on saturday i headed to angel in north london to attend the one event i had been looking forward to for so. freaken. long; betty's tea party, with yorkshire's finest tea-and-cake mongers, bettys of harrogate. you might remember my brief visit to bettys tea rooms in york back in the summer, and how - back then - visiting the tea room chain was at the top of our "must do in yorkshire" list. why? well, not only because history, and also not only because instagrammable, but also because home of taylors coffee and we all know what a mad coffee fiend i am.
yes, i was the only person in the tea room drinking coffee, and i don't even care what you're thinking. i digress. when the email invitation popped into my inbox, i was over the moon, and couldn't have responded any quicker than i did. my first thought upon reading about the event was, "why london?" quickly followed by "omg i bet they're opening a london restaurant", followed by "omg! they're opening! a london! restaurant!"
i arrived on the day, worried i wouldn't know how to recognise the event space - turns out i needn't have worried, as the "yorkshire tea" van out the front was a dead give away. ha! once inside, i was handed a glass of pink champagne, and for the rest of the day, my drink was never touched the bottom of the glass. those northerners really do know how to host a party!
after a bit of mingling, we gathered 'round for a brief introduction from the brand, and then a small demonstration from one of the chief "cake decorators" (for lack of a better word)(maybe designers?) - danielle. she showed us how to create some of the unique designs that she uses on some of the bettys classics, as well as the different types of piping to use to create bigger, then more intricate details.
after the demo, the challenge was set when we were asked to try and create our ~own piped masterpieces, on some pre-iced french fondants that the bettys guys had brought down with them fresh that morning. having not paid attention one iota to dani's demonstration, i was a little bit screwed; thanks to some quick thinking (by her mostly), i happily went ahead and stole a bunch of paige's ideas, and prayed she wouldn't notice (she did).
once the art workshop was done, we set up our very own afternoon teas using some of the bettys crockery and goodies brought down from yorkshire that morning, and we settled into some yummy baked treats; over a hot cuppa, the winners of the cake decoration competition were announced (paige won, i didn't), and we were sent on our merry (and slightly drunk) ways - but not before asking the question that was on everyone's tongues: why london?
chatting with the team we discovered that bettys have ~never held a blogger event before, and being at the opposite end of the country we had basically ~all assumed the same thing: a london restaurant. sadly though, this was not the case. in fact, it's possibly even better news than that...
bettys now deliver! worldwide! it turns out the treats that we'd been eating that day were all a part of the new delivery options available on the site. i suppose if london's not an option, but i can still get macaroons in my bedroom, then... i'm with that. that's christmas sorted then.
