Designing a Vintage Valentine's Day Tea Party

This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Happy Valentine's Day, dear readers! I'm not typically one for Valentine's Day (although I've written about it here and here), but this year we decided to celebrate a friend's birthday with a Valentine's Day-themed tea party!

I will admit the idea started with cute pink tea cups, spoons, and tea bag rests I saw at Target, and it kind of snowballed from there. But if you've been a longtime reader you'll know how much I enjoy designing and putting on tea parties (see: here, here, and here). I have an addiction to vintage dishes and linens, so it only seems fair that I drag them out every now and again. 

This tea party does not have any particular historical recipes attached to it, although every time I throw one I feel I am following firmly in the footsteps of my home economics predecessors, many of whom enjoyed a themed party even more than I do. 

Designing Your Tea Party

Half the fun of throwing parties is dreaming them up and bringing together all the various accoutrements that make it nice. I've mentioned the pink teacups and saucers, golden flower spoons, and heart-shaped tea bag rests already. Those were the catalyst. But I also pulled from my collection of vintage pretties, all of it thrifted: a cherry blossom tablecloth, my favorite lace-edged milk glass platter and coordinating dessert plates, a gold-edged glass platter and coordinating luncheon plates, gold-rimmed etched highball glasses, vintage martini glasses, a beautiful cut glass footed compote I picked up recently, and one of my many milk glass vases for two bunches of fresh tulips. 

I did splurge on a few more things - I got some cute Valentine's Day decorations; a garland of felt hearts for the living room and a table runner for the coffee table. A set of heart-shaped cookie cutters in a variety of very useful sizes. My favorite purchase was a set of beautiful pink glass nesting bowls rimmed in gold. We only used one bowl for the tea party, but I love them so much. And the one that got the most comments was this rose-shaped ice cube tray, which turned grapefruit juice into gorgeous icy roses. 

I probably could have used more, but much of my milk glass got put away last Christmas and is now up under the eaves. One of my spring cleaning projects is to organize all my totes of spare dishes and decorations and put them all in the more easily-accessible basement, clearly labeled, so I can find things and use them more often. 

If you are in search of your own tea party collection, my best advice is to buy what you love, and damn the naysayers. My second-best advice is to buy things that coordinate with a variety of themes. Which is why I love milk glass so much, because it knows no season, and white dishes can always be spruced up with special touches of color. 

​What every tea party needs:

• a savory course
• a sweet course
• tea (of course!)
• pretty teacups and saucers
• plenty of hot water (I recommend this electric kettle for tableside pouring - I have two!)
• flowers or candles (or both)

Of course the most important ingredient for a tea party is at least one guest! Tea parties are always better with conversation.

Menu planning is also a great deal of fun for me, and I love the challenge of coming up with something new each time I throw a party, alongside tried-and-true recipes. For this party, the tried-and-true recipe was for my Russian-style pie crust, which was used for both the savory pie and the letter cookies. The new was the vegetarian "chorizo," which was a riff on my lentilwurst recipe, and which turned out VERY well! The vegetable flower pie I knew would work in theory, but the execution was more difficult than I expected. If I did it again, I would definitely want a Y-style vegetable peeler like this one for the sweet potatoes. 

Valentine's Day Tea Party Menu

FIRST COURSE:
Savory Vegetable Flower Pie
Heart Shaped "Chorizo" Sandwiches
Hot Pink Salad

SECOND COURSE:
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie a la Mode
Love Letter Cookies
Red Fruit Salad

BEVERAGES:
Ice water
Grapefruit Mocktail
​Cherry Blossom or Valentine's Day Tea

Sadly my time these days is far more limited than it used to be, so my dreams of an almond cake with rose petal jam filling, lavender shortbreads, rose meringues, and other tasty treats fell victim to my schedule. Still, although some of these were a struggle, I was delighted in how they turned out. Normally I would make these separate posts, but for you, I'll lump all the recipes into one.

The only thing that was store bought was the pie, which was purchased from a local farm who makes the best pies. And since our birthday girl loves pie more than cake, that was her birthday treat, in addition to the homemade ones.

Savory Vegetable Flower Pie Recipe

This flavor combination sounds unusual, but it's delicious. 

Crust:
1 stick butter
1/4 pound fresh ricotta or farmer cheese
1 cup flour

Filling:
1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup feta
garlic salt
dried thyme

Topping:
sweet potato
small shallots
roasted red pepper

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cream softened butter and ricotta, then stir in 1 cup flour. Knead well and let rest. Whirl the ricotta and feta to blend and then add seasonings. Peel the sweet potato and cut into paper-thin slices. Peel the shallots cut off the tops, and then cut through them lengthwise but not through the root end. Cut multiple times to make "petals." Then trim the root end without cutting all the way through. Roll the dough out thinly and drape in a pie plate. Fill with ricotta filling, then arrange sweet potato slices into roses, add the shallots and spread the "petals," and then fill any extra spaces with slices of roasted red pepper rolled into rosebuds. Trim pie crust and crimp. Use remaining crust to cut out "leaves" and bake separately. Bake pie 30-40 mins or until sweet potatoes and shallots are cooked through and crust is golden brown.

