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. 

 

Tomato and Eggplant Burek

The food I find the most aesthetically pleasing is Mediterranean food. The colors, the textures, the different consistencies... all make for some wonderful eye candy. And the flavors are no less satisfying.
Feta cheese, tomatoes, capsicums, olives, eggplants, artichokes, goat's cheese, cherry tomatoes, spinach... I could go on and on and on..

Today, I made some burek. At least that's how I think it's spelled although I see BOREK everywhere. Anyways, same thing. Good food. And what I was glad about was that I made the pastry myself... I didn't get any filo pastry or anything of the sort. And it isn't really filo pastry.. anyways, on to the recipe..

Ingredients
75g butter, melted
80ml olive oil
185g plain flour
250g tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 chopped onion
2 tsp ground cumin
300g eggplant, cut into tiny cubes
2 tsp tomato paste
1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
1 lightly beaten egg

Procedure
Put butter, oil, and 80ml water into a large bowl and season with salt. Gradually add the flour, stirring with a wooden spoon to form an oily, lumpy dough that leaves the sides of the bowl. Knead gently to bring the dough together, cover with plastic, wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
Plunge the tomatoes in a bowl of boiling water for one minute, followed by plunging them in a bowl of cold water the next. Remove and peel the skin off.. chop roughly, discarding seeds.
Heat oil in a frying pan, add onion and cook, stirring, over low heat for 2-3 minutes or until soft. Add cumin, cook for 1 minute, then add eggplant and cook, stirring until eggplant softens. Stir in tomato and tomato paste. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes or until mixture is dry. Stir in coriander and leave mixture to cool.
Preheat oven to 180C and grease two baking trays.
Roll out half of pastry onto floured surface until 2mm thick and cut out rounds with a 3 inch cutter. Place a teaspoon of tomato and eggplant mixture on each round and fold the dough over. Crimp and seal with a fork and wash with beaten egg.
Bake in the top half of the oven for around 15 minutes until pastry is browned through.
Serve hot, with a spicy sauce if desired.

Crème Brûlée

So who here doesn't like crème brûlée? Hardly anyone, as far as I know- maybe even no-one. Alright, well maybe I'm generalizing. But I, for one, love crème brûlée. There's something about biting into crisp, tart topping followed by a wonderful creamy goodness. I love creamy desserts: panna cotta, tiramisu, chocolate mousse, crème brûlée, all of that.. and this is one dessert that I will undoubtedly order if I happen to see it on a menu anywhere.

And crème brûlée is wonderful to serve at a dinner party. It sounds so elegant and sophisticated. Alright, let's admit it- anything in French sounds elegant and sophisticated. Imagine this scenario: "Oh, what do you have for dessert?" "Umm, a pound cake." How does that sound compared to "crème brûlée"?

With a name like crème brûlée you'd think it would be extremely difficult to prepare but it isnt.. it has four ingredients.. it can be part of one those Australian Women's Weekly books called "TAKE FOUR INGREDIENTS" or "QUICK SUPPER TONIGHT".

The two places which I've found have really good crème brûlée in Dubai is La Petite Maison in DIFC and The Market Cafe in Grand Hyatt. La Petite Maison's is quite a large serving and you might need around 3 people to share it but the Market Cafe one is in individual little glasses. Both amazingly good.

And quite surprisingly- although I had this intense love for crème brûlée- I never made it. I kept on thinking I'd need a blowtorch and there was this whole hassle of getting one and setting it up.. and then making sure the water comes halfway up the ramekins etc... anyways I never really had this intense urge to make it until a few weeks back.

You really don't have to read this italicized bit- it's just a little story of my hunt for the Crème Brûlée Set.


