What attracts modern patrons—other than the vintage Austin delivery van parked out front is the large bowfront window display of cakes, cream horns, and tarts—and the enticing aroma of these treats—which bakers have been preparing long before sunrise.
Afternoon tea or a simple tea break may be taken in the dining room set with antique wooden tables and chairs. This is not the Ritz or Claridge’s. Maids of Honour is a setting reminiscent of a tearoom in the Cotswolds or Cornwall, where locals mix with tourists in a relaxed atmosphere. Best of all, it won’t cost you a week’s wages!
The menu includes such traditional country tearoom favorites as steak pie, pastys, sausage rolls, and tall, dusty scones served with lashings of real clotted cream and jam. This is British comfort food accompanied by a scalding-hot pot of oversteeped black tea meant to be tempered with milk from the pitcher set before you.
The staff is happy to tell you more about the history of the shop and the neighborhood, but don’t ask them for the original recipe because they are still very tight-lipped about their namesake delicacy.
Located in Surrey at 288 Kew Road, Kew Gardens, The Original Maids of Honour is open from 8:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. daily. For more information, go to theoriginalmaidsofhonour.co.uk, or call 020-8940-2752.
- ½ pound rich shortcrust pastry, cold
- 4 ounces cottage cheese
- 3 ounces butter, softened
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 5 tablespoons brandy
- ½ cup sugar
- 3 ounces cold baked potato
- ¼ cup ground almonds
- ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon zest (2 lemons)
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Grease 16 patty tins.
- On a lightly floured board, roll out pastry to a ⅛-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch cookie cutter, cut 16 rounds from pastry. Line the tins with the pastry rounds.
- In a mixing bowl, combine cottage cheese and butter. Beat well with a mixer at medium speed. Add eggs, brandy, and sugar. Beat once again.
- In another mixing bowl, combine potato, almonds, nutmeg, and lemon zest and juice. Beat well. Gradually add cottage cheese mixture, beating thoroughly. Divide the filling among the prepared patty tins.
- Bake until filling is set, 25 to 35 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool in the tins for 10 minutes before carefully lifting onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
TeaTime Contributing Editor Bruce Richardson enjoys topping off a visit to the world-class botanical gardens at Kew with tea at the Original Maids of Honour on Kew Road. It’s his favorite refreshment stop along the short walk back to Kew Station for the tube ride to central London.
From TeaTime, March/April 2016
