Stained Glass Cucumber Tea Sandwiches

If tea parties and little nibbles are your thing, you will love these stained glass cucumber tea sandwiches. I call them stained glass tea sandwiches because the cucumbers that poke through the center of the sandwiches looks like stained glass and are so beautiful.

If you are not familiar with tea sandwiches, they are little sandwiches that you serve, well at tea time, but you can also serve these little bites anytime you want a light meal. I like making light sandwiches like this in the summer when it is too hot for a heavy meal and I do not want to cook or drink hot tea.

There are many variations of tea sandwiches but this one uses cucumbers, cream cheese and chives. The cucumbers and chives I grow in my garden so that is why I chose this combination. I only had to purchase white sandwich bread and cream cheese to make them.

When you are making these cucumber tea sandwiches, you will be following these basic steps:

Cut your bread with various sized cookie cutters.

Find a larger one for the shape of your sandwich (circle, star, heart...) and smaller ones to cut little holes on the top of the sandwich so the cucumbers can be seen.

Let your cream cheese come to room temperature.

You want it so that it is soft and spreadable. Once the cream cheese is soft, add your chives to the cream cheese and mix well.

Slice your cucumbers very thin.

Just slice your cucumbers as thin as you can. They do not need to be perfect and you can pick the best ones for your sandwich.

Start assembling your sandwiches.

Spread your cream cheese mixture on one slice of the cut out bread shape you are working with and then add your sliced cucumbers. Place the top of the sandwich on top of the cucumbers and add that to your serving plate. I like to use a cake stand to make them stand out more.

Now I think these cute tea sandwiches really deserve a spot outdoors in nice weather. I really love using them as afternoon tea sandwiches. I will make these and my peach galette and place them outside under a cloche (to keep the bugs out) on our patio table for when people are coming in from the pool and want something small to eat.

It is nice to have some food waiting for you when you are done swimming. It is also nice that these tea sandwiches are light and refreshing thanks to the cucumbers.

They are very versatile. Use them as an afternoon sandwich or use them at a tea party as tea sandwiches. No matter what you use them for, these cucumber sandwiches are delish.

These little sandwiches are very easy to make too. One suggestion so there is no food waste is to save the cut out bread pieces in a plastic bag for a quick breakfast of eggs in a hole. Since the bread you cut your shapes out of will have a hole in the center, just place this bread on to a frying pan and drop an egg in the center of it to cook.

Super simple and no waste!