Mad Hatter's Tea Party

My sweetie and I have a knack for throwing parties that are at the mercy of the weather gods. We have had phenomenal bad luck during the past couple of years. We've hosted barbeques in the middle of summer which have been rained, nay poured, out and ended up with everybody sitting inside, sometimes around the heater! We have learned to always be prepared to have guests inside "just in case", but it doesn't stop us planning ahead and hoping for the best. We have had absolutely dreadful weather in Wellington recently; it's barely summer here at all. (We went to a picnic yesterday - the weather was so bad that we needed to a hire a hall and have it inside instead!)

It's no secret that I love to bake. I also wanted to chance the weather and achieve goal #20 - Throw a party for friends. We made it a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, featuring high tea and tasty treats in the sun. I planned a menu of club sandwiches, mini-savouries, pikelets with jam and cream, chocolate chip cookies, lemon cupcakes, chocolate eclairs and a friend made chocolate-dipped strawberries. This would all be served with punch, tea, coffee and bubbly. Yum!

We left it almost until the very last minute to decide whether to migrate the furniture outside and have the party in the garden, or play it safe in the lounge. A few drops of light rain almost saw us change our mind, but what is life for if not for living on the edge? The afternoon slowly but surely warmed up and the sun even peeped out for a while - whew! 14 of us ate and drank our way through a relaxing Wellington Anniversary Day.

Here are the cupcakes I made. They are lemon flavoured with lemon buttercream frosting. I used white chocolate melts to make the daisy petals and topped each one off with a pebble. So cute - and tasty!

Flower cupcakes