Welcome to Gaia! ::

From the Wikipedia entry on British Cuisine:

"British dishes include fish and chips, the Sunday roast, and bangers and mash. British cuisine has several national and regional varieties, including English, Scottish and Welsh cuisine, which each have developed their own regional or local dishes, many of which are geographically indicated foods such as Cheshire cheese, the Yorkshire pudding, Arbroath Smokie and Welsh rarebit."

Depending on how involved you want to get and how much money you want to spend, I suggest offering a brief discussion on tea as a drink and/or as a meal, for the history of tea is quite a large part of the history of modern-ish England. Offer a few interesting facts (for instance, afternoon tea is the dainty meal of the upper class, while high tea is the hearty meal of commoners, did you know that?), then set a table and offer an afternoon tea to the class.

Afternoon tea is all about presentation. It doesn't have to be super-expensive, but it should be the prettiest that you can reasonably afford. If you've already got a teapot, use it. If you already have some utensils, use them. If not, scour the local secondhand shops; failing that, buy a plain teapot and decorate it with, say, a ribbon on the handle. If you can't afford to buy pretty cups for an entire class, buy a secondhand set of two to four, for the formal table setting, then buy pretty disposables for the rest of the class. Ditto with spoons, milk pitcher, lemon slice plate, and any other utensils or vessels needed. The prettiest that you can afford. If you can, buy a pretty (plastic, disposable, but pretty) serving tray for cookies and one for sandwiches.

Food served at afternoon tea is also all about presentation: tiny, pretty things. Make sandwiches, remove the bread crusts, and cut them into quarters. Serve cookies -- decorative, if you can afford the classier sort of cookie, something like Pepperidge Farm maybe, or those tins of Danish butter cookies. Include scones, muffins, crumpets, or English muffins. Things that can be eaten with fingers are a great idea, but provide pretty paper napkins for anyone that feels crumby or sticky afterwards. The tea will need lemon or milk (not cream), sugar (cubes are best, served with little pinchy tongs), and for heaven's sake let it be loose tea rather than teabags. Sandwiches can be egg salad, cucumber, salmon and cream cheese, or anything else that's easy. Afternoon tea isn't so much about what is served, but rather, about showing a respected friend that you feel they're worth the time and effort that you're giving in serving them.

Before you buy a lot of stuff, think about whether you want to serve tea to the entire class, or would be happy just to set a table for two -- yourself and your teacher, for instance -- for the class to observe. Maybe serve the tea to your teacher and yourself, and pass out a tray of cookies for the rest of the class. It'll save you some money. One teapot will serve two people; if you intend to serve everyone else, you may need to get a tea urn from the cafeteria instead, if they'll sign one out to you.

SPOTTED d**k

75g (3 oz.) self-rising flour
Pinch salt
75g fresh bread crumbs
75g shredded suet
50g (2 oz.) caster sugar (confectioners')
175g (6 oz.) currants
About 60 - 90ml (4 - 6 tbsp.) milk

Half-fill a steamer with water and put on to boil. Mix together the flour, salt, bread crumbs, suet, sugar and currants in a bowl. Make a well in the center and add enough milk to give a fairly soft dough. Form into a roll on a well floured board, wrap loosely in greased greaseproof paper and then in foil, sealing the ends well.
Steam over rapidly boiling water for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Unwrap the pudding, put in a hot dish and serve with custard or a sweet white sauce flavored with cinnamon or grated lemon rind. Alternatively, make the mixture of a soft dropping consistency and steam it for 1 1/2 - 2 hours in a greased 900ml (1 1/2 pint) basin.

OOOOO! You should bring in crumpets and tea!

that would be awesome xd

Eek! I don't know if I'm late on this, but you'd never have cookies at a traditional tea! Well, perhaps I overreact because round here "cookies" tends to mean particularly fatty biscuits full of chocolate chips and suchlike. If you're going for a Victorian flavour (oh dear, pun), try sugar biscuits or shortbread.

But I presume you want something little that you can offer the class rather than a proper meal. What about mince pies, as it's Christmas? Or little cakes - eccles cakes or cherry bakewells or victoria sponge cake or something? I only make the assumption these are British because they seem quite traditional to me - it's hard to know when you actually live here. razz

There is the cookbook Lobscouse and spotted Dog.