"Tea and Crumpets" will transport you to the legendary European tearooms and storied salons offering simplified recipes for recreating at home the sandwiches, pastries, cakes, and confections that have made them famous. Savor the Ritz's recipe for cucumber sandwiches, the aristocrat of the tea table, and Claridge's raisin and apple scones. Learn how the chef at Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel creates the chocolate scones that grace its afternoon tea menu, and delight in making banana-chocolate charlottes like those served at London's Savoy. Be prepared to wow your guests by serving teatime specialties like Battenberg cake, a pink-and-white-checkered cake filled with apricot jam and covered with marzipan; Dundee cake, a Scottish fruitcake made famous in the city where marmalade got its start; and French temptations such as petits pains au chocolat, hazelnut pots de creme, macarons, and tea-infused madeleines.

Author Biography

Margaret M. Johnson is a noted cookbook author and journalist. She has written for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Food and Wine, Irish Echo, and the Underground Wine Journal, and is the author of The Irish Spirit, The Irish Pub Cookbook, Irish Puddings, Tarts, Crumbles, and Fools, The New Irish Table, and The Irish Heritage Cookbook all from Chronicle Books. When she is not visiting her ancestral home of Ireland, she lives in New York. Leigh Beisch is a San Francisco-based photographer. Her work has appeared in many fashion, lifestyle, and health magazines, as well as in The Irish Spirit, The Irish Pub Cookbook, Irish Puddings, and Irish Tarts, Crumbles, and Fools, among many others, all from Chronicle Books.