Rhododendron or Azalea Tea with Amond Cake

I hope your Memorial Day was full of remembrance of those who have sacrificed to insure our freedom to gather and enjoy the bounty of American freedom, food and family.

But, this still is my hope for the future...

We are finally both pretty well recovered... and a good thing to as our daughter and husband are expected from out of state by June 3rd for a week, and we didn't want to be ill!

I baked an almond cake over the weekend, one of my favorites, and so have a small tea to memorialize the end of the Rhododendron season here....

Most we have are this vibrant color, but we also have....

This one... which reminded me of a Royal Ptrician teapot with a design of Azaleas or Rhododendrons... which are close cousins...

This is a Royal Ptrician, England old stock teapot from 2002... that was lost in the warehuse during a move. It's an unusually shaped tea-for-two teapot and has pink and lavender or mauve Rhododendrons.

Royal Patrician closed in 2009, which was so sad.
But I love the shape of the teapot!

And recently I also found a teacup with a Rhododendron design too... very unusual for a teacup too!

This was another of the short-lived English potteries. Society was only alive from 1962 until 1969, and there are few records anywhere about it. But lovely quality, and an unusual design!

To brighten things up, I added a Royal Winton Grimwades, England sugar, creamer and tray set in the Golden Age pattern from the 1960s.

This pattern is always a favorite, and this set was no exception... selling 1 hour after I posted it. That happens everytime I find something in the pattern. Definitely gorgeous!

And here is my Almond cake, with almond paste...I LOVE almond paste... on my family Noritake Revenna china...
I found the recipe in 2011 drom The English Kitchen (then Oak Cottage) which was perfect to replace the recipe from my English Nnan that I had somehow lost... it was just as I remembered it...

The cake baked in my springform tart pan....

and we served it with local fresh organic blueberries and strawberries. Absolutely delicious! 

Here is the recipe from The English Kitchen:
Quick, easy and very tasty.  It's very light and has a lovely almond flavour.  I like to serve it dusted with icing sugar and some fruit compote.  Delicious!

7 ounces almond paste
3 1/2 ounces sugar (1/2 cup)
4 ounces butter, softened (1/2 cup)
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 ounces of flour, sifted twice (a scant 1/2 cup)
icing sugar to dust

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4.  Butter a 10 inch tart pan very well.  Set aside.

Put the almond paste into a food processor with the sugar.  Blitz to mix together well.  Add the butter.  Again blitz to cream well together.  Slowly add the eggs with the motor running, until they are completely amalgamated.  Scrap into a bowl and then carefully fold in the flour.  Pour into the prepared pan and then bake for 30 minutes, or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Remove to a wire rack to cool.  

To serve, dust with icing sugar and cut into slices.  Fruit compote is optional but very nice with this as is a sour cherry jam.

Or see it here:
https://theenglishkitchen.blogspot.com/2010/11/simple-almond-cake.html#more

For info on the teapot or teacup at Antiques And Teacups, click on the photos.

Thanks for joining me for tea, and have a lovely week!

In Honor of Victoria's Birth 200 Years ago May 24, 1819 Part One

Queen Victoria at age 2 with her mother, the Duchess of Kent

On May 24, 1819, Victoria was born to the Duke and Duchess of Kent at Kendington Palace, was 5th in line for the throne, and not expected to succeed so many others.

Her father, Prince Edward, and grandfather, King George III, both died the following year, after which her uncle, George IV, acceded to the throne.  She became heir presumptive to her next surviving uncle, William IV, who ruled from 1830. However, he lacked an heir as his four legitimate children died during infancy. 

If you have watched the series Victoria on PBS, you know she had a strict, difficult childhood with lots of intrigue... and if some historians are to believed, some attempts on her life.

The photo above is Victoria at age 18.

Victoria ecame queen in 1837

and married her life-long-love Prince Albert February 10, 1840. 

The couple had 9 children and after Abert's death in 1861, wore black the rest of her life...

below is a famous photo of the aged Queen Victoria, draped as she often was in her wedding veil.

