Cucumber Sandwiches for an Elegant Tea Party

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Last week, I had a small tea party- that's why I made those macarons. It was a wonderful gathering where I got to catch up with many friends whom I had not seen in a while.

Sometimes life get so busy that you have no time to do the things you want to do most. I always ponder about how much we're slaves to a capitalist way of life. Work, studying, errands, extracirriculars, projects, businesses, and then- what happens to relaxing? Soaking up the atmosphere? Taking a leisurely stroll? Doing what you really want when you want to do it.

I, for one, love catching up with friends in a relaxed atmosphere, I love cooking and baking, and I love organizing events- it's such a creative process. And so I put all those things together last weekend and threw a party.

So the menu was made up of mini sandwiches in rectangular and triangular shapes, scones with homemade clotted cream, and mini cakes and tarts. The table was set with carnations and roses and pink-lined china.
I also had a "tea bar" with a teapot full of hot water, sugar cubes, and milk next to tiny bowls holding various types of teabags- each bowl labeled with damask paper- all on lacey linen. I wish I remembered to take photos of the tea bar!

These mini cucumber sandwiches are adorable to look at and VERY easy to make. I usually make them when I want a quick snack or when I feel like something solid with my soup dinners. They work really well with a roasted capsicum soup- the recipe of which I must share with you sometime soon- now that it's "winter".




Ingredients
12 slices wholegrain bread
40g Philadelphia cheese
12 olive slices
24 cucumber slices
12 mint leaves

Procedure
With a 3cm round cookie cutter, cut out two rounds from each slice of bread. If the slice of bread is a bit small for cutting out two rounds, use a pastry roller to flatten the slice out a little.
Toast both sides of the rounds on a heated grill plate for around 1-2 minutes.

Spread Philadelphia cheese on one side of each round.
On half of the rounds, place a cucumber and a mint leaf.
With the other half of rounds, cover the cucumber-rounds.
Now that the rounds are sandwiched, top each with a cucumber slice and olive oil.
Serve (almost) immediately because the water from the cucumber tends to make the toasted bread soggy after an hour or so.

How can you have a tea party without tiered stands, right? Haha. Here are some of the pastries and mini chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. 

 

Eid Mubarak! & a Spiced Caramel Cake recipe!

Have you taken part in my giveaway yet?! Closing date is November 23!

My centerpiece

Eid Mubarak everyone!!
Yesterday was the first day of Eid al Adha here in the UAE.
Eid is a major religious holiday just like Christmas and Diwali except that we have it twice a year. The first Eid for this year was in early September and the second one was yesterday. It runs for three days each.
Eid's dates on the solar calendar change according to the moon so next year Eid Al Fitr (the first eid) will be in mid August and the second one will be in late October.
I love Eid and all the preparations that go along with it. With any event, I think half the fun is in preparing for it.

For Eid, Muslims are religiously obligated to shop for a new outfit (amazing, huh!) or wear the best outfit that they have. Women obviously take this shopping task much more seriously than men and there is a lot of talk on what outfits each person has bought, where to find the best ones, and what colours they're wearing.

I, for one, designed my own outfit this Eid. It was somewhat Grecian inspired and had a creamy jersey bodice with a tight gold, silk, and high-waisted skirt. Everyone thought I had bought it from somewhere, so I gather that it was a success then! I personally really liked it.

Eid is all about reconnecting with one's friends and family. It is an occasion to take time off from your daily routine and catch up on everyone you haven't seen in a while. Eid is also a time to pamper children where instead of receiving gifts, they receive money which they can then use to buy whatever they want. So during Eid, you have people visiting you and then you visiting other people. And with all that visiting comes lots and lots of eating. Eating sweet things, to be precise.

The Eidiya for the neighborhood children

I had a dessert overdose yesterday and I think it's going to take 26 hours of running to burn it all of.

Each family has their own Eid routine and ours go something like this:

I start baking for Eid two days before it starts. A whole mix of biscuits and cookies and everything of the sort. I always have a few "classics" that I make every Eid, these mainly being lemon cake, vanilla cupcakes, chocolate shortbread drops, and vanilla and chocolate cookies among many other things. This time though, I decided to go on a complete revamp and the only "classic" thing I stuck to were the chocolate shortbread drops.

This time, I made vanilla biscuits, chocolate shortbread drops, spiced Belgian biscuits with raspberry jam, maple syrup butter whirls, vanilla kisses, cherry and almond loaf, spiced caramel cake (which I am sharing today!), marble cake, mini triple chocolate cakes, and lavender cupcakes.

