Bake tea cakes and baby lemon cakes this week

What’s a tea party without tea cakes? Photograph by Ben Zibble/Flickr

An afternoon tea service is really an excuse to eat more cake. It is also the thing that lazy weekends are made for. It’s a charming British tradition that never fails to bring the sun out even on the greyest of days and if you’re baking your own tea cakes, you get brownie points. So before you invite friends over for your next tea party, make some time to get some serious tea service cred by signing up for one of these workshops. What’s even better is to gather your friends and attend the classes together.

British baking at Flavour Diaries

Banana bread muffins. Photograph by Ryan Guill/Flickr

Those who want to get started on baking can sign up for this class by Anjali Pathak, owner and ace baker at Flavour Diaries. Learn to bake three different types of baked treats (all of which use egg) including baby lemon cakes, banana bread muffins and apple crumble cake. “Everybody gets their own station and are free to experiment with what they bake,” says Pathak, “For instance, I like to add cinnamon coffee cream into the banana bread muffins, but you can add raisins or any other ingredient.” In less than three hours, participants also learn four different methods of cake baking including creaming, melting, rubbing-in and all-in-one. “At the end of it, all of us sit down and enjoy what we’ve baked while they’re still hot and lovely,” says Pathak. We only wish scones were also part of this workshop because there’s nothing more British than scones and clotted cream for a tea service, but there’s always a next time.

Where: Flavour Diaries, 3rd Floor, Rohan Plaza (Above Khar Social), 5th Road (behind Oh! Calcutta), Off S. V. Road, Khar West, Ram Krishna Nagar, Khar West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400052

When: September 17, 3 pm-6 pm

Phone: 9820143404

Cost: Rs 3,500 inclusive of taxes

Afternoon Tea Cakes at Studio Fifteen

 Photograph via Studio Fifteen’s website

Maitre Gandhi, Le Cordon Bleu trained pastry chef and founder of Carousel – The Bake About, a Mumbai-based made-to-order patisserie, will helm a baking class this week at Studio Fifteen. On the menu are lemon pound cake with lemon drizzle, chocolate orange pound cake with orange cream cheese drizzle, coffee walnut cake with chocolate drizzle and marble cake with ganache. All recipes in this class use eggs.

Where: Studio Fifteen, Shop No. 4, Rajgruha Co-op society, B wing, BM Marg, Elphinstone West, Mumbai – 400013.

When: September 17, 11 am – 2 pm

Phone:  +91 8454-046544

Cost: Rs 3,000