SweetPea vs Martha's Pantry

I decided to try and take mum to SweetPea this weekend since the BF's mum was visiting too.  We ended up with a few extras though so when I rang to book on Friday, they were already booked out for Sunday.  I'm glad about this as hopefully this means they are doing well and will stay around forever so I can go again and again.  But this did leave me with a dilemma.  Where to now?


Luckily, there are still a few places we haven't tried for High Tea and one of the first ones I'd ever read about was Martha's Pantry on Cuba Street in Wellington.  So, off we went there today.


Now, when I first started reading about high tea's Martha's Pantry had some really nice write ups but when I've looked recently the reviews haven't been as good.  I was keen to see for myself.  Like my other High Tea reviews in my previous blog post, here is my review for:


Martha's Pantry, Cuba St, Wellington


Martha's Pantry is very similar to SweetPea in that they both specialise in the high tea experience and try and take you back in time.  Sweetpea does it with more modern settings but in a classical style, whereas Martha's does it real old school.  Beautiful antique cups and saucers, plates and spoons, each set different but beautiful in it's own way.  The staff were lovely and attentive and wearing cute outfits, the food was tasty (not amazing, but tasty) and the tea choices extensive (in saying that, we didn't enjoy one of our choices, but that's life).  The price of $25 seemed reasonable to me in comparison to other prices I've paid and while the size of each item was dainty, this is what I have come to expect from a high tea and I was satisfied with the overall experience.  They also have teapots and other paraphernalia for sale which was nice to peruse after paying.  Highlights - The real antique feel of the place and the overall setting.  Environment 9/10, Food 7.5/10. Overall 8/10.

Each person's tea cup set was different.

And all the spoons were different and random.

Old fashioned and varied tea cosies.  SweetPea's tea cosies were all the same but with different colours for each pot.

The food all tasted fresh and was flavourful.  We had this as a lunch and it was completely satisfying.

Next on the list of High Tea's to try is Logan Brown.  Maybe for Mum's birthday.

Also, have booked in for the Wellington Food Show Master Class 'No Ordinary High Tea' with Annabelle White and Mark Gregory.  Should be a lovely day strolling the Food Show with mum and the BF followed by the class and a nice way to treat mum for Mother's Day.  Can't wait.

Homemade Hot Cross Buns!

What a beautiful Easter weekend it has been!  I'm sure the forecast was for a weekend of cold and misery but boy did they get it wrong.  4 days of glorious warm autumn weather.  It's gonna be hard to go back to work tomorrow.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, the latest food mag arrived.  

Once again, lots of pages turned down, but to keep with the Easter theme, I thought I'd try my hand at the hot cross buns.  Below is some pics of the process and the final result.

Hot Cross Buns

Not all the recipes in the mag are so stepped out but usually 1 or 2 are.

This was my first time using yeast.  I don't think I had the milk quite warm enough as it didn't foam up as much as I thought it should.

Frothy but not quite frothy enough I don't think.

Ready to mix!

Really wish I'd had a bread maker to kneed the dough.  Or a kitchen mixer with a dough hook.

The dough rose so yeast must've been ok.

Time to rise again... Hmm, easter appropriate?

Didn't quite get the cross mix right.  It was a little stiff and cut my hole a little big in the piping bag.

All baked!

And glazed!

Time to enjoy!  Ok, the cheesy pic is to enter a competition to win a Kenwood Kitchen Mixer.

So, final verdict, pretty good.  Definite room for improvement but think that is mostly to do with the milk not being warm enough for the yeast and my kneeding not being up to scratch.  Would definitely make them again and the family seemed to enjoy them so they can't have been too bad.