Bread for breakfast!

The night before Eid, I package them in cute boxes and send them to some relatives and friends. The rest I keep for Eid breakfast at our place.

I love planning for Eid breakfast at our place because that's when I get to be all creative with a table setting and give out presents to family members and friends who come over. Our breakfast also includes doorbell rings from neighborhood children asking for Eidiya (eid money that you give children). We package these in cute little pouches with candy and hand it out to them.



At Eid, women also get elaborate henna designs done and the henna salons are packed with hundreds of people the nights leading up to Eid. Sometimes you have a wait of 8 hours (yikes! I know!) They hand out numbered coupons like counter tickets and if I'm getting henna done at a salon I pick up a ticket at 1PM and return at 9PM (which is inevitably when my number is called!). Most times, I have a henna lady come over to the house. It's so much better that way since I prepare for bed, wear my pyjamas and then get Henna done. It takes a while to dry and if you wash your hands soon after it dries off, chances are the color won't turn out as deep as it could. That's why I prefer getting Henna done at the end of the day and at home. It also gives me a chance to prepare for breakfast until the last possible minute.

Here's the recipe for the spiced caramel cake which is extremely easy and quick to make!

125g butter, chopped
200g dark brown soft sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp golden syrup
225g self raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
125ml milk
240g sifted icing sugar
30g softened butter
2 tbsp milk
50g dark chocolate, chopped 


Grease deep 20cm round cake pan, cover base and side with baking paper.
Combine all ingredients in medium bowl of electric mixer, beat on low speed until ingredients are combined. Then, beat on medium speed until mixture is just smooth and changed in color; do not overbeat. Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake in moderate oven about 55 minutes. Stand 5 minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool.
Mix together the icing sugar, butter and milk until fluffy, smooth, and spreadable. Spread over the cake.
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water and spoon into a sandwich bag.
Make a tiny incision at the base of the sandwich bag and draw lines over the cake with the melted chocolate. First draw vertical lines, then horizontal ones, then diagonal ones.
Eat and enjoy!

spiced caramel cake

The Cake Decorating Weekend

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity of taking cake decorating classes with both Eric Lanlard and Mich Turner who are, in today's words, epic cakemakers. I have books by both of them and whenever university work gets a little more stressful than usual, I plonk myself in bed and flip through the books whilst daydreaming. I'd rather be making cakes than taking politics notes that make no sense, really. (No, I still love my major.)

Eric, Mich, and Peggy Porschen have been the three people who have inspired me to create tiered cakes and glamourous/couture-y cakes like these mini rose cakes, this three-tiered cake, and the first one of them all- the one I decided to make one midnight: a simple two tiered imprinted cake. Their creations are the prime example of eye-candy and are awe-inspiring in their level of detail, elegance, and beauty.

The class that I took with Eric was the Cupcake Masterclass (Info for classes can be found here.) We learned how to work with gumpaste (Which I had never done before!- Gumpaste is slightly different from sugarpaste/fondant in its texture- it hardens fairly quickly), we used the gumpaste on silicon moulds to get desired shapes and then learned to how to color the figures and use glitter. Eric also showed us three lovely techniques to ice cupcakes (a wonderful swirl, petals, and one that was absolutely gorgeous and sort of looked like petals and leaves) Sadly I didn't manage to the last one really well. It was great since I tried a lot of things I hadn't tried before. The session was followed by a wonderful afternoon tea. Each of the sandwiches and pastries were presented soo beautifully that all of us gasped everytime they were brought out.  Only after I took the pictures did I realize that they were blurry- I was so excited to eat all of the goodies haha.

The class with Mich was a crowncakes and cookies master class at the beautiful Langham hotel on Regent Street. We learned how to ice and flood a cookie (I FINALLY learned how to flood a cookie- now I can use all my cutters to their full potential!) and then learned four wonderful designs for the crowncakes. I was quite proud of them- they looked so pretty I didn't want to eat them! But, also in this case, there was one technique I didn't quite master which was the candy striped cake. My lines were really squiggly and shakey :( But it was the design I loved best. The one I was happiest with though was the monochrome lace with pink icing in sashes and bows and drops. It was a great class ALSO followed by a wonderful afternoon tea. I hope I can recreate something like this on my own because my main issues seem to be getting the royal icing the right consistency and covering the cake neatly with fondant. More info on the classes here.

the squiggly cake.... but I made the rose myself!

I'm extremely glad I got to take both these classes and the icing on the cake (pun not intended) was that they were on consecutive days. I conquered my fears of gumpaste and royal icing and I'm ready to work with both of these mediums a lot more extensively than I previously had. 

