. I barely got a chance to photo them before they were devoured.  
Anyway's sorry for the short post, I'm just travelling back from Tenerife and its hard to bake and holiday at the same time. Will be doing a round up post soon of the holiday. Happy Baking!

Recipe:

Makes 24 Cupcakes  (Recipe adapted by The Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma) 

·      275g unsalted butter, softened

·      250g golden caster sugar

·      4 large eggs

·      250g self raising flour, sifted 

·      1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

·      The zest from 3 limes, plus 2 tablespoons lime juice

·      2 tablespoons mint infused milk

 Equipment:

·       2 cupcake tins lined with cupcake wrappers

·       Electric mixer/hand-held electric whisk

·       Sieve

·       Bowl x 2

·       Knife

·       Tablespoon

·       Teaspoon
·       Grater

1.    Pre heat the oven to 170c/375c/ Gas mark 5. Line the tins with cupcake wrappers.
2. Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl, and add the lime zest. 
3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together for 2 minutes, add the eggs and lime juice and beat for a further minute. 

4. Add the mint infused milk, beat and add in the sifted dry ingredients. beat the mixture for a further 30 seconds until fully incorporated.   

5. Fill the papercups up about 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes until the cupcakes spring back when touched. Leave cupcakes to cool on a wire rack.  

Recipe:

Buttercream (Recipe adapted by The Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma) 

·      300g unsalted butter, softened

·      675g icing sugar

·      3 tablespoons dark rum/rum flavouring

·      2 tablespoons mint infused milk

Equipment:

·       Electric mixer/hand-held electric whisk

·       Sieve

·       Piping bag fitted with a star nozzle

·       Tablespoon

·       Decorations of your choice, I used cut up straws and crystalised mint

1.Beat the butter with an electric whisk until smooth. 
2. Sift the icing sugar into the same bowl as the butter and mix well until incorporated. 
3. Gradually add the rum and infused milk and beat for about 5 minutes.

4.Fill up the piping bag with the buttercream and pipe onto the cold cupcakes.

5. Garnish with straws or any other decorations. 

What's your favourite cocktail? Happy Baking!

Chilli Chai Chocolate Pannacotta and 'The Student' Cocktail (Also going to Disney woooo!)

I know it's a little odd doing a drink on a baking blog but I was kindly asked by the teapigs crew to do a summer drink. I was a little hesitant and said: "I do bake and I do drink (on occasion) but rarely at the same time (very bad results), I'm not sure if I could just come up with a cocktail recipe just like that."
The lovely Becky from teapigs told me not to worry and just do what  could with the teas they sent me. 

I did come up with a spur of the moment cocktail as I was chilling

in my boyfriends kitchen when our friend nicknamed, Doocky Dan decided to get out a bottle of sparking wine. 
Not champagne, but the cheap and cheerful sparking wine. Nothing wrong with that, its just a little dry for my taste. That's when the cogs in my head began to whirl. 
"Do you think that we can put these Super Fruit teabags into our glasses of sparkling?"
"Why not?" Was his response. 
 So that's what we did:

'The Student' Summer Cocktail:

• A chilled bottle of sparkling dry wine
• teapigs superfruit teabags
• red berries of your choice

Equipment:

• Glasses
• Measuring jugs

1. Place teabags into the measuring jug and pour the wine over the tea bags. 

Step 1. Place teapigs into measuring jug. You can have a friend  trying to get into the shot. This is optional. 

2. Let the teabags infuse with the wine until it turns pink.

3. Serve with strawberries, raspberries and red berries. Or nothing if you're a lazy students. 

This next recipe came to me as a suggestion from a work mate (thanks Lucy!) . Chilli and chocolate goes down surprisingly well, who would have guessed. Going along with the lazy student theme, pannacotta is quite an easy dessert, it took 30 minutes to prepare and make. Mind you it takes forever to set but its chocolatey goodness is worth the wait. 

Chilli Chai Chocolate Panna-Cotta (Inspired by this vanilla pannacotta recipe)

Ingredients:

•  125ml milk
•  375ml double cream
•  2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder
•  2 gelatine leaves/ 2 agar agar leaves if you're a vegetarian   
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 teapigs chilli chai tea bags

Ingredients needed

teapigs chilli chai

Equipment:

•  Whisk
•  Bowlx2
•  Saucepan
•  Spatula
• 4 dario mould/ or the small Christmas pudding moulds
• Measuring jug
• Sieve
• Scissors

Step 1. Soak the gelatine in cold water

1.    Soak the gelatine in a small with cold water. Make sure that it is cold water as if the water is warm the gelatine will dissolve and become useless and no-one wants to waste ingredients. 
2. Cut open the teapigs tea bags, empty contents and set aside. 
3. Add the cream, milk, the chilli chai and cocoa powder into a saucepan and mix until combined. 

Step 3. Add all the cream, milk, tea and cocoa powder in a saucepan

3.    Once the mixture is hot enough add the sugar and gelatine. 

Step 4. Take off the the heat and stir in sugar and gelatine.

4.    Take the mixture off the heat and stir until the sugar and the gelatine has dissolved.

Step 5. Sieve the mixture

5.    Sieve the mixture into a measuring jug. This removes the tea bags contents.

Step 6. Pour into molds

6.    Let the pannacotta mixture cool for a few moments before pouring into the Dario moulds and placing into the fridge for about 1 hour or until set.

7.    The best way to get the pannacotta out of the mold onto a plate, is to have a bowl of warm water ready. Place the mold into the water for about 6 seconds, get your desired plate on top of the mold then flip the plate, so that is on a table. Wiggle the mold a little until it is evenly on the plate.

Or if all else fails just slam it on the table aggressively until the pannacotta comes out. It looks a little smashed but it tasted great! 

Another thing I'd like to mention that, is I'm going to Disneyland Paris for the 5th time. (Greedy girl!) But this time I'm taking my good friend Sofia with me, who is completely delirious with excitement, as am I! I'm so excited that I really wish I had the time to make these Disney Princess Cakes to celebrate tomorrows departure to Euro Disney! In fact I've got a cute little princess-y siggie in celebration!
Bake and Princess On !

(Look at my  little dress. It's got a little sparkles!)