Vegetarian Lentil "Chorizo" Recipe

Sweet heart tea sandwiches with a spicy filling.

This recipe is a riff off my lentilwurst revelation. It turned out splendidly. 

1 cup red lentils
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup butter (or olive or coconut oil)
1 small onion
1 red bell pepper
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2-1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon cumin
​1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Combine the lentils and water in a small stockpot. Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 20ish minutes, or until the water is absorbed and the lentils are very soft. 

Peel the onion and seed the pepper, then mince very finely or whirl in a food processor until finely cut. In a stock pot, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onion and pepper. Cook until the butter is mostly absorbed and the vegetables very tender. Add the spices and lentils and cook to combine. When fully blended, taste and add more salt if needed. 

To make sandwiches, thinly slice white bread and cut into heart shapes, then spread with the lentil filling. 

Pink Salad Recipe

Of course a Valentine's Day salad has to be PINK!

I like to have something a little lighter for tea parties, usually a salad. But of course for Valentine's Day I didn't want any-old green salad! Plus, one of the challenges I set for myself was to keep this at least partially seasonally-appropriate. So this was my answer. 

1/4 head red cabbage
8 red radishes
1/4 cup pickled red onion
salt
olive oil
lemon juice

Finely shred the cabbage and slice the radishes paper-thin. Toss with salt and let rest, then add a little olive oil and lemon juice. You can make this in advance if you want it to be extra-pink and slightly less crunchy, but be forewarned that the purple juices will stain just about everything, so eat carefully!

Love Letters Cookie Recipe

The imperfect-but-delicious love letter cookies.

I'll admit - I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was too cute. I used my fool-proof ricotta pie crust instead of traditional butter crust, and while delicious, the letters did puff up a bit in the oven. Plus those little hearts are a pain to cut out by hand! 

1 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1/4 pound ricotta or farmer cheese
1 cup flour
​cherry jam (I like Bonne Maman)

Cream butter and ricotta and stir in flour. Knead well until combined. Roll out very thin and cut into squares. Place a teaspoon of jam in the center, then fold up one side and the other two to make an envelope. Add a heart cut out of crust to keep the edges from popping up. Bake at 350 F on parchment paper for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. 

Grapefruit Mocktail Recipe

We are admiring the perfect rose ice cube in this empty martini glass.

This is one of my favorite mocktail recipes and it is dead easy, you ready?

1 part grapefruit juice
1 part gingerale

And that's it! I like to use Simply Grapefruit, as I think it has a nice balance of sweetness and bitterness, but you could use any kind. The combination tastes so much more sophisticated than it is - not too sweet, not too bitter, not too bubbly, and curiously addictive for the adult palate. For folks who don't drink alcohol, it's a great alternative to a mixed drink that isn't sugary-sweet. 

Sadly the pointy bottom of the martini glass meant our beautiful rose ice cube TIPPED once the mocktail was added. Oh well. It still tasted delicious.

Selecting Teas

Tea parties traditionally feature just black tea, but as a non-traditional person and someone who doesn't enjoy a lot of caffeine, I don't usually drink black tea. However, since this was a special event, I decided to bring out some special teas just for Valentine's Day. 

Harney & Sons is a New York-based tea producer (and therefore local for me) who makes delicious blends. I did a big order last year around this time and got their "Valentine's Day" blend for free. I was skeptical at first, but it's a delicious blend of black tea, chocolate, rose, and other fruity flavors. Curiously addictive. The birthday girl is a big fan of green tea, so when I saw the Cherry Blossom variety, which is a mix of green tea with cherry and vanilla flavors, I decided to get that as well. Both were excellent and did not need any sweetener or milk to accompany the rest of the menu. 

My first, savory course. I may or may not have had multiple sandwiches. And grapefruit mocktails. Delicious.

And my sweet course - love letter cookies on pink Depression glass, and strawberry rhubarb pie with a side of red fruit salad (strawberries and raspberries in strawberry jam) and vanilla ice cream on a lacy milk glass plate.

All in all it was a delightful afternoon. The birthday girl was happy, the husband was happy, and I was happy! We went for a post-party walk in delightful weather and did a little shopping at a nearby town, got caught in a rainstorm, then headed for home. Later that night we ran some more errands and I treated myself to some adorable jigsaw puzzles, because they remind me of my mom and I need some non-screen time activities! They've been fun, but man my back is not up for too much hovering over a table searching for pieces! 

It always gives me joy to built a beautiful table for family and friends. My best Valentine's Day present to myself! 

​How are you celebrating?