Taste of London

After attending Taste of Dubai this past March, I was extremely excited to see what the London version of the festival would be like. And so, on Thursday the 16th, I made my way to Regent's Park Outer Circle in the bitter cold and drizzle (ok it wasn't that bad) to check out Taste of London. And I was not disappointed. Regent's Park itself is a beautiful park that reminds me of the English garden (go figure, considering it is in England).

But anyways, the tickets were more expensive than Dubai's. GBP26 at the door compared to AED75. The conversion is 1GBP to AED6 if I'm not mistaken. Do the math, I'm not bothered.

Taste of London was at least double the size of Taste of Dubai but the layout was pretty much similar. White semi-tents with three or four dishes from each restaurant- and around 4 restaurants to a tent. What they had which I don't think Taste of Dubai did was a small producers/business market with individual stalls belonging to small business owners. There was the usual cupcake business but other really unique ones (compared to what I've seen) were ones such as a chili oil business called David's Chili Oil or a cordial making one... I LOVED the pomegranate and rose flavoured one. There were also small businesses selling cupcake decorations. Edible sugar decorations. Really good idea. I got a few lovely edible pearls and heart shaped decorations.


And the dishes at some of those restaurants were absolutely divine! Such unique ones! I tried a chicken tikka pie with a BERRY compote. It was heaven. I had no idea that chicken tikka and blueberries went so well together but they do...
Also tried a pea and mint mousse with goat's curd... it looked like sorbet but.. obviously, wasn't. Good stuff.


The festival also had a cultural section promoting Jamaica and they had looots of Jamaican food which was soo good. One that I tried was deep fried yam balls... For some reason I always confuse yam for yak and was a bit concerned but yams are a vegetable and they have a VERY unique taste..

One chocolatier that had a stand there was Paul A Young whose stand had what I think are some of the yummiest chocolates ever. I tried a 70% chili one which was undoubtedly heaven but one which blew my mind was a sea salted caramel truffle. HEAVEN, I tell you. The shop is at Wardour Street and I am going to hunt it down and buy the entire pack.

Also, you know Bonne Maman, the jam brand? Apparently they do chocolate mousse and creme brulee.. WHICH ARE REALLY GOOD. I tried them. Yes, I did. DROOL.

And San Pellegrino had a lovely little tent to itself styled like a Roman courtyard with stone benches- and with every bottle of water they gave you sundried tomatoes, cheese sticks, and olives, because "water goes well with food" according to the guy at the stand.

The Ritz's English Custard Cake with Date Syrup

 The chicken tikka/shepherd's pie/berry compote which was surprisingly so so good- from Benares.

Cake! Baked stuff!

 The mint and pea mousse which I thought was some sort of sorbet at first. Reallllyy good.

That sea salted caramel chocolate truffle from Paul A Young chocolatier.. Wardour Street, here I come!

 A Cuban band.

David's Chili Oil.. realllllly good stuff.. It was mindblowing.. So spicy and amazing.

 Huge slabs of fudge.

 cupcakes

 The crowd inside the small producers' market.

 more cupcakes! with edible wafer decorations

The deep fried yam balls. 

Candles, flowers, crystal, and fingerfood.

I hadn't seen my friend Khulood in over four months.. we only see each other about three times a year anyways! And so, last week I invited her over for dinner. She loves fingerfood and so I started looking through my cookbook trying to find recipes for bite sized meals and canapes etc.. I've never really made fingerfood so yesterday's cooking experience was something new.. I didn't have to use the stove once! And everything was done in less than an hour.

I made a sweet and sour yogurt dip which I served with some crisps, mini burgers, small pizza slices, bruschetta, and chocolate mousse.

The yogurt dip was delicious (and healthy!). All you have to do is take one cup of fresh yogurt and beat it until smooth with around a third cup of sweet and sour sauce. I added some fresh chives to the mixture and seasoned with salt and pepper. It is SO addictive and works great with just about anything- especially breadsticks. Easy!

The pizza slices were also extremely simple and quick. Just take around four pizza bases and spread each with basil pesto. Sprinkle with some pizza cheese and pine nuts and bake for around 15 minutes at 180C. Cut each pizza base into four equal pieces and further slice each piece into three slices. You get 48 pieces with just four pizza bases.

I love the idea of using lots of glasses in a table setting. I've used them as vases and as candy holders. And now for crisps and the dip!



The Chocolate Mousse

 Enjoy the photos!