Last weekend, my dear housemate and I hosted a wildly successful dolly parton film festival & tea party.  Since then, and not to toot my culinary-horn, I have received a few requests to share some of the recipes from the event. and thus:

DIY D.P. TEA PARTY

1. Make a flier and send to your friends.

2. Choose up to 4 of your favorite Dolly Parton films*:

3. Prepare your Tea Party menu:  According to Science, a 100%-totally-authentic full english tea party has 3 courses to accompany the tea:

• itty bitty sandwiches
• scones with clotted cream
• baked sweets

Cucumber Tea Sandwiches

• Find 20 slices of thin-sliced white bread and cut off all of the crusts. (I couldn’t find the thin bread, but you should try to be fancypantsier than I was)
• Take a whole cucumber and slice it very very thinly, put the slices in a colander and add some salt and let them drain for an hour. While you wait, make a cucumber face on your cutting board:

• Mix a stick of soft butter with about 5 cloves of minced garlic and spread a layer of this mixture onto 1-side of every slice of bread.
• Dip cucumber slices into a small bowl filled with 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil and pepper to taste. Then arrange slices evenly onto 10 of the slices.
• Add the top slices and cut them diagonally, into 4 sandwiches each.  Because the littler they are, the cuter they are.

Apricot & Crystallized Ginger Scones

For the Dough

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, slivered
• 1/4 cup crystallized ginger, finely minced
• 1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream (yaaay)

For the Glaze (optional, I suppose – but DO IT, makes its so much better)

• 2 tablespoons heavy or whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or foil + a bit of grease-cooking-spray stuff)
2. Prepare the dough: In a mixing bowl stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix in the apricots and ginger. Using a wooden spoon, gradually stir in the cream to form a sticky dough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and shape into a 10 inch circle. Sprinkle with a little more flour if the dough seems too sticky. Cut the circle using a pizza cutter into 12 pie-shaped wedges and arrange about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.
4. For the glaze, Brush a thin coating of cream over each scone and sprinkle with the granulated sugar. Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

4. Also, well, Tea and Tea things.

5. Then, if anyone shows up, you will have a delightful time, I promise.

* I can not, in good conscience, actually recommend that you include the movie “Rhinestone” in your marathon, unless of course you hate your friends.

my dear friend sarah introduced me to mock apple pie long ago, and today, when I realized that I had 3 ready-pie shells, no fresh ingredients and lots of time, I decided to make one.

the recipe was written by the ritz crackers people during WW2, when apples were in short supply, and incredibly expensive. basically, the specific combination of sugar (sucrose! oooo science), water and cream-of-tartar (potassium bitartrate, KC₄H₅O₆!! a weak salt-like acid byproduct of grapes during the wine-making process) when boiled with crackers and cinnamon, and put in a pie shell, tastes deceptively like apple pie.

but really though, the most delightful thing about it, besides that it tastes great and is absurdly cheap/easy to make, is the moment when you tell your friends (after they have said how much they are enjoying your freshly made apple pie), that it has no apples in it. priceless.

Mock Apple Pie

ingredients:

• pie crust
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 25 unsalted soft/buttery crackers
• Cinnamon
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp lemon juice (optional – I didn’t use any)

1. Pre-heat oven to 400° F.
2. Boil the water in a big pot.
3. While the water is heating, mix the sugar and the cream of tartar together.*

4. if you are still waiting for the water to boil, check to make sure the stovetop is actually on, if its not, the pilot light may have gone out and your kitchen might be full of gas. not that this happened to me just now. certainly I would notice something like that immediately.
5. Add the mixture to the water after it is boiling, a little at a time, stirring constantly.

6. Add one cracker at a time into the pot.
7. Boil for about 3 minutes, but do not stir, instead of stirring, consider doing the hand jive or that “here is the church, here is the steeple blablabla people” thing to otherwise occupy your stir-happy hands.

8. Carefully pour the mixture into the pie crust.
9. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top of the pie filling.

10. Dab butter evenly over the filling.
11. Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes.
12. Let it cool before you eat it, unless you enjoy burning the roof of your mouth.**

13. Slice it, put it on a plate, consider ice cream carefully…. mmm. ice cream…

14. Serve the pie to at least one person who has no clue that it has no apples, just to see their reaction when you tell ‘em. Here is my dearlingest friend brendan’s “what do you mean it doesn’t have any apples in it” face:

the end.

*yes, I am aware that this particular stage (and many of the others) in the process do not actually need a photo. shutyourtrap.

**if the top of your mouth is the ‘roof’, does that make the bottom “the floor” of your mouth or “the foundation”? is your tounge the carpet/area-rug? nevermind. ignore me.