I am working on my first High Tea. (doing desserts only)
(Am doing choc. drop candies, mints, choc dipped strawberries, parfaits in votive candle holders, coconut cream in tiny swans, tiny cupcakes with Twinkie filling. )
Hopefully, I will have many more high teas....any ideas? I appreciate anything cute or yummie.
Not too hard (I'm learning that the HARD way. New at this!)
Made some candy apple cookie bites that were a MESS.

If you image google tea desserts there are lots of cute things. Little fruit tarts, petit-fours, etc. Hope this helps you out a little. My mom and I go to a tea shop in town and they serve little drop scones with glaze served with preserves and cream, they also have bon bons in chocolate hearts for desserts. Oh and one staple there is lemon bread sliced small with a sugar glaze on it. Mmmmm! They serve sandwiches on heart bread.

I would thing Petit Fours and Truffles, original and cake truffles would be good to add.

The miniature shells aren't difficult at all to make and can be made ahead. What I like to do is when I make them...make oodles of them. but only bake what I need...consider doing that after you see how this one goes. If you decide to make them ahead, you'll need to freeze them in the tins until solid then remove from tins and stack.

any basic tart pastry should work. I use one similar to this..

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cream-Cheese-Tart-Shells/Detail.aspx

While the dough is chilling, gather your fillings...everything is delicious in these...whether savory or sweet

This is a cool site!

http://www.razzledazzlerecipes.com/tea/sweet-recipes.htm

oh my, I completely forgot....the incredibly easy mini eclairs! put whatever filling you'd like in the shells....the shells are unbelievably easy though.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1613,149188-228192,00.html

some recipes will tell you to slice them...I don't...I just fill a pastry bag that's been fitted with a 10-12 tip and fill away. Now, the broken ones get put aside and then later divided into dessert dishes and hosed with a variety of fillings...

hth

french macaroons are gorgeous. you can make then in very pretty pastel colors with coordinating flavors. now these are completley different from the coconut mounds u might be thinking of. google french macaroons. they are crispy on the outside but soft and sweet on the outside. so yummy and pretty. also maybe some mini scones would be good with some cream or lemon curd or raspberry preserves. these are pretty basic. there are so many different versions of afternoon tea.

It sounds like you are doing a tea party or "Low Tea".
"High Tea" literally means dinner/supper.

And there's even a reason out there for why it's called low and high--was it the height of the tables or something? Can't remember for sure but all that stuff has all these little dusty (as in antiquey) reasons.

There's a famous scene in a play or movie where the constable is taking tea with the upper class lady and she is quietly aghast at his manners because he put his milk in the tea cup first indicating that he was not upper crust.

Reason being, back then the poorer folks had cheaper china that would crack if the hot tea was poured in first ergo they poured the milk in first to keep the china from cracking. So he told on himself when he did that. So if you're upper crust you pour the tea first.
<insert rolling eyes smilie face>

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HighTeaHistory.htm

Just purely an fyi. We're Americans we can call it any dang thing we like!! But just so you know.

Have you thought about small sugar cookies?? Perhaps in the shape of hearts, stars, etc., that are covered with a white chocolate fondant in pastel colors. Very elegant and classy.

Good Luck,

cakeymom

Thank you for the links that help me too.