Birthday celebration Downton Abbey style

One of my sisters and I are born 12 years apart, but our birthdays fall one week from each other. Since we both like to do fun things in the kitchen we usually combine our birthday celebrations with the family. This year we decided to go with a Downton Abbey theme, since the two of us are rewatching the whole series now. I posted a teaser about us sewing last weekend and here are the results.

I added sleeves and an underskirt to an existing gown.

My sister used the old curtains from one of my nieces' bedroom and paired it with a bought lace top. The really nice thing she is wearing can't be seen though. She is actually wearing a shift from our great grandmother, so that's an original piece that's from the time period.

Our guest had also dressed up, here is our mother in a more 1920's style than 1910. She felt more like a jazz girl than an English lady. It's basically a straight skirt and a tunic and then we pinned the scarf in place to hide the edge between the tunic and skirt and emphasize the 20's silhouette.

The most handsome of the men was my nephew though, but I promised not to post pictures of him. He was wearing my grandfather's old tailcoat, with white bow and everything. It was a bit big, but he still looked good in it.

The main focus was the food though. We had sat down read up on menues, Escoffier and watched the Supersizers go Edweardian and 20's. 

First course was a very clear consommé.

My sister got seriosuly excited about learning how to clear a broth with eggshells and eggwhites, and it was really crystal clear.

Second course was a chicken aspic

This was the main surprise. I was quite hesitant about it, but it really tasted good.

The it was Sole Alice (in a simpler version)

The main course was a roast beef with yorkshire pudding and gravy.

For pudding it was ginger and lemon puddings with custard.

This was so good, both fresh from the lemon, sweet from the sugar and a bit spicy from the ginger. I had the recipe in a book, but I'm pretty sure that there must be some translation errors in it, because it didn't look or behave anything like it should in the book. It still tasted yummy though.

And finally we ended the night with a Peche Melba

The only downside to this was that I've been down with a bad cold for the last week, so I basically went straight from the dinner and curled up in the sofa and fell asleep, but the dinner was definitely a success. I'm definitely going to make the ginger puddings more in the future.