The Victorian era... named for Queen Victoria... has always drawn me... perhaps from the influence of my grandmother Emma Bridgewater with grew up in Leicester during the last of the Victorian era. .. and told me life stories and gifted and/or left me many of her Victorian era treasures... her teapot, teacups and more... 

The small Victoria commemorative tea on the tray in the sunroom was a bit less than I had hoped... but after nursing my husband through his cold, I succumbed to a worse one including a fever. So the last 2 weeks have been pretty difficult.

But I had to commemorate Victoria!

I had planned to share a lot of family things too, but that will be for next post, when I assume we will be recovered!

This is a gorgeous Victorian era art nouveau flow flue and red transferware teapot I  found in an old box while cleaning out an area in the warehouse. I got it in England and shipped it back... arriving just before we moved, so it was packed away during the move.

Not in perfect condition, but I love it! So would Queen Victoria I bet!

The mark identifies it as made by Samuel Johnson, Burslem pottery between 1870-1891.

Victori's portrait by Winterhalter in the Royal Collection Trust, done as a gift for Prince Albert on his 24th birthday...

The Victorian age was a time of expansion of knowledge... in the scieneces, in exploration, and the first Industrial Revolution that overturned an established society and forced it to cope with what it had created...

This is a family piece from my Nana... a Diamond Jubilee teacup from 1897...I treasure it!

The Victorians were great travelers, and enjoyed visiting places and bring back a souvenir. This is a cream and sugar set by Shelley China which is a souvenir of The Old Mint Pevensey, Sussex. It is actually from the Edwardian Era, right after Victoria dies and her son was crowned, but it iss little changed from the set I had from 1899.

This is another Imari patterned teacup that was made by Thomas Hughes. The company made the pattern from the 1890s until 1935.

As I have mentioned before, Imari was a popular Victorian pattern derived from the colors of the porcelain from the Imari region of Japa. By the beginning of Victoria's reign they wrer popular, and by the middle of her reign, Imari patterns were the euivalent of a huge design trend. There was always a lot of it on Downton Abbey, close the end of it's peak popularity.

This is another pf my family personal treasures from my Nana. This is a 14kt gold love token hair locket given to my grandmother by her sweetheart when she was 18 to 20 in 1889.

Here is the back, where the lock of hair was, covered with a thin slice of rock crysta;. However, my grandmother was a nurse, and told me she had removed the hair several years later because she flet it was unhygienic!

Wish she hadn't but...

The Victorian era is known for it's penchant for decorative overkill... but it didn't begin like that. This pair of sugar tongs is a good representative of the Regency or Georgian, of William period before her reign where things were plainer and more restrained in ornamentation.

That soon changed, didn't it? If it could be ornamented, even the very most workmanlike of items, it was.

And I love it!

These are the 3 Victorian and Edwardian dresses I have left from my grandmother. I am sure I will be sharing more about them sometime. Many other pieces just fell apart.

This is a 2 piece white lace dress, and  3/4 and 1/4 mourning dressses

Mourning was strickly regulated as to what was acceptable, although after Victoria's death in 1901, the rules were relaxed considerably.

One had 3 moths in all black. The next, or 3/4 mourning, one was allowed small spashes of dark colors, preferably purple, another color associated with mourning.

I don't have an example of 1/2 morning... but that was a bit more color or purple and grey added to the black. The the 2/4 mourning as shown here, grey with purple accents.

There were a lot of stricyures about what behaviors were allowed during each period, but I won't go into all that!

Lastly, I have used a Royal Crown Derby spare saucer from the 1890s with a typically Victorian pattern, to hold my "scuffin" of cross between a muffin and a scone for a tea treat. A friend brought us a package from Costco when he ran an errand for kleenex that we had run out of with our colds! Delicious> Cranberry Orange. Hope they have them when we should be able to get back there next week, Lord willing!

What an amzing influence they had on an era!

Happy Birthdy Victoria!

Some interesting articles for the many festivities going on celebrating her birthday!

