[Image courtesy of Walt Disney, Alice in Wonderland (1951)]
"She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the slightest notice of her or anything else." (p68)

[Image courtesy of Random House Publications, 2014]
 Cram-packed with delightful dishes for any manner of tea party, Kerstin Rodger's Ms. Marmite Lover's Secret Tea Party - published in 2014 features an array of Alice in Wonderland inspired recipes. The extract below, a recipe for 'Magic Meringue Mushroom's is taken from the cookbook's fourth chapter 'Themed Teas'.

 I have awarded this recipe a difficulty rating of: ★★★★★
Ingredients:

♥ 2 egg whites
♥ 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
♥ A pinch of sea salt
♥ 120g caster sugar
♥ Dark red (claret) food colouring paste (if you want to make magic toadstools) (optional)
♥ A stick of hard liquorice candy
♥ 100g good-quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces
♥ Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting (optional)

Equipment:

♥ Several disposable piping bags
♥ Pastry brush

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 110°C. Lay out as many baking sheets as you possess and line with parchment paper or silicone mats. 

Whisk your egg whites (I hope you have an electric whisk, as this will save on elbow grease!) until they form soft peaks. Add the cream of tartar and salt. Then add the sugar, slowly, while continuing to whisk on high speed. Eventually it should look glossy and stiff.
Using a tall jug or glass to hold your piping bag (folded back so you can get the mixture into the pointy bit), scoop about half the mixture into the bag. Cut the tip off the end of the bag, but not too big - remember the hole will get bigger as you pipe. If you want to make toadstools, put a quarter of the remaining meringue mixture into the another bowl and mix it with some dark red food colouring, if using. Save the rest of the meringue mixture for sticking the stems and caps of the toadstool's meringues together (and for adding little white spots to the toadstool caps), if making these. Keep this in an airtight container or another piping bag.

First, pipe your mushroom stems. Holding the piping bag directly over a prepared baking sheet and making sure it's close to the sheet, pipe a sort of cone shape (about 1.5cm across and 2-3cm high). You need about 20. With a wet finger, slightly flatten the top of each one - you need it flat so that it fits on to the cap of the mushroom. Some of the stems will fall over, so pipe extra. You want them straight and upright.

Now pipe the caps: this is easier. Pipe circular mounds about 5cm across and 2cm high. Again, you will need about 20. And again, smooth the top of each one with a wet finger. Finely grate the liquorice candy on top of the caps. Or, for toadstools, using another piping bag, pipe the same size and number of caps (about 20) using the red meringue.

Bake the caps and stem for 45 minutes, making sure they don't go brown.

If you are making toadstools, make a teensy hole at the end of another piping bag, spoon in some of the leftover white meringue and pipe little white spots on top of the red caps, then bake them for a further 15 minutes. 

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely on the baking sheets.

Once they've cooled, you will notice that the bottom of many of the caps are 'dipped', just like real mushrooms.

Melt your chocolate either in a bain-marie, making sure the bowl doesn't touch the simmering water underneath, or in a bowl in the microwave (on full power) in 30-second bursts (in the microwave is the easiest way). Using a pastry brush, paint the dipped underside of your white mushroom caps with melted chocolate, then stick the stems on to the undersides of the caps and leave to dry. Handle with care or they'll break. 

For toadstools, use the leftover meringue mix to stick the stems to the red caps, caps side down, then place them back on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 5 minutes until dry. Leave to cool.

If you don't like or cannot get hold of liquorice, dust all the mushrooms (but not the toadstools) with the cocoa powder to give that speckled mushroomy look on top.

If you have any leftover meringue mixture, simply pipe, bake, assemble and decorate some more mushrooms or toadstools in the same way as before.
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It could be argued that Kerstin Rodger's cookbook Ms. Marmite Lover's Secret Tea Party bears a great deal of similarities to Isabella Beeton's hugely famous 1861 publication Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. 
Like a modern day Beeton, Rodger's approach to her audience is ridden with connotations to social class, ranging from her discussion of ingredients (viands) to her thoughts on tea party etiquette. The cookbook's introduction discusses the social and historical importance of tea, dating as far back as the early eighteenth century, with 'the Duchess of Bedford generally considered to be the pioneer of the British Afternoon tea party' in her opinion (p16). 

The language used throughout both the chapter, and entirety of the text, assists in creating the illusion of the exquisite, flattering the reader. Her exclamation that 'you don't have to be hungry to enjoy an afternoon tea... real life is on hold... food as fuel is notionally cast away' (p13) speaks volumes about her desired audience, whom is assumed to be middle class housewives.

 Each of her recipes - such as Swan Pavlovas, Ruby Shoe Biscuits and Champagne Rose Jellies - alongside descriptions of table arrangement reinforce the notion that tea is an aesthetically pleasing occasion. As noted by Rodger's 'prettiness is essential, a cake is like a fashion accessory' (p13).

[Image courtesy of Random House, 2014 (p22)]

Works Cited

 Beeton, Isabella. Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Version. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
 Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Wordsworth Editions, 2001.
Rodger, Kirsten. Ms. Marmite Lover's Secret Tea Party. United Kingdom: Random House, 2014.