a cream tea

 If you're going to have a tea party, then make it a cream tea with few extras. Chocolate covered strawberries are a nice extra especially if you're going to have cream tea in February near Valentine's Day with a few of your sisters-in-law. 

 Party mints are also nice. Besides they look so pretty in a glass goblet and they are a tradition at all Mosher girl get-togethers from before I was a Mosher Girl. My sisters and I have our own traditional mints that we always had our Valentine's tea parties. It only feels right to have a tea party around the 14th.

 Lindt chocolate hearts make lovely place-markers, I loved how the red heart splashed on the neutral china and tablecloth but I really loved the chocolaty goodness under the red foil!

 And then they were the scones. And the cream. And the jam. Oh, bliss! I scoured the internet for a recipe for devonshire cream, short of importing it from England, and we quite enjoyed it. My sister has the most amazing recipe for scones, so light and flaky. They were the perfect combination with the cream and jam. A proper Cream Tea must have strawberry jam but in the absence of strawberry, raspberry is allowed to be served. We had raspberry. 

And being Valentine's we consumed a great deal of cinnamon hearts. In fact, they caused quite a bit of laughter and we departed from regular British decorum at our tea party. But we concluded that we had more fun this way.

 It was a quiet afternoon filled with laughter and delicious scones and pots of tea and memories. Even the littlest girl got to be involved and was quite covered in a creamy jam mixture by the end. We will do it again because it's a special tradition started with my sisters and I will pass it down to my daughters. 

Valentine's isn't just a day for lovers, it's a day for love and celebrating those special to you. 

The recipe for devonshire cream can be found here. Serve with scones, strawberry jam and tea with milk.