Who was Queen Victoria? What was her role in the British Empire?  

https://www.britain-magazine.com/features/royals/queen-victoria-role-british-empire/

The exhibit 

QUEEN VICTORIA'S PALACE

https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/queen-victorias-palace/buckingham-palace

Queen Victoria's 200th Birthday: 20 quick fire facts 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/48369291

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of Queen Victoria https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/travel/celebrating-the-200th-anniversary-of-queen-victoria.html

Watch Queen Victoria's Daughter's Stunning Royal Tiara Be Transformed into a Necklace

 https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/jewelry-and-watches/a27555261/queen-victoria-princess-louise-kokoshnik-tiara-converted-necklace-video/

Have a lovely cup of tea in her honor!

Prince Harry And Meghan's 1st Anniversary and a Rustic Apple Tart

Hello and welcome to a post I did for the first anniversary of the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Amazing that the wedding was may 19, 2018...

and was watched on TV by many here in the US and arond the world...

The wedding took place at St. George's Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where Frogmore Cottage is now the residence of the Duke and Duchess and their little son Archie who was born on May 6th...

I decided to do this post after finding a 1950s Royal Albert teacup depicting Windsor Castle... a rarely seen design on a teacup... from a series they did through the 1950s called Traditional British Songs.

The song Windsor Castle represents is Land Of Hope And Glory, a wonderfully patriotic song that rallied many during World War II.

As a further patriotic note, on the back is a bouquet of flowers... each representing a different part of the United Kingdom...

The flowers are a pink Rose for England, a purple thistle for Scotland, a yellow Daffodil for Wales and green shamrocks for Ireland.

I haven't had a teacup from the series for a couple of years... I love them all!

And of course we need tea! I got this commemorative tin of English Breakfast tea featuring the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge the other day... again from the New English Tea Company in Coventry, UK, close to where my husband grew up...

And for a tea treat... not something royal, but a way to use up some apples!

I made a rustic apple tart...

and served it on the family inherited Noritake Revenna...

And am happy to report it was delicious and didn't last long! Lol!

the link to the recipe on myrecipes.com is HERE

The mug and the teacup are available at Antiques And Teacups. For more info, click on the photos.

Thanks for joining me! Been a difficult week... my husband has had a cold which plays havoc with the Parkinson's medications... but we can do this!

Violets And Cross Stitch Tea, Royal Things

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day... and celebrated the nurturing going on in your life... physical or spiritual!

Of course, I had to have an antique postcard!

I did a small tea in the sunroom this week... we had gorgeous spring weather in the 70s... lovely!

I was re reading one of my Victoria books... The Art Of Taking Rea, and realzed I had some Violet things around, so... voila! A Violets tea!

I did this cross stitch in 1990 and it lives in our bedroom by the bed.  And it has Violets!

I had found this Violets tea caddy recently, and it was a fun bit of research to track down the maker. 

The design was by Crownford Giftware Corp from New York, but it was made in England.  Now there was a Crownford in England that came about from a merging of  Eizabethan/Taylor and Kent and Rosina/Queen's china, but  Crownford Gift Corporation was only in existence from 1964-1973, so I don't think they were related.

Anyway, made in England by an unknown pottery.

And of course, we had to have a Violets teacup. I think maybe I have shared this one before, but it was handy... I love it! But then I love Violet teacups!

The Violets teacup is by Samuel Radford's England, and from the mark was made just at the end of the potteries life... from 1938-1957, when the pottery closed.

Radford's was another of the potteries that shakily survived World War II, only to be unable to survive in a difficult business climate with difficulties finding supplies, a work force, and designs that matched the post war culture.

The other Violets item I found is a 2 piece over-the-cup tea strainer with matching drip catching under bowl.

I f you read my last blog about pattern decals crossing over brands, this is another one... seen on Royal Patrician, Allyn Nelson and many others in the 1980s. We sold a lot of these by Royal Patrician in the 1980 unitl the pottery went of of business in 2009.

When I saw it, I just assumed it was Royal Patrician, so was surprised to find it marked by David Michael China, Staffordshire. And, try as I might, I could find no info on the company at all, so conclude it was another of the small, short lived independent potteries in Staffordshire in the 1980-1990s.

I love the research on these potteries!

For more information on any of the items shown on Antiques And Teacups, click on the photos.

And May 19th is the 1st wedding anniversary of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex...

who also welcomed their first child, Archie Harrison on May 6th.

Congratulations to the family!