We’re huge fans of afternoon tea and we had a few during lockdown, on VE Day and last year for the Platinum Jubilee.
The Coronation gives us another great opportunity to get the bunting and tea-set out! It’s so easy to create an afternoon tea at home, inside or in your garden…you can have lots of fun with the kids organising it! You could spend a morning getting everything ready for it and link in learning too…such as telling the time (what time will we have our afternoon tea), counting (how many people, how many plates etc) and baking…all sorts, so it ticks off some learning for the day too.
If you’re doing a home-made afternoon tea here are some ideas and recipes for our perfect children’s afternoon tea…
Nothing says afternoon tea like a cake stand! Whether it’s a china one or you can buy disposable cardboard stands quite cheaply, or plastic ones. You can find some on Amazon for delivery. I saw these wooden cake stands that can be decorated too.
You might even want to try and make your own – I saw this great idea for a DIY cardboard cake stand on pinterest. You can generally find some lovely vintage cake stands in Charity Shops, if everything is a bit mismatched so much the better!
You can’t have Afternoon Tea without cups, saucers, plates and cutlery! Again china cups are great for this if you have them (I have a lovely set that used to be my Grandma’s and I love the opportunity to get it out.) Tea always tastes so much better in a china cup and saucer don’t you think? The kids love being posh sticking their little finger out whilst drinking and using the special tea-set is a real treat for them.
Make sure your cups, saucers, plates, sugar and milk (in a milk jug if you have one) are on the table before everyone sits down.
Whether you’re going for a traditional afternoon tea or theming it, there are a few essentials to set the scene.
We never have a table cloth on the table normally, so when we do, we are definitely having a tea party! I know when the kids were younger we permanently had one of the wipe clean plastic table clothes, however afternoon tea calls for linen! You might be having afternoon tea on the big family table or on a coffee table…wherever you’re going to enjoy it, pop on a table cloth…the prettier the better too. If you’re particularly handy with a sewing machine, you could make your own if you have some fabric!
If you already have fabric or party bunting around the house, decorate your room or garden with it. If you like a sewing project you could make some. I found a handy guide to making fabric bunting at home here.
We made our own paper bunting recently which was so easy….basically cut out some triangles (there is a template here on pinterest), get the colouring pens or paint out and create. We had spots, stripes, smiley faces…all sorts. Once you have coloured in the bunting, simply cut them out, use string or ribbon to attach together and hang up! We had our afternoon tea in the garden when it was a sunny day and it looked fabulous!
A coronation afternoon tea has to have Union Jack bunting of course, so get out the Red, White and Blue pens and paint! There is a downloadable Union Jack bunting template here.
I found some great Union Jack Colouring sheets here on Twinkl too that might be useful to decorate your room!
A good thing for the kids to do and practice their writing (it also keeps them busy for a bit whilst you’re getting other things organised!) You can cut out name places from paper or card (again you can theme it red, white and blue) and they can write names, draw a picture, use stickers… be as creative as they like, inviting some teddies or dolls too. I saw a lovely idea for some edible name places here.
My children love writing lists, so they do love the opportunity to write a menu! Let them think about the fillings for sandwiches, they can write everything down and make the menu look pretty and colour it etc.
I also found a good afternoon tea invitation template here.
Twinkl has loads of other resources for Afternoon Tea – role play packs etc. here
Make your Afternoon Tea area pretty with flowers. You could cut some from your garden or why not make some in red, white and blue? There are some simple ideas of how to make flowers from your craft kit here:
Dress-up! Put your fancy clothes on as if you were going out! A great excuse to do this at the moment whilst we are on lockdown. My kids decided they wanted an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme at our last Afternoon Tea Party, so we had ‘Alice’ and ‘Catboy’?! at the table.
Sandwiches – have several fillings, let the kids choose maybe and help make the sandwiches.
You can also throw in pastries, biscuits, crips, mini sausages, sausage rolls…whatever the kids like! I find that the novelty of eating it off a cake stand makes it way more exciting!
Scones – a must for us if we are having afternoon tea. I love them with sultana’s, the kids don’t…they like cheese or plain ones. Here’s an easy recipe for scones from CBeebies that we are going to try. Make sure you have jam and cream!
Biscuits – pop a few of the kids favourite biscuits on the cake stand, or make some. Here are lots of kids cookie recipes to bake at home.
Cakes – Individual portions are great for the cake stand. Or you might want a showstopper as your centre piece!
A classic Victoria Sponge is perfect for this occasion. See a a tried and tested Mumbler recipe here.
We made Rocky Road using this recipe
You might want to be ambitious and try to bake a red, white and blue cake or I saw these Red White and Blue Krispie Treats .
There are more home-made ideas such as Mars Bar Munchies and Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes, see some ideas here.
Fruit – For a Jubilee Afternoon Tea, some strawberries and blueberries would be great. I saw this recipe for Red, White and Blue Strawberries.
Of course ‘tea’ (and for us it has to be Yorkshire) is great with an afternoon tea, but if the kids don’t like that, you could put juice in the tea pot and they’ll enjoy pouring that in to the tea cups.
You could have other drinks in fancy cups or get party cups out etc.
There are also LOADS of local bakeries, cakes makers, hotels and restaurants in Doncaster offering afternoon tea. Take a look here at Places to go for Afternoon Tea in Doncaster.
