{"id":10014,"date":"2012-06-20T12:30:10","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T16:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/\/wp\/?p=10014"},"modified":"2012-06-20T12:30:10","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T16:30:10","slug":"the-queen-of-cups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/?p=10014","title":{"rendered":"The Queen of Cups"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My friend Peter has been telling me for months that I would love the Queen of Cups Tea Room in Greenfield, Massachusetts. It takes me a while to get ANYWHERE, however, so I only recently managed to darken the Queen\u2019s doorway.<\/span><\/p>\n

As usual, Peter was right: I was enchanted by the food; by the shop\u2019s owner, Becca Byram; and by the way the place looks<\/span><\/p>\n

Decorative plates, cups, and teapots line the walls and the shelves. A leather chair sits in one corner waiting for a solitary tea drinker. Linen-covered tables welcome small groups of sippers. In the back of the shop a counter displays baked goods, particularly Becca\u2019s beloved scones and cookies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Becca has lived in the United States for almost 20 years. A musician from Worcestershire, England, she married an American and lived for many years in urban areas in this country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost ten years ago she and her husband visited the home of his relatives in Deerfield, Massachusetts. They fell in love with New England, which resembles Becca\u2019s native county. \u201cIt has the same kind of farms and the same kind of hillsides,\u201d she told me with a smile on her face.<\/span><\/p>\n

She and her husband had already started a family\u2014they now have a ten year old and a seven year old\u2014and decided they wanted to raise that family in\u00a0the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the children grew older and her musician husband continued to travel, Becca longed to find an occupation that would keep her near home and would make her available to her offspring in the evenings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

I love the decor at the Queen of Cups!<\/p><\/div>\n

The Queen of Cups sprang from that desire\u2014and from an observation Becca had made when friends and family visited from England. \u201cI realized that there wasn\u2019t anywhere within at least 40 miles where I could take them for a nice cup of tea,\u201d she explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

An avid baker like her mother and grandmother before her, she welcomed the opportunity to\u00a0tie on her apron and bake goodies to accompany those nice cups of tea.<\/span><\/p>\n

She told me that people often give her plates and cups to fill out the tea room. \u201cThey like to see their things displayed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about the name of the tea room, Becca laughed. \u201cI am a queen of cups because I have a massive collection of cups!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She added that she adapted the Queen of Cups Tarot card for her logo. \u201cThe Queen of Cups in the card is holding a chalice. Mine is holding a teacup.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I asked Becca who her customers are. \u201cPeople who like tea shops LIKE tea shops,\u201d she informed me, \u201cand they will make pilgrimages to find them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She says she gets a lot of references from a site called TeaMap<\/a>, which lists tea rooms by location. Her customers are looking for \u201ctea in a teapot and brewed at the right temperature.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I am not a tea drinker, alas, but I do love sweets. I convinced Becca to give me\u00a0her recipe for Jammie Dodgers, the English equivalent of Linzer Tarts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with the formula for the cookies Becca shared her philosophy about recipes: \u201cVery often, bakers guard their recipes as if their very livelihood depended on it. Personally, I have found that many of the greatest recipes are free. This one came originally from the back of a Tate & Lyon sugar packet in England, found by my mother in 1972.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy family has enjoyed this recipe for years. I hope you do, too.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Becca pours tea to accompany a Jammie Dodger.<\/p><\/div>\n

Queen of Cups Jammie Dodgers<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I have to be frank and tell you that when I made these cookies they were much less lovely than Becca\u2019s creations. And the jam (I didn\u2019t have raspberry so I used strawberry) got a bit runny. They tasted absolutely wonderful, however. The cornstarch in the recipe gives them a unique, delicate texture.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

1 cup confectioner\u2019s sugar
\n1 cup cornstarch
\n2 cups flour
\n3 sticks (3\/4 pound) unsalted butter, softened
\n1 tablespoon water
\njam as needed (Becca likes to use seedless raspberry)
\nmore confectioner\u2019s sugar for dusting<\/span><\/p>\n

Instructions:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In a large bowl mix all ingredients (except the jam and final sugar!) until they come together in a soft ball.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wrap the ball in waxed paper and refrigerate for 1 hour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remove the dough from its wrapping and place it on a lightly floured board. Whack it briefly with your rolling pin to start to loosen it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roll the dough out until it is 1\/8 to 1\/4 inch thick. Be sure to turn the dough 45 degrees with each roll to keep it even. If your rolling pin starts getting sticky, it\u2019s perfectly all right to use your hands to roll the dough instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Use your favorite cookie cutter to cut out shapes. (A the tea shop they use a heart-shaped cutter). Cut out a smaller shape in the center of half of the cookies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Place the unbaked cookies on parchment-covered sheets. (I used my silicone baking mat.) They do not expand in the oven so they may be reasonably close together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bake the cookies (including the small cut-outs, which you may use for decorating pastry or just eat!) for five to ten minutes, or until they are lightly browned. \u201cKeep your eye on them\u2014they bake fast!\u201d Becca Byram cautioned. \u201cDon\u2019t make a cup of coffee because it will take too long.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Let the cookies sit on their pans above a cooling rack for 20 to 25 minutes before removing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just before serving cover the cookies that don\u2019t have shapes cut out of them with a dab of jam; then cover the jam with the cut-out cookies so that the jam peeks through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dust with confectioner\u2019s sugar and serve.<\/span><\/p>\n

Makes about a dozen cookies (more or less, depending on the size of one\u2019s cookie cutters).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Peter has been telling me for months that I would love the Queen of Cups Tea Room in Greenfield, Massachusetts. It takes me a while to get ANYWHERE, however, so I only recently managed to darken the Queen\u2019s doorway. As usual, Peter was right: I was enchanted by the food; by the shop\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,34],"tags":[1527,1525,1526,1529,1528],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10014"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10034,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10014\/revisions\/10034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}