In celebration of Afternoon Tea Week, P&O Cruises invited us down the ultra fabulous Cake Boy cafe, Eric Lanlard’s patisserie, for a cooking class followed by a superb French Champagne Afternoon Tea.
I have to say that the afternoon tea here is one of the best in London. The luxurious treat starts with a glass of French Champagne and this is followed by two abundant trays of delicious savouries and beautifully made patisseries, macarons and cakes. Yes, you noticed that there are no scones here but it is French, not English.
Having sampled quite a few different Afternoon Teas in London, I can say that this is one of my favourites.
The Luxury French Afternoon Tea at Cake Boy
Feast your eyes on this. For savouries, there are smoked salmon sandwiches in cute mini loaves of home baked bread that is half wholemeal and half white . Then there are proper French croissants filled with parma ham, more mini loaves filled with brie and chicken caesar ciabatta.
On the other tray, you will notice the long tubes topped with a little miniature apple. These are syrup poached apples which is a clue to the chocolate tube is actually a deconstructed Tart Tatin. The little cones are mini berry waffle cones with burnt white chocolate ganache, orange and lavender friand and the rather stunning wild berry magnum which is filled with berry mousse.
mini berry waffle cones with burnt white chocolate ganache, orange and lavender friand and the rather stunning wild berry magnum which is filled with berry mousse.
French Champagne Afternoon Tea
Photo credit Steve Dunlop
You have to make a reservation if you want to have Afternoon Tea at Cake Boy, to book click here. They are really popular for hen parties. (He also holds baking classes there too.)
Eric’s Afternoon Tea on board the P&O ships is just £15 at various restaurants.
If you want to recreate some of his favourite recipes, you can find them in his latest book with over 90 recipes, Afternoon Tea.
Advanced Patiserrie Class with Eric Lanlard
The world of French Patisserie seems unreachable for mere mortals like me who is not that much of a baker. Any chance of learning some new baking techniques and especially cake decorating, I’m all for it.
At this advanced class with Eric, we made the cutest passion fruit cake-pop, a rather sophisticated Valrhona Pave Royal “cake” created for the P&O Cruises gala dinner menu and the showstopping Fraisier Cake filled with strawberries and creme mousseline.
They look quite complicated but we found that it was not unachievable, especially when you have the master patissier on hand to show you how and all the ingredients have been magically weighed and measured, ready to use.
It was so much fun, mixing, melting, piping, gold spraying our way to almost perfection. This is no unlike the cooking classes that Eric teaches on board the P&O Cruise ships. In those classes, they make a savoury souffle and another savoury tart as well as some cakes.
If you are on board any of the P&O ships, you can find the passion fruit cake-pop from afternoon tea in the Epicurean, and also Fraisier which is available from the Market Café on Britannia.
Here are some we made earlier
The finished Fraisier Cakes
Photo credit Steve Dunlop
Passion fruit cake pops
Valrhona Pave Royal filled with chocolate mousse with a crispy feuilletine nutella base. Topped with a mirror glaze and gold
My attempt at making a Fraisier cake topped with a mutant strawberry, before the final glaze and gold flecks
Cake Boy
Unit B, Kingfisher House,
Battersea Reach, Juniper Drive,
Battersea,
London SW18 1TX
EatCookExplore was a guest of P&O Cruises at Cake Boy Cafe
Leave a Reply