Off to the Tower ! - Afternoon Tea at Hoghton Tower

It's not often you get invited to Afternoon Tea at a castle (well a Tower actually but what passes for a castle around these parts and very castle like too), reputed to be the location of where King James knighted his "Sir" loin of beef, the ancestral home to the De Hoghton family in situated on a rise in rolling Lancashire countryside just outside Preston, Chorley and Blackburn. Hoghton Tower and its grounds have magnificent views of the surrounding area and the venue plays host to many and varied events throughout the year including a very popular "Merchants of Hoghton Tower" farmers market.

We were recently invited to the relaunch of their Vaio tearoom (vaio due to the decoration on the walls of the tea room), the new Manager has carefully sourced lots of local producers for the tea room and the emphasis is definitely on a traditional English afternoon tea and tea time favourites.

We dined in splendour, sipping bubbles and being entertained by a string quartet, the canapes delicious and appetizing.

I particularly loved the abundant floral displays featuring garden and wild flowers, perfectly in keeping with the country castle ambiance of the venue.

The tea room also serves a selection of platters, the Tower platter being for the meat eater and featuring pies, meats and homemade chutneys. The Seafood platter celebrating some great local seafood all sourced carefully from local producers, many of which attend the Merchants event on a regular basis.

The tea room also have a "picnic menu" if you wish to organise a special celebration and will happily quote for outside and event catering as well.

Featuring cakes from Lathams of Broughton, homemade scones and cake of the week, there is a sweet treat to delight all.

Local bakers "All you knead" are supplying bread and baked goods, ice cream is being sourced from Mrs Dowsons just down the road. Cheese from Leagrams cheese.

Hoghton Tower is a great place for a visit and is bursting with history, I have enjoyed many visits over the years and you can even hold your wedding here.

We were  also featured in an Article in LEP , our local County paper in connection with the event.

Middle Holly Cottage Tea Room and Cake Parlour - Afternoon tea

In Lancashire we pride ourselves on a warm and friendly welcome and there is no finer way to spend an afternoon then enjoying the delights of afternoon tea. On a cold blustery spring day we ventured forth to Middle Holly Cottage in Forton for such an afternoon.

On our journey up to Forton where Middle Holly is situated, we saw the cars temperature gauge plumet by 3 degrees and experienced hail, rain and thunder. Fortunately for us Middle Holly is really easy to find being situated just of the A6 and on arrival we were warmly welcomed into the cosy tea room and cake parlour by Gill who runs Middle Holly with her husband Andy. 

Originally from Cheshire but now firmly settled in Lancashire, Gill and I enjoyed a lovely chat about all things food, the WI (she's a member just like me), the Clandestine Cake club, catering for free from diets and Lancashire in general.

Gill is really passionate about her beautiful B and B and tea room being the best they possibly can and she carefully features the best  quality local and seasonal produce on her menu's. She wants all her customers to experience a warm, genuine and memorable experience when staying or eating at Middle Holly.

Gill makes all her own bread, cakes, jams, chutneys and her eggs come from her own  garden hens and sources all her other ingredients as locally as she can. For example she proudly serves Dewlay's Lancashire Cheese, which is little a few minutes walk down the road.

We were invited to experience the Deluxe Afternoon tea which was served in the pretty Garden Room area, thoughtfully decorated in country pastels and the tea, cakes and sandwiches all served on eclectic vintage china, complete with home knitted and crocheted tea cosies by Gill's Mum !

We started our tea with a shot glass of homemade seasonal vegetable soup, very tasty and flavourful which was very welcome given the weather outside, Gill makes sure that when she blends her soup you still have little chunks of vegetables so you can really taste the fresh vegetables in the soup.

Next came our tottering tower (cake stand), strewned with viola flowers, salad and herb leaves, and bedecked with finger sandwiches of home cooked ham, egg mayonnaise and Lancashire cheese and homemade chutney, all served on homemade organic bread. Gill likes to ring the changes and try different flours in the bread baking (most of the bread is made by Andy), so our selection was farmhouse white and  a seeded bread. The sandwiches were delicious, generously filled  and the homemade bread makes such a difference to the taste experience. Alongside our sandwiches we also had a little bowl of Lancashire Crisps, we love those too and again show careful thoughtful sourcing.

Our next  cake stand layer was a fruity raspberry fool served in a pretty vintage teacup and homemade crisp and light chocolate eclairs. The fool was perfectly balanced in terms of sweetness and tartness so as not to be cloying, the eclairs light and airy and filled with fluffy whipped cream.

The top layer of the stand has two huge pieces of cake, which we split in half so both myself and Mr LF could experience the floral rose and almond cake and slated caramel layer cake. Again all homemade, We particularly loved the salted caramel layer cake with its salty yet sweet topping. By this stage we were getting very full so we agreed with Gill to take away our scones (choice of fruit or plain), if you can squeeze them in they come accompanied with cream and  a choice of Gills Homemade jams. The scones are huge, and unlike a lot of other scones I have tried, not in the least bit disappointingly dry and tasteless, these were light and tasty, they were our treat later in the day when we returned home with the last of our homemade rhubarb and strawberry jam.

Last but not least a handmade homemade truffle each, just to round things off !! 

Outside Middle Holly has views over to the Bowland Hills, a little misty and obscured whilst we were there due to the inclement downpour but stunning non the less. 

We loved our visit to Middle Holly and meeting and chatting with Gill, despite it being an awful day the tea room was still fairly busy, so if you are planning a visit I would book just to be on the safe side as given the high standard of afternoon tea and cake on offer, Middle Holly is sure to be very popular. The tea room is currently open Thursday, Friday and Saturday and in the summer on Sundays too.

Check out the website for further details of the tea room and B and B. 

Our meal was provided free of charge for review purposes, we were not compelled to write a positive review and all thoughts and opinions are our own.

CCC No 13 - At Coppers Tea room, Leyland

Hello,ello , ello what have we got here, South Lancashire  clandestine cake club being held in the former victorian police station now tea room Coppers in Leyland !

                                         

Complete with cells this former local police station has been converted in a delightfully quirky tearoom and coffee lounge, handily situated near the towns railway station. Its a great spot for afternoon tea and that's exactly what the theme of our March meeting was "Lancashire Afternoon Tea", the friendly staff serve a wide range of drinks, snacks and cakes , many featuring local produce.

My bake was a twist on the local classic Goosnargh cake but you can find out more about this cake here.

Once again our bakers rose to the occasion and brought along some beautiful cakes which where great interpretations of the theme. We also had our first male baker who brought along a fabulous Zingy lemon curd cake along with his gorgeous 9 month old son and his partner to help eat all the cakes. We also had two young foodie visitors who had make a great cake label for their mums bake and who also assisted in helping us eat our way through 10 cakes.

1. Zingy Lemon curd Cake
2. Imogens Sultana and apple farmhouse cake
3. Coconut and raspberry cake
4. Bakewell Cake
5. Coffee cake
6. Chocolate Roulade
7. Passionfruit victoria sponge
8. Raspberry Cakewell
9. Goosnargh cake with Orange buttercream
10. Battenberg Cake

Let the feast commence !

Wonderful cake label 

Raspberry Cakewell

Just some of the teapots in Coppers Tearoom 

Zingy lemon curd layer cake

Thanks to everyone who attended this cake club meeting and made it such a great sucess and thanks to the staff at Coppers who so warmly welcomed us. 

Our visit was also featured in the local newspaper

Pikelets - a traditional tea time treat

Pikelets are the easier to make sibling of the crumpet family, that great afternoon teatime treat or in our household breakfast treat too. For many years I have fancied giving making crumpets or pikelets a try and not got around to it but finally I have had a go and was pleasantly surprised by how very easy they are to make, so much so that I will be having another griddle baking session very soon. Yeast raised but griddled baked these little fluffy holey delights turned out great and are best devoured toasted and slathered (good word that !) with butter and home made jam or better still apple butter.

If like us you have either an open fire or log burner, pikelets are great toasted on a cold wet wintery afternoon for a carpet picnic. You will need a toasting fork, but its way more fun than an electric toaster !

Ingredients

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 350ml warm milk
• 350ml warm water
• 5g dried yeast
• 10g salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Vegetable oil for frying - a little

You will also need a heavy based frying pan or flat griddle hotplate to cook your pikelets in or on.

This makes about 16 pikelets

Method

• Mix all your ingredients except the oil in a large bowl, whisking together until your batter is the consistency of a thick pancake batter
• Cover the bowl with cling film and leave to ferment in a warm place until the mixture is all bubbly. This will take at least an hour and may be as much as 3 hours. Don't rush this step as time is what creates the flavour in the dough.
• You are now ready to cook your pikelets
• Preheat your pan / griddle , oil and then wipe (I use kitchen roll) so there is just a trace of oil remaining.
• Ladle large spoonfuls of the mixture into the pan, whatever size you wish to make your pikelets
• Cook on one side without moving until the top side is covered with lots of air bubbles that have popped, this takes a couple of minutes.
• Flip your pikelets over and briefly cook on the other side
• You are aiming for lightly golden on both sides, as bear in mind that you will be toasting to serve.
• Delicious toasted served with butter and preserves
• They freeze really well also.

Afternoon tea in the garden

In the recent spell of good weather (its finished now and we are back to a typical rainy cold english summer) afternoon tea in the garden was in order. So after a quick baking session, tea was served.

• Scones with homemade strawberry jam and clotted cream.The scones were made to a friends recipe.
• Cucumber sandwiches, I used the fab Valentine Warners recipe in What to Eat now.
• Sausage rolls- I must confess shop bought on this occasion, but you can check my earlier blog post for a great sausage roll recipe.
• Victoria sponge cake - a classic but in celebration of summer, a pink sponge filled with the classic jam filling 
• Lemon balm loaf cake as featured on an earlier blog post

Drinks were served from a selection of Pimms ,classic english tea and cloudy lemonade