The Wicked Themed Afternoon Tea Party
When the Wicked film adaptation was announced, I didn’t really think too much about it. I never saw the original Broadway production, nor did I know any of the songs. However…
There was no escaping the power of the Wicked marketing team. Every time I turned on the TV, I learned that Wicked would be streaming on Peacock in March. Suddenly for some reason… I decided it would be a good time to finally see what all the hype was about. (Good job Wicked marketing team)
The best way to experience any movie is with an afternoon tea. Since we had just wrapped up St. Patrick’s Day earlier in the week, we also wanted to make use of any leftover ingredients we had such as cabbage, potatoes, and corned beef. So to celebrate my first ever viewing of Wicked, we decided to have a Wicked themed St. Patrick’s Day afternoon tea. Makes perfect sense.
Apologies to the hardcore Wicked fans in advance. The most prominent thing that I knew about Wicked was that it heavily featured green (for Elphaba aka the Wicked Witch) and pink (for Glinda the Good Witch). To have a Wicked themed afternoon tea, the goal would be to have as many pink/green foods as possible. Challenge accepted.
We decided on the following menu for our Wicked St. Patrick’s Day afternoon tea:
Savories
- Colcannon Soup (Green)
- Cucumber Sandwiches (Green)
- Reuben Sandwiches (Pink)
Scones
- Hot Cross Buns (ok, not scones, but it is the season for these and they’re yummy)
Desserts
- Irish Apple Cakes (Green and Pink)
- Pistachio and Raspberry Macarons (Green and Pink)
Tea
- Fortnum & Mason Irish Breakfast
Preparing for Our Wicked Tea party
Tea parties at home are both fun and extremely time consuming. I am lucky that both Xak and I split the work evenly. For this particular tea party, I would be in charge of the colcannon soup, the Reubens (with the sauerkraut and Russian dressing), and the Irish Apple Cakes. Xak planned on taking the hot cross buns and the cucumber sandwiches. While savories are typically my responsibility, Xak has watched me prepare cucumber sandwiches so many times that he could easily handle it so I could focus on stressing out over the Reubens. 😄
Although Xak and I love making macarons together, sometimes you have to know your limits. With the other food we were planning on preparing, it seemed like a better idea to pick up a few pink and green macarons from a local bakery called Dana’s Cake Shoppe in Leesburg, VA the day before. Luckily there were pistachio and raspberry macarons available that day.
With the macarons taken care of we could focus on all the other food we would be making ourselves.
Colcannon Soup
Our local Giant grocery store offers a bi-monthly magazine which features recipes and articles with lots of pictures. To be honest, it’s actually just a giant (heh) ad to get you to buy specific ingredients and food from the store, and not surprisingly, it works on me.
In this particular month’s magazine, there was a feature for something called “Colcannon Soup.”
Colcannon is an Irish dish featuring mashed potatoes and cabbage. It is not normally in soup form but I was intrigued since soup is something I will occasionally serve during tea, particularly on cold days.
The colcannon soup called for cabbage, leeks, and potatoes. Since I had leftover cabbage and potatoes from St. Patrick’s Day, this seemed like a perfect way to use them up. It was a good way to get some green in without having to make a split pea soup with all new ingredients.
Truthfully, I think I prefer my normal potato and leek soup over this particular version. The recipe I used called for milk instead of heavy cream which I personally think would have been a much better choice. However, I am a huge potato fan so I wasn’t too glum. Maybe I’ll do a redo if we ever have an Avatar: Last Airbender tea party. 🤔
Reuben Sandwiches
Reubens are exclusively the only type of sandwich I order when visiting my local deli. A traditional Reuben consists of two slices of Rye bread slathered with Russian dressing. On top of that, there’s slices of corned beef, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese. The sandwich is then grilled and toasted so the cheese is melty and everything. If you’ve never had one, you are definitely missing out.
Although I enjoy Reubens prepared by others, I’ve never made my own. My annual Corned Beef purchase has always been specifically for St. Patrick’s Day dinner, served alongside cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. Since corned beef is usually heavily discounted around March, I decided I would pick up an extra brisket so I could finally try to make a homemade pastrami recipe that I found on my favorite food blogger, Nagi of RecipeTin Eats.
