Eric Lanlard's Afternoon Tea

by Eric Lanlard

Master pâtissier and baker to the stars Eric Lanlard returns with a gorgeous new book crammed with deliciously achievable recipes for the perfect afternoon tea. With 90 recipes for sweet and savoury treats, this book contains all the cakes, pastries, tarts and biscuits you could wish for, from Gruyère Eclairs to Pistachio and Rosewater Scones. In addition, menu ideas offer the perfect combination of flavours for your afternoon tea. Whether you're throwing a lavish tea party or simply looking for that perfect Coffee Cake recipe, this is the must-have afternoon tea cookbook.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking

176 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 12, 2016

Reviews

[Maya Panika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to bake, and with a milestone birthday coming up in the family, I was curious to see if Eric Lanlard could come up with anything better than my own strawberry-raspberry-chocolate-almond Cake of Dreams, the cake I generally produce for summertime occasions when I want to impress. I wasn’t disappointed: the strawberry ombré cake on page 112 (and illustrated on the over) with it’s glory of cream-piped roses looks like it would easily give my home-spun thing a run for its money. Like all the food in ‘Afternoon tea’, it looks simply amazing and yet seems so simple to make, and that is true for 95% of the recipes in this delightful book; as easy-peasy as the rose and pistachio scones (p.73) and chocolate and ginger tart on page 115… oh my giddy aunt (as my mother used to exclaim)!

Of course, it’s not only about the cakes (or the scones, or the biscuits, or the exquisite little chocolates), there’s a plethora of delicious savouries too – I feel the beetroot and caraway bread, the blue cheese gougères and the little tarts of spinach and pine nut and pear, Roquefort and walnut, warrant special mention - they look so professional and difficult, but in fact, nothing here is at all complicated; the ingredients are basic, supermarket stuff, there’s nothing terribly exotic or hard-to-source; the vast majority of the recipes seem entirely doable to even the most amateur of cooks. I think anyone with a half-decent ability in the cakes, scones and biscuit department – the average family cook and baker in fact – could knock up a magnificent tea using these recipes. Most of those who read this book won’t be putting on the full Claridge's-style tea-time experience, but with this book, you actually could. And it’s such a lovely book, it almost tempts me to have a crack at it.
Of course, what I’m most likely to do is cherry-pick – no doubt some new family favourites will come out of these. We’re planning a beach picnic for the aforementioned Big Birthday and I’m definitely going to ditch my regular asparagus quiche and cheese and salad rolls for some of Eric Lanlard’s tempting treats – some spinach foccacia, cheesy gruyere éclairs and camembert and apple tarts - are definitely going into the picnic basket.

We are all vegetarians here and a great many of the recipes are not veggie-friendly; meat and fish feature in most (almost all) of the sandwiches, and cakes and confectionery often call for gelatin, but many are fairly-easily to adapt to vegetarian ingredients (the sweets more easily than the savouries).

And it’s not just a recipe book. The opening sections on tea (the drink) itself (so often the most overlooked part of an afternoon tea) are fascinating. I was very taken with the pairing of tea to food as you would wine, something I have never ever considered but it makes perfect sense and now I’m dying to give Monsieur Lanlard’s suggestions a go. I mean, Lapsang Souchong with chocolate cake - what’s not to love?

The book itself is a lovely thing; so pale and fresh with its pink and white and gold colour scheme; delightfully illustrated and designed with its classically curlicued French type, like a pack of pain au chocolat from a French supermarché, or the chalk-board menu of a Parisian bistro. The whole package is an absolute delight from cover to cover.

[Yaaresse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I've not had time (or ingredients or real motivation) to cook anything from this yet, so my rating is based on armchair cooking until I make a few things. After I've made a few things from it, I'll adjust my rating up/down as the recipe outcome warrants.

I purchased this because a) it was absurdly cheap, and b) because the idea of porcini and pancetta eclairs intrigues me. I don't like eclairs as much as I like the idea of eclairs. I do, however, like mushrooms and pancetta. As for the author, he was a blank canvas to me. I guess he's some hotshot celebrity chef on the BBC or maybe the Food Network? No clue.

Lots of comments on this one, so I'll put it under a spoiler/cut. And since I prefer to end on a more positive note, let's cover the things I didn't like first:
1. I'm not sure there is ever a valid reason for exclamation points in a cookbook. Maybe there's room for one in the introduction, but that's about the limit for being taken seriously. This one seems to have more exclamation points than a pre-teen girl's diary.

2. The layout. Center justified text is hard in general, and it makes trying to follow recipes a unmitigated pain in the ass. It's too easy for the eye to miss an ingredient (e.g. something short like "1/4 tsp salt" caught between two long much longer lines) or miss part of a step in the instructions. One of the primary rules for cookbook layouts is that the book can be read from the counter while both hands are involved in cooking. Center justified text doesn't pass that test.

