Do you have any kosher restrictions?

I would do an afternoon tea. Finger sandwiches, dainty desserts...I would also serve coffee.

I would do an afternoon tea too. They are so special especially when done as a bridal tea.

Anyone else recall when we had Trousseau Teas ?

Another nod for an afternoon tea. I love finger sandwiches (especially cucumber) and petite fours and chocolate dipped strawberries. And serve coffee, tea, sparkling water and maybe a little champagne.

Alexa

And are there any electricity restrictions or restrictions on what you can do on the day of?

Thanks for the quick replies! Keep the ideas -- and maybe some specific items or recipes -- coming, please. You all are the BEST.

Jessy and Jessica, good questions. Our house is kosher, and although we aren't the strictest people in the world, none of the guests is going to have any problem eating anything I'd serve. No electricity issues, either: I am figuring on Saturday afternoon, because people (including me!) are really going to need Sunday for cooking, but we do use electricity, and the only guest who might not (I'm not sure) won't care if we do. She just lives around the corner, so no problem with that, either.

I've never tried making petit fours. I suppose I could buy them; I don't mind cooking for this party -- I WANT to -- but I'm not sure I want to take on quite so elaborate a project, especially for the first time, on such a busy week.

Unless -- can I make them ahead and freeze them? Anyone have recipes/instructions?

Have you decided you will do a tea?

I think if I were giving this party, my biggest "annoyance" if you want to call it that would be leftovers. I mean, Passover is two days away and you don't want to make a lot of leavened bread type items which will have to be tossed after the party. So I think I'd do a few different salads, veggies, fruits, that sort of thing. Maybe a fish salad (like smoked whitefish), an egg salad, a green salad, a fruit tray. That sort of thing. I also like the wine & cheese idea.

OTOH, you may want to take the opportunity to use up all your chametz in which case the finger sandwiches might be just the thing.

Got thinking about this and I'm not sure that it will be easy to make a nice selection of tea sandwiches and stay kosher unless you can have fish with dairy. I know you can't have shellfish but can you have tuna or salmon with dairy??

Fish is considered parve and can be served with meat or dairy.

As in lox & cream cheese & bagels OR gefilte fish served at the seder with a brisket dinner.

Well then lots of options for perfect finger sandwiches.

egg salad with watercress
smoked salmon and cream cheese
tuna rolled around a dill pickle slice and cut in circles
three layer stacked sandwich iced with cream cheese chilled and sliced
cucumber and mayo triangles

Buy the petit fors but you must serve scones, clotted cream, and several jam preserves.

Oh how I love a proper afternoon tea...as long as there is champagne!

I think I would probably opt for dairy/fish if it were me. It seems harder to avoid dairy than meat. You could do some little quiches or slices of Spanish tortilla, which is good at room temperature. And I think you have to have SOMETHING sweet :-)

I think a tea would be lovely....and petit fours don't have to be complicated...for tiny cakes you bake a dense cake freeze, cut into squares or triangles and pour warm fondant over them....and things like tiny cream puffs and eclairs are also petit fours.
Cucumber sandwiches!
Mix 2 T. mayo with a room temp 8 oz brick of cream cheese and season with about 1/2 tsp of beau-monde seasoning. Spread on cocktail rye rounds, place slice of cucumber on top and a sprig of dill.
Mini muffin pans will take you a long way too...you can make savory muffins as well as sweet.
And frilled picks with whatever fruit bots you choose look lovely stuck into a fruit of your choosing...half a melon, placed cut side down, grapefruit, pineapple.
As for the chometz created with the petit fours....I'll buy any leftovers for a quarter!!
Linda C

Another easy option: (don't kill me, you purists, I am trying to make life easier).
Buy a tub of mini cream puffs from BJ's or Costco. Thaw. melt chocolate, put in a zip loc bag and snip corner. Drizzle the cream puffs with chocolate. You can dust them very lightly, when dry, with powdered sugar.

Another option is rugelach. I love the recipe by Ina Garten.

Here is a link that might be useful: Easiier than it looks.

the last time the girls and I had a tea party in the afternoon with their "church grandmas" I made little savory shells like cream puffs and stuffed them with chicken salad. We had some tiny croissants filled with seafood salad and homemade buns filled with egg salad. Cookies for dessert with slices of sweet quick breads, fruit skewers and cheese to go along with it all. Coffee and tea, of course.

The different "breads" made for a nice variety, both in taste/texture and in appearance.

Quiche would be nice too, along with or as an alternative to sandwiches.

Oh, and have fun!

Annie

Oh, this is so much fun!

Beverlyal, wow, thank you so much for all that work. That's a whole cookbook.

I do think a tea sounds nice. I bet my friends will like it.

I won't worry too much about leftovers. We can eat them the next day or so and give the rest to the shelter. Besides, it will be a pretty small group, so I can plan it so there won't be too much leftover anyway.

I love little sandwiches!

I will probably make more sweets and fewer sandwiches only because I can do the sweets way ahead and freeze. I want to be able to run around with FMTO and her mom, not be stuck in the kitchen for days in addition to what I'll be doing for Passover.

As for tea ...
How would you serve it? I do have a silver tea/coffee service (actually my mom's on rather permanent loan). But the tea and coffee get ice cold in them! I mostly use the pots for flower arrangements, but I use the sugar bowl, creamer, and "slops bowl" a lot (the last for artificial sweetener packets -- how tacky!).

Anyway, I'm guessing more people will want wine than coffee or tea. The "tea" in "tea party" will be more an indicator of the type of party than of the beverage service, I guess. I will probably just have hot water and an assortment of tea bags available for the tea drinkers, coffee in the coffee maker, and a few bottles of wine; maybe sangria or one kind of cocktail in a pitcher. I love the champagne idea, too!

Does anyone know about freezing petit fours? Would it depend on the type of icing?

When I've made tea sandwiches for a large group, I found (the hard way) that buying large slices of bread from the link below is a time saver that more than compensates for the price. And the bread is perfect for the purpose. Also buy a cheap, long-bladed slicer from a restaurant supply store & a long, flat spatula for spreading - it's surprising how fast you can make a lot of sandwiches in about the same time it takes to make 2 from Pepperidge Farm bread.

To make the sandwiches ahead of time:
Line an airtight container with film wrap & let it hang over the edges.
Put in a layer of sandwiches
Top with wax paper
Layer of Sandwiches
Wax Paper
Damp paper towel-Do NOT let it touch sandwiches
Fold over the film wrap
Put on the Airtight top

Here is a link that might be useful: Slim&Soft Bread

If you want to use your fancy tea service, you might try pouring boiling water in the kettles before you put the tea and coffee in. I think a lot of the heat you lose is the heat it takes for the tea to warm up the vessel.

Aughghhh. I just found out that they won't be in until 6 pm Saturday. And Sunday Thing One and FMTO (not her mom?) are going to have dinner with a cousin of hers who lives nearby.

So that means it will have to be some time on Sunday -- with the first seder Monday night, no way Monday will work. As it is, I will probably have my tables set for seder in the dining room already. I don't care; these are all very close friends. And it will definitely have to be open-house style; no one will be able to stay for 2 hours.

So does this change what I should serve? Should I bag the whole idea of entertaining at home and just have everyone meet out somewhere for a drink (my treat) just before dinnertime instead?

As much as I love tea parties, (and that's a lot) they are not a low maintenance party. Sometimes you have to just accept something more casual so that you can focus on having a good time with your guests. Having said that, I also ADORE cheese and I think that a nice assortment of cheeses and their accoutrements, some wine, some fruit and a veggie tray, plus a nice assortment of desserts would be wonderful, classic and fun. It's a classic for a reason. Don't mess with perfection. And you could buy it all or make whatever you wanted to. I'd spend the money on fancy cheeses and make all the rest, but that's me and my budget issues.

Oh dear, gellchom, that does make it more complicated, doesn't it?

I think you could still go with little sandwiches, some sweets and coffee or tea, if you really want to, but I like Lpink's idea of fruit, wine, cheese, sweets, coffee and tea. Lots of little bites of snacky things and good company, what could be better?

Annie

I vote for an afternoon tea also. I love the fanciness and dantiness and variety of it all. You might even want to brew a few teas in various flavors and borrow some pretty, old fashioned looking, decorated china teapots for serving the various flavors.

I don't know what the holiday may mean for what you can serve, but you could make it quite simple with little sandwiches, fruit compote, and little desserts. I do love the Costco little cream puffs that someone mentioned, but perhaps you ought to plan to buy all of the desserts by ordering them from a nice bakery. If you are also doing a big family holiday meal, planning to purchase some really nice tiny desserts makes good sense.

And no, Long Island Iced Tea is not a good idea for this tea party ;) Enjoy having one with your feet up after all the celebrations are over!