One of the reasons why I enjoy Nagi’s recipes is because of her extremely detailed steps. While the pastrami itself only consisted of the brisket and a spice rub, there were several hours between steps which would require careful time management. In order to have our Sunday afternoon Wicked tea, I would have to start preparing the corned beef on Saturday morning to have 10 full hours in the slow cooker. After that, it would need at least 6 hours to cool in the fridge, and then finally 30 minutes in the oven.
On top of that, I decided to make Nagi’s recommended homemade sauerkraut and Russian dressing since I love making sure that I have 1000 things to do on afternoon tea day.
Luckily, Nagi’s recipes have rarely let me down. After dutifully following all the instructions, along with preparing the sauerkraut and the Russian dressing, I was surprised to see an absolutely scrumptious looking Reuben coming out of the oven.
Since we were going for an afternoon tea vibe, I reluctantly cut the Reuben into thirds to be more “finger sandwich” appropriate. Regardless, this truly is one of the best things to come out of that oven. We are 100% buying discounted corned beef briskets in bulk next year.
Hot Cross Buns
Around March time, along with the corned beef, you’ll start to see hot cross buns in the bakery section of your grocery store. Prior to meeting Xak, my experience with hot cross buns was learning it as an introduction song for the piano.
Typically associated with Good Friday and Easter, hot cross buns are a yummy spiced bun which features a distinct cross on top, either made from a flour and water paste, or sometimes with white icing.
Ever since Xak and I tried grocery store discounted bakery hot cross buns (on sale after Easter), he’s been on the hunt for the best hot cross bun recipe. While the basic recipe consists of similar ingredients (spices and fruit), the biggest variation is usually found in the glaze and the cross itself.
Xak has tried a few different Hot Cross Buns recipes and for this year, he wanted to try RecipeTin Eats recipe for Hot Cross Buns since he knows how much I trust Nagi’s recipes.
While Hot Cross Buns aren’t necessarily associated with St. Patrick’s Day nor do they have any pink or green to be Wicked themed, we decided to make these instead of our regular scones since they would be delicious paired with the Irish butter we bought for the Irish Apple Cakes. Yes, it’s a stretch, but who really needs a reason to make hot cross buns?
The recipe ended up being a solid one, and we both enjoyed eating the bun warm with butter. I think Xak is still on the hunt though for the perfect hot cross bun recipe.
Irish Apple Cakes
As an avid reader of Tea Time magazine, I tend to bookmark a lot of inspiration and ideas for my teas at home. Some of our favorite tea recipes (like carrot cake scones) are thanks to Tea Time Magazine.
During my research on what to do for our Wicked St. Patrick’s Day tea, I saw a recipe for Irish Apple Cake on the Tea Time website. Looking at the picture and reading the ingredients, it seemed like a coffee cake topped with streusel (yum) and garnished with Granny Smith apples. The “Irish” part of it seemed to be due to the use of Irish butter.
In order for it to match my Wicked theme, all I had to do was use the Granny Smith apples for Elphaba and the Pink Lady apples for Glinda. Perfect!
Although Xak is definitely the better baker out of the two of us, I was pretty pleased with my little apple cakes! There were a few issues during the bake (mainly due to me not using the right type of pan), but with some patience, a tasty cake came out of the oven.
Enjoying our Wicked Themed Tea Party
After we finished preparing the food, it was time to brew the Irish Breakfast tea, set everything up and finally enjoy.
Overall, everything was great! Since it’s just the two of us, we were able to have tea leftovers for the next few days. (Yes, it was amazing). For next time, I would like to modify the colcannon soup or switch it out entirely for potato and leek. I also hope that perhaps Xak and I will be able to make our own macarons. 😊
For my first Wicked experience, I had an excellent time and was pleasantly surprised at how much. Ienjoyed the film. I’m not belting out any tunes or looking up choreography tutorials on Youtube (really, I’m not), but I might hum along if Xak has the soundtrack on. Can’t wait for Part 2…. along with another Wicked themed tea party!
Bonus Pupdate: Boba and Chai’s First Baking Day
Although Xak and I have had several tea parties over the years, this is the first time having one since adopting our rescue pups, Boba and Chai.
The pups are used to us being in the kitchen to make meals, especially if it means they get to play the important role of crumb catchers. However, what they are not used to is the strange sounds of Mr. Stand Mixer or Mr. Hand Mixer. It is not necessarily what you want to hear during your nap time!
Luckily, the boys were able to have a proper snooze during the actual tea party. They’ll get used to this. 😊