3. If a cookbook is marketed to US buyers--and given the inclusion of US measurements and oven temps, it's safe to assume that was the intent here--then, for the love of Pete, include notes explaining UK-centric terms or substitutions. For example, golden castor sugar may be common in the UK, but one won't find it in US groceries. Does one sub brown sugar (which is far more moist) or turbinado (which has much larger grains)? And WTH is "mixed spice"? (Google seems to think it is pumpkin pie spice -- which makes little since given most pumpkin pie spice is mostly cinnamon, and cinnamon is always mentioned separately in the recipes. So is Google wrong?)

4. Most of the recipes in this book call for "large eggs." Some (mostly in the cookies/biscuit section) don't specify a size. Where it does specify, do we assume that's a UK large egg? Because UK large egg = US extra large egg.

Edited to add: I just found a note all the way in the very back of the book, past the index and credits, past the copyright info, literally the penultimate line of text in the ebook, where it says, "all eggs should be medium." So now I'm completely confused.

5. The headnotes, the introductory part of the recipes, was uneven. When they were good, they were really good; when they were bad, they were annoying and sometimes cringe-worthy.
I suspect headnotes are a pure-T-bitch to write. Good headnotes should act as a lure, or maybe one of those "you are here" kiosks, that gets the reader to stop and be tempted to look closer at the recipe beneath it. It's the place for a gentle sales pitch and whatever nudges or advice the cook needs to be certain of success with that particular recipe. Headnotes that become repetitive with simply changes of superlative adjectives or that become mini-biographies or self-congratulatory squee-fests get boring fast. The best head-notes are always more about the recipe and the reader-cook's interests than the author. The headnotes for this book often hit the mark, but too many others seemed to exist because someone told him he needed to write headnotes. Suggesting that a pudding looked nice served in mini-tagines, hints on best tea pairings for a dish, or hinting that a recipe might be more time-intensive is helpful. Telling us that "most people like chocolate" or Peanut Butter and Banana Cookies have peanut butter and banana in them. I see that in the title just above that sentence. Telling us "I like eating pears with blue cheese" and"Great with afternoon tea" seems a little obvious given most people don't develop recipes for foods they hate, and the book's title is Eric Lanlard's Afternoon Tea. Are there recipes in a book with that title NOT good with tea? Likewise "Yum!"= not particularly helpful. The headnotes often gush to the point I found them off-putting, being filled with phrases such as"super cute," "simply divine," "absolutely amazing!" and so on. I found myself muttering, "Let's dial the braggy bits down to nine, cake boy." I went on-line and watched a couple of Lanlard's how-to videos after reading this book, and he didn't come off quite so intense and loud in the videos. He was more focused on information than being "moreish" Maybe he just doesn't like writing headnotes? IDK.
(Is "moreish" even a real word? "I wanted it to be moreish" and "this is moreish." Maybe it's a British thing? Or the current version of "on fleek"?)

There there was much to like:
1. In the ebook version, there are direct links to each chapter from the TOC, then each chapter has a full list of hyperlinked recipes. In addition, the index is very well done. It not only made sense, but every link I tried worked perfectly. So many ebook editions of cookbooks get this one simple thing wrong. Kudos to the technical formatter for this.
My only suggestion for improvement here is that when navigating the hyperlink for a tip embedded in the recipe instructions, it would be helpful to have a link back to the original spot in the recipe rather than leaving us stranded at the extra info location.

2. Kudos also to Liz Belton, who is credited as the photo stylist. The cookie chapter (sorry...biscuit chapter), in particular, is worth applause to her. She picked props that showed off the food nicely. Nothing she used appeared to be expensive or overly precious, and the result was the right balance between elegant and comfortable, as if she'd raided grandmother's china cabinet of well-loved pieces for an impromptu gathering.

3. There is a good number of photos, and they compliment the recipes well. Moreover, the photos included were there for a reason, to show off the recipe. Enough of the artsy photos of floured-covered cutting boards and battered vintage sifters or cookbooks padded with photos of every single step in the recipe. We should all know what whipping cream and breaking an egg into a bowl looks like by now. I wish the photos had varied the shot angle and distance a bit, but they are good photos.

4. Once Lanlard gets past those awkward headnotes, the recipes are (physical layout aside) well-written. Instructions are clear and concise. The process flow makes sense. While it's always best to read a recipe (twice) before beginning, I didn't see any "doubling back" in his instructions. The prep and cooking times required are split apart, which I wish more cookbooks would do. The selection of recipes includes both sweet and savory. Nothing looked very difficult, and yet there were small touches to make it all just a little unique and special.

In short, I have mixed feelings about the book. Every time I would get a bit annoyed with it, I'd see something that made me want to give it another chance to woo me. I found Lanlard irritating, even a little pretentious, when in diva mode and quite likable when in chef-teacher mode. The page layout pissed me off, but maybe it's worth fighting through it for savory macaroons/eclairs or those tahini cookies.

[David John Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ten Stars out of Five

What a book this is brilliant baking and as well the recipes are beautifully
written but not enough photographs of the finished produced but it is well worth the money.