Paddington Bear Afternoon Tea

It was Christmas Eve and it looked like we were the only people left in Kennington when we spotted Figgy all by himself in the carpark.

Luckily we didn't have anywhere to go as I'd planned a Paddington Bear Afternoon Tea to surprise the family.

Tom had been an amazing help setting up the table. He rolled our baking paper and sketched designs on it to make it look like train seats.

He'd even folded our napkins into a buffet fold, remembering the skills he'd learned in a class we got on the QM2 to New York.

He'd also set a Lego steam train to run down the middle of the table from Darkest Peru to Paddington station.

Each passenger got a set of bear ears along with a passport containing their train ticket and the On-Board Menu.

To start, we had bear paw crackers topped with salmon, cream cheese, dill, capers and mini pickles.

We then had orange, carrot and fennel soup served in marmalade jars.

We passed around a little suitcase filled with mini veggie burgers in bear shaped brioche buns.

I was planning to make sandwiches too but there turned out to be more than enough food already.

Dad then played the role of the scone waiter, and served my rosewater scones with clotted cream & jam and chocolate orange scones with marmalade.

It was then time to tuck into the sweets and I'd made a train station inspired Christmas tree for the middle of the table with pocket watch macarons, bearcarons and chocolates.

Each passenger was given their own mini suitcase filled with marmalade sandwich cookies.

I'd also made mini Paddington Bear Hat cookies covered in red edible glitter.

Everyone was super full after our tea, so I suggested packing sweets into their little suitcases to take to the cinema later.