We recently hosted a Red, White, and Blue Tea. I chose Flag Day since it fell o a weekend and was one of the ‘patriotic’ holidays, and I was inspired by the Patriotic Tea in my first issue of Tea Time Magazine from this spring.
Honestly, I was looking for any excuse to put together the adorable mini cheeseburger appetizers in the magazine article!
I planned the tea for a Sunday afternoon. It was conceived to represent some all-American summer staples like cheeseburgers, BBQ, watermelon, and apple pie, alongside tea essentials like scones and miniature pastries.
Because it was slated to be quite warm weather and I have a suspicious lack of adequate air conditioning, I opted to serve only iced tea rather than hot tea.
Also, because I had guests attending who needed gluten free fare, I made sure the majority of the offerings did not contain gluten.
Red, White, and Blue Tea Menu
As every afternoon tea afficionado knows, the main elements of a high tea include savory elements like tea sandwiches, scones (pretty much non-negotiable!), and miniature pastries/desserts of some sort.
For our savory elements we made the aforementioned mini cheeseburgers along with BBQ filled pastries, and skewers of watermelon/feta/mint with a light lemon-olive oil dressing as a take on our favorite watermelon salad.
The BBQ pastries were embarrassingly easy - squares of purchased puff pastry sheets from the grocery store freezer folded over a filling of prepared BBQ pulled pork, also from the grocery store, and a sprinkle of shredded cheese (I used a pizza cheese mix). The pastries were brushed with beaten egg, sprinkled with sesame seeds and baked.
The mini-cheeseburgers, which set me off on this whole party due to the extreme cuteness factor, were assembled from baked tater tot crowns (as the buns), tiny burgers, lettuce, slices of cherry tomato, mayo, and squares of cheddar. Pro tip: if you don’t have a squeeze bottle of mayo, use a ziplock bag and snip the corner for an impromptu piping bag.
While these were indeed adorable and everyone seemed to love them, by the time I had assembled all 28 of them juuuuust before my guests arrived, they were barely room temperature…which IMHO is not ideal. Because these don’t have buns, they were serendipitously gluten free - a nice bonus.
The watermelon salad skewers could also be served as the original watermelon salad - the ingredients here are the same as that recipe except I bought a block of feta that could be sliced into squares rather than using crumbled feta.
For the scones, I made my favorite easy lemon ginger scones using King Arthurs measure for measure gluten free flour to fit the GF requirement and cut them with a small star shaped cutter. I’m not sure if they didn’t rise as much as usual due to the flour or if I just rolled them thinner than usual, but they tasted terrific regardless. Channeling my inner Brit, I served them with clotted cream and blueberry jam.
We also served a bowl of strawberries and blueberries alongside condiments of sour cream and brown sugar. When I was young we used to go to a restaurant at the top of the Prudential Tower in Boston for special occasions and one of the desserts there was strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar - you dipped the strawberry first in the sour cream and then rolled it in the brown sugar for a delicious treat.
Most people were skeptical of the sour cream at the tea - next time I might use creme fraiche OR just premix the sour cream and brown sugar to offer as a “brown sugar dip”.
For the pastries I made miniature apple pies using my favorite vodka crust pastry and a filling of chopped apples, cardamom, butter, and sugar all cooked and thickened with a bit of corn starch. In lieu of a top crust, the pies were topped with pastry but in a cutout the shape of a star of course!
I also made an assortment of mini cupcakes; banana with cream cheese frosting and raspberry filled vanilla with vanilla buttercream, all substituting King Arthur measure for measure gluten free flour. These were all frosted with red, white, or blue flowers in my second attempt at flower cupcakes. Buttercream and hot weather do not mix particularly well, so the frosting was less cooperative than last time, but they turned out adequately cute anyway. The vanilla cupcake recipe is a riff on the one from Sally’s Baking Addiction (I made my own gluten free cake flour using the King Arther measure for measure GF flour and corn starch).
I made a giant vat of iced tea from my favorite Irish Breakfast Tea and an assortment of flavored syrups. Making flavored syrups is super easy and I like to have them on hand for iced tea all summer long - they give you the option of making a flavored sweet tea drink at the drop of a hat! For this party, I made rosemary syrup, lavender syrup, and mint syrup.
Red, White, and Blue Tea Table Setting
For a red, white, and blue tea for flag day, the colors and American flags and flag motifs were the key.
We used a white matelasse coverlet as a tablecloth for a quilt-adjacent feel that wouldn’t distract from the colorful ingredients.
Napkins were star shaped with a flag pattern (affiliate link), place card food labels included a flag graphic, and the centerpiece was a long bronze metal trough lined with plastic containers and filled with an assortment of red and white cut flowers and berries and some greenery, with American flags tucked into the arrangement.
Skewer picks were topped with flags and stars - similar available HERE (affiliate link)
As always a mix of trays, bowls, pedestals, and tiered servers displayed the food at varying heights for interest.
Because it was technically a tea, teacups from may collection were pressed into service to hold condiments, and teapots held the flavored syrups for the pitcher of iced tea.
A bamboo tray corralled the tea, syrups, lemon slices, and sweetener. Tall iced tea glasses with red striped straws stood by ready for service.
In the kitchen, a stack of small boxes (affiliate link) was on standby for anyone wanting to take home a selection of goodies. I buy these by the case so I always have them on hand to offer guests.
All in all it was a raging success and a lot of fun! I think my next entertaining adventure might be a summer dinner party…it’s been a while since I have hosted a sit-down dinner here.
Other posts you might enjoy:
A summer cocktail/mocktail party
A late summer afternoon tea party
Peach sangria and other favorite fruity summer cocktail recipes
