Sticky Toffee Pudding:
I didn't take any pictures of the Sticky Toffee Pudding because it was, sadly, kind of fuggo. But it tasted delicious, mostly thanks to the toffee sauce. I've been trying to figure out the mystery of caramel for a few months now and I'm finally starting to understand it. At first, I tried to boil the sugar with water until it turned brown, but that didn't usually work in the nonstick pan because the sugar kept crystallizing before reaching the caramelization point. Then, I thought that I could just throw butter, heavy whipping cream, and sugar in a pot and boil it to make caramel, and add whipping cream at the end to make caramel sauce. I discovered that this method yields very light caramel, but that was confusing since I never use a thermometer and usually depend on the color change to know that the caramel is ready. So with this method, I often end up with toffee by accident. Toffee is good, but it's definitely not caramel. But now I have gotten around that problem by actually testing the sugar the way that I'm supposed to.
Long story short, the caramel sauce turned out DELICIOUS. So lip smacking good that I licked the dribbles off the fridge shelf. Well, not really. But I was really tempted.
But the cake was kind of dry. It was a really dry batter made with 2 cups of pureed, reconstituted dry dates, not a lot of other liquid and a lot of flour. And the batter was so high in the pan that I had to bake it for a long time to get it cooked all the way through. I would not have wanted to eat this cake without the sauce. But the dryness actually soaked up the toffee/caramel sauce very nicely. I just didn't have enough time to actually bake the cake together before the tea started, so it was kind of a rushed effort in the end. But still yummy, I think. Good caramel sauce can rescue many a bad dessert.
Caramel Sauce
1 1/2 cup sugar
12 oz whipping cream, divided in 2 equal portions
1 stick butter
Heat the sugar, butter, and half of the whipping cream together until well combined. Bring to a boil and keep boiling until the mixture reaches soft ball stage. The color will not change very dramatically, but you should be able to smell the sugar becoming caramelized. Take the pot off the heat and add the rest of the cream. Stir until the mixture becomes a cohesive sauce.
Mine was really runny, and I was afraid that it would not set up, but after a night in the fridge, it was the perfect consistency to moisten the cake with its sugary goodness. Also, the overall dessert was really sweet, and could really have used some whipped cream or creme fraiche to cut through the sugar. But still, delicious. An additional advantage is that keeps well in the fridge for breakfast in the morning. Just microwave for 30 seconds or until it's the desired amount of hot (I like mine piping hot with vanilla ice cream)
Cream Cheese Brownies:
Melting the butter with chocolate chips.
Finished batter
With cream cheese topping (I think that I made too much)
Finished product, pre-cutIt turned out pretty dense and moist, the flavors improving with each day of refrigeration. Since I refrigerated the batch overnight before cutting, it turned out a lot like the super fudgy Alice Medrich recipe that I so love.
Cream, for toffee sauce 
Sometimes, I fancy myself an artist.
Cream Puffs:
I've never made choux pastry before, and watched several youtube videos to prepare myself. It turned out to be much less intimidating than I had imagined. Maybe it's because I first heard about it when I was about 12 , and some chef said that the dough had to be use "RIGHT AWAY" or else something terrible would happen (I'm not really sure what could be so bad, in retrospect). Now that I'm 20, it's much easier to operate things in the kitchen, and recipes have become much more accessible.
By choosing to make Cream Puffs, I'm also tackling the beast of pastry cream for the first time. I'd never really had excellent pastry cream before and the words evoke in my mind the memory of the nasty congealed yellow substance found inside eclairs in the dining halls. Or maybe pudding from a box. And I didn't have any vanilla beans. Or a working hand mixer. Or a double boiler and the patience to slowly cook the cream so that no egg curdles would form. So this was going to be very interesting. At least I strained it at the end. In a moment of stupidity, I added lemon extract, which ended up being very odd and overpowering. At least it covered the egg taste. Lemon flavor without lemon juice is weird because you expect it to be sour, but the zesty lemon essence is not followed by the usual tang. Instead, there's just sweet. With maybe a bit of sour that the brain imagines. Tricky, and not that good. Bad news bears.
I was going to try chocolate, too, but the lunch at Ibiza (more on this excellent meal later) actually took up all of that time. Oh well.
So here's the egg yolk mixture before heating.
And a ring of uncooked choux pastry, just for fun. I ended up planning this pretty poorly and having to leave the cooked choux pastry before having the time to dry them out completely. This made the cream puffs a bit subpar, lacking the necessary crunchy/crispy crust that give way to the cold creamy filling. But I'm really not that interested in cream puffs, in general, having never had an excellent one. Maybe I should find that first, before trying to make them again. 
Unfilled cream puffs after baking
Filled cream puffs
So overall, tea was ok - a few mistakes but turned out fine.Ibiza:
We had lunch at Ibiza, a really good Spanish restaurant, with the tea guest before the tea.
This is the complementary appetizer that came for the table - tomato gazpacho and a seafood (shrimp maybe?) croquette. The gazpacho was pretty thick but smooth. I found it to be a little too much but maybe that's just because I'm not too used to cold soups. The croquette was really excellent - hot and crispy on the outside, moist on the inside with subtle seafood flavor (I'm not too big a fan of seafood).
My bread with gazpacho (it was actually much more delicious together than apart). The bread came warm, which in my book is the sign of an excellent restaurant.
I, on a whim, decided to ask about jamon iberico, which had just become legal in the US a few months ago. Turns out, they did have it, for the exorbitant price of $22 a plate. I actually got it at the urging of the rest of my table. And it was so good. Slightly sweet - almost mapley, chewy, and salty all at once. Some of the pieces were smooth and harder to chew through and I didn't like those as much.
Grecian broth, I think - full of delicious things.
Baby octopus cooked in its own ink - I usually do not like seafood but this was one of my favorite dishes of the meal. The octopus was super succulent and soft, none of that off-putting chewiness that most octopus dishes suffer from. And it was much less fishy than I expected. Even the tentacle pieces were soft and delicious. And as a bonus fun bit of the meal, the ink turned everyone's mouths black. The rice was good but not nearly as memorable as the octopus.
Salad - so beautifully arranged
My main dish - pork spare ribs over mashed potatoesThe green sauce was a bit bitter, which was a very good counterpoint to the salty and slightly sweet mashed potatoes, apricots, and pork. The pork was very tender (a little bit overcooked, though). The mashed potatoes had little bacon bits in it, which took the dish to a new level of meaty deliciousness. mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. meat.
Dessert - warm apple tart with honey rosemary ice cream. The apple tart was SOOOOOOO good. The apple slices were a little bit sour, which balanced the sweetness of the pastry cream. The vanilla pastry cream was like crack. That good. Ironically, I ate this right before my own failed efforts. There were real vanilla specks in it. The puff pastry was also very delicious - buttery, flaky, just the way it should have been. The ice cream was kind of weird since the honey made it grainy and sticky. The flavor was definitely interesting, though.
Another dessert - chocolate almond croquettes with whipped cream.
Mousse
Chocolate shots with cinnamon shortbread - I think it was made with a little bit of coconut rum. It wasn't too sweet, but still very chocolaty and rich. The cinnamon cookies tasted a bit porky, which was weird.
Overall, still one of the best meals I'd eaten this year. Until the next!
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