Afternoon Tea with Nana and Roo

Afternoon tea over the long weekend with my grandparents, Nana and Roo. We ate little cakes and drank tea together by the fire.

We spoke of learning recipes in school, and I developed a fervent desire for nana to make her golden syrup dumplings. These were my nana's cookery books from high school.

Milk love.

The eats for the afternoon were varied and colourful. We had creme brûlée and quince tartlets, shortbread and soda bread. A slightly haphazard yet altogether lovely gathering of goodies.

Creme Brûlée Quince Tartletes from Johnny Ripe, a little gourmet outlet situated at the old tamarillo orchard in Main Ridge. The supremely talented and friendly young couple behind Johnny Ripe make and sell pies using produce from their orchard and eggs from their ducks and chickens. It's a very new shop and I find myself rather inspired by it. I'm quite in love with the idea of making and selling pies from a quaint little shop front.

Their creme brûlée quince tartlets are pure heaven. As are their beef pies (we had a family sized one for our family dinner Sunday night). Apparently their apple pies are also superb, but I wouldn't know about that because when we were browsing the shop, Dad boldly selected something other than said pie without me realising. I was devastated, to say the least. Dad, you owe me a pie.

Shortbread, made by my Dad. He snagged the recipe from a friend's Scottish grandma. These bites were gleefully short, and encouraged a newfound respect for this classic afternoon tea treat. When done well, shortbread really are fantastic.

They're quite the proud little bites, aren't they?

We also dove into a fresh loaf of Soda Bread. Nigel Slater's Lazy Loaf (recipe link). Dad was inspired after seeing my soda rolls last week, and decided to create a gorgeous loaf himself. Gorgeous indeed.

Please make yourself some soda bread, if only to experience the beautiful wholesome aroma and deliriously perfect crust. It's outrageously comforting. We all agreed in delicious enthusiasm that this was quite the lovely loaf.

P.S. I always cook my soda bread for longer than the recipe requests, otherwise I find the middle a little too moist.