In arranging the china and linen for afternoon tea, it will be well to remember that coloured china looks best upon a white cloth or upon a cream-coloured one embroidered in silks or flax threads to match the colours in the china, while for use with plain white or white-and-gold china a cloth of art linen, in plain blue, yellow or pink, with white embroidery is most suitable.
Nor need any hostess lament over her scarcity of small silver table appointments in the way of teapot and cream jugs and sugar basins, for a china teapot and hot-water jug and the sweet wee cream jugs and tiny basins now sold to match almost every stock pattern of china, look quite as dainty and artistic as their more imposing silver brethren.
See that your bread-and-butter is delicately thin, and that it and your cakes and sandwiches are served upon dainty doyleys of fringed damask, and if you provide two small plates, one with brown and one with white bread-and-butter, they will be found more convenient to hand about than one large plate.
When there is only a small party, the use of a luncheon tray, with three divisions, will save trouble in handing cakes, etc., and, be it whispered, these same trays are also convenient when your stock of cake is low, as small pieces of cake which could not possibly attain to the dignity of the cake-basket, will make quite an imposing appearance if cut in slices and arranged in one division of the tray, with some biscuits in the second and some carefully-rolled bread-and-butter in the third.
No doubt all my readers are acquainted with the silver or electro-plated handles which are now sold for attaching to cake and bread-and-butter plates, and a very convenient invention too; but should your means preclude your indulgence in these luxuries, do not, I pray you, be inveigled into buying the substitutes made of a sort of millinery arrangement of wire, ribbon, and artificial flowers. They soon become shabby and tawdry, while even when they can boast of pristine freshness the idea of ribbon and artificial flowers in such close proximity to eatables is to my mind at once incongruous and inartistic.
In cutting bread-and-butter or sandwiches, a loaf at least twenty-four hours old should be used, as it is impossible to obtain a satisfactory result with new bread. Servants, it may be noted, are as a rule far too liberal with the butter, which they often leave in lumps in any holes there may be in the surface of the bread; and should the bread be cut as thin as it ought to be, the butter will probably work its way through to the other side with very unpleasantly greasy results.
And now for the recipes themselves, and as savoury sandwiches—and, indeed, sandwiches of every kind—are always favourites we will have a friendly chat concerning them before passing on to cakes and biscuits.
For the foundation of all sandwiches, we must use evenly cut, and not too liberally buttered, bread, and be very careful that our seasoning is generously used, but with discretion. To crunch a lump of salt in a sandwich is by no means a pleasant experience.
Cress Sandwiches, though always appreciated, are simplicity itself. Carefully wash and thoroughly dry the cress, arrange on slices of bread-and-butter, sprinkle with salt, and, after pressing the covering slices firmly down, cut into two-inch squares and pile on a doyley, garnishing with tiny bunches of cress.
Watercress Sandwiches are made in the same way, using only the leaves, which must be most carefully washed in salt and water. Most people consider the addition of a little mayonnaise sauce a great improvement, and the following will be found a simple but excellent way to make it: