Cucumber sandwiches? Yep.
A cup of steaming hot tea? Of course.
Christmas tree-shaped brownies …?
With planning of work Christmas parties well underway, many firms are looking for something a little different to help celebrate and mark the end of the working year in style.
So we headed along to try out the afternoon tea - with a festive twist - at the Copthorne Hotel Sheffield.
It was a lovely warm autumnal day with sun streamlining in through the muted colours of the hotel’s award-winning AA rosette 18fifty5 Restaurant but the seasonal spirit was served up on a platter - literally.
In a twist to the traditional afternoon serving stand, head chef Mark Jones prefers to display all the delicious treats on circular slate and metallic, mirrored boards. A real feast for the eyes.
But first - fizz. A lovely flute of Prosecco (although this can be switched for mulled wine) to whet the whistle and appetite ahead of the finger sandwiches. Along with the traditional egg mayonnaise, cucumber, prawn and Marie rose, the highlight had to be the smoked turkey and cranberry. A bite-size taste of Christmas come early.
Let’s face it, though - even someone with a savoury tooth like me knows that afternoon tea is really all about the desserts.
Scones with a cranberry and orange Christmas twist and lashings of clotted cream really hit the spot. Crisp on the outside, soft and buttery on the inside. I didn’t manage it all though as needed to save some room for the seasonal sweet treats - it wouldn’t have been half as festive a feast without the mini mince pies and iced fruit cake slices, both of which were the perfect portion size. 
The brownies were something else - cut into Christmas tree shapes and adorned with small strawberry pieces for the ‘bulbs’ and decorations, they looked almost too good to eat. Almost…
The dessert highlight for me though was the rhubarb upside down cake. The fruit offered that slightly bitter hit to offset the sweetness of all the cream and cakes and acted as a rather handy palette cleanser too ahead off a cup of tea or three to wash it all down with.
