I've recently caught up on Season 2 and 3 of Bridgerton and I could not help but notice that there was a lot, and I mean truly a generous quantity, not to mention a vast variety, of prominently displayed delicious cake. There was also lots and lots of tea drunk out of various pretty teacups held in matching saucers. I have to assume that the specifics of the cakes and snacks were as historically accurate as the dresses, which have progressively gotten weirder as the show seemed to lean into the fantasy vibe.
But I don't mind. The snacks looked delicious and best of all, the characters didn't just sit around looking at them and having uptight conversations. A jeweler forcefully bumbles his way through awkward family situations just so he can get a piece of cake from the nob's tea cart. A couple of lovers have cream tea on the floor at the foot of their bed and inexplicably eat their scones like sandwiches. A young woman's loss of emotional self possession is telegraphed when, instead of taking a sip of tea to cover her feelings which you might expect, she instead can't stop her hands shaking and rattles her tea cup loudly against the saucer. A beautiful but distraught lady eats a tiny cake at a hot air baloon festival and she is so alluring in her sad cake eating that a man buys the same exact kind of cake and eats it while thinking of her. (Though, this last part may just be my interpretation of the event.) Chocolate petits fours are piled on plates. A rainbow's worth of macarons are stacked in towers. Wallflowers hide out by the snacks on the edges of the ball. Siblings fight over their favorite flavor of macarons.
And everywhere maids fuss over the carts of tea and cake, serving it to welcome guests and stall unexpected visitors. Tea is for friends. Tea is for foes. Tea is for people who have the bad grace to come visit one before one has had a chance to dress. A constant stream of tea and tiny cakes is my kind of fantasy world. (Though maybe less of the economic dependence on marriage, and really, all the things but the hot and cold running cakes and tea.)
There was so much tea and cake that I started doodling slices of cake and cups of tea as I watched, just filling up the page with one after another. I liked how they came out, and wanted to get the feeling of endless spreads of cake and cups of tea, so I made a cleaner version on watercolor paper and then filled in the color after the ink dried. Painting cakes isn't that much less work than baking them, but at least it's less messy.
Tea and cake and tea and cake and tea and cake and strawberries. Ink and watercolor on paper. Own work, 2024