There are many wonderful places in and around Boston to go for a proper tea. There is tea at The Taj Boston, tea at L’espalier, high tea at Concord’s Colonial Inn just to name a few. If, you are gluten- free then going to tea can be a bit more tricky. On the other hand, making a tea that just happens to be gluten-free is not only simple it’s also delicious (for all your guests gluten-free (gf) or not).

Savoury

For our tea sandwiches we had a classic cucumber sandwich with cream cheese and thinly sliced cucumbers that were salted and dried in a strainer and then dried on a paper towel. For the non-gf guests we used Iggy’s Francese and for the gluten free guests we used bread from Something Sweet Without Wheat.

The roast beef sandwiches were made on the same breads brushed with a little olive oil and kosher salt and toasted. A few were the slathered with a little blue cheese (raw milk blue Affinée) and topped with a very thinly sliced rare roast beef (which was left over from our New Year’s Eve roast).

The avocado sandwiches were also put on the same breads toasted. Thin avocado slices were then lightly brushed with the same olive oil/salt mixture and topped with pepper.

Sweet

For the sweets we made Ree Drummond’s individual fruit pizzas but subbed in Liz Lovely Snicker Dudes for the gf diners. The “pizza crust” recipe was also modified slightly as we used lemon zest instead of orange. We made chocolate mousse in tiny jars from Barbara Lynch’s cookbook Stir. Then, we made mini Pavlovas with whipped cream and berries. Lastly, we had crème brûlée made in little yellow tea cups. We used Joanne Chang’s recipe but subbed creamline whole milk for the 1/2 and 1/2.

Since we had our tea at lunch time we also had a cheese course with a delectable assortment of cheese from the Piedmont region of Italy which we got from Formaggio Kitchen and served with classic Carr’s water crackers (my favourites) and gluten-free crackers from Dare.

Isabelle made most of the sweets on her own. I think she ran out of steam in the end so I helped with the crême brûlée and baked the cookie crusts for the pizzas. So, once again I was sous to my little pastry chef.