A few weeks back I was in Divertimenti on Marylebone High Street in London. Divertimenti is this absolutely fantabulous kitchen store- until this year I only knew about the Brompton Road one but when I stumbled across the Marylebone one early one Saturday morning I was smitten. Huge, airy, bright, and fully stocked with all sorts of kitchen gadgets, Divertimenti is a shopaholic-cum-chef's (aka my) dream store. I saw a crème brûlée set and was instantly attracted to it. A nice compact little box with four ramekins, a wire rack, and an oven dish... all very nicely and ergonomically structured so when you add the water they're held up halfway around the ramekins. All very nice. I decided I would buy it- but not right then. When I went back a week later (after having thought of it countless times and somehow fallen in love with it), it was gone. I spent ages describing it and asking if the Brompton Road branch had one. Which apparently they did.. except with three ramekins instead of four. NO PROBLEM, I said. I'LL TAKE IT. 


And so during my lunch hour, I walked down from work to Brompton Road's Divertimenti and asked about the crème brûlée set. They had kept it aside and brought it out for me. As soon as I clapped eyes on it I was disappointed. It was just a normal oven dish used for crème brûlée- none of that fancy schmancy wire rack holder thing going on. I decided then that I would hunt this crème brûlée set down. And so I was told that Peter Jones might have it. So there I went, somewhat ricocheted back to Sloane Square which was close to the office. Checked with Peter Jones, they had nothing. They didn't even know such a thing existed. I was then told to go to David Mellor across the street (I did even though I highly doubted they would have it)- which they didn't. Then I heard that there was a wholesale catering store on Shaftesbury Avenue which might have it- and so after work I went there. They had no idea what it was. 


Anyways by now my rational little self kept telling my other more idealistic more dominant self that maybe I should give up. I mean how important is a little crème brûlée set? I admit, it isn't- but I'm the kind of person that if I decide I want to do something, I will do it. Even if it has to take me halfway across the world, or in this case all over central London. I kept admonishing myself, telling myself that I had become a slave of capitalism and materialism. That what kind of a person was I that I had to have this crème brûlée set or else I'd be eternally restless. There were more important things in life, Sid. But right now, this was an interesting adventure that would have been entertaining regardless of whether or not I found that blessed set (although if I didn't find it that would sort of have been a buzzkill).


Anyways, I gave up actively searching for it- but I kept an eye out wherever I went. Harrods, no. John Lewis, didn't even try. But one day, several days later, I was in Selfridge's- just walking around- when I remembered that Crème Brûlée Set. I had forgotten about it, to be honest. And so I tried my luck. And there it was. In Selfridge's.. five minutes away from my apartment. 

Anyways so back here in Dubai I decided to make Crème Brûlée. The recipe at the back of the box was extremely simple- I modified some of the measurements and I am sharing it here with you today. And getting a blowtorch is a good idea. The first time I made it, when I wanted to burn the sugar on top I put the ramekins in the top half of the oven for a couple of minutes but then it turned into a pudding/souffle kind of weird mixture. Not good. So get a blowtorch. But be careful how you use it. I also tried using both a cigarette lighter and a candle lighter but neither worked.

Recipe

Ingredients
6 egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar
240g heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 tsp granulated sugar (for the topping)

Procedure
Preheat the oven to 160C. Fill an ovenproof dish halfway up with water.
Beat the egg yolks and the sugar until pale and thick. Add the cream and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated. Spoon into the ramekins and place the ramekins into the oven dish filled halfway with water.
Place in the oven and cook for around 35-40 minutes until the edges are set but the middle is slightly loose.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the oven dish.
Remove the ramekins from the dish and refrigerate for around 6 hours.
Half an hour before serving, sprinkle 2 tsp of granulated sugar on top of each ramekin and with a blowtorch, caramelize/burn/whatever-you-want-to-call-it the sugar.  Make sure you move the blowtorch in circular motions over the ramekin to equally caramelize.
Re-chill in the oven until you're ready to serve.

It was the first time for me to use a blowtorch and somehow most of the golden dark bits ended up in the center of the Crème Brûlée instead of all over. It still tastes really good though!

Tip: if you get little shot glasses, you can even make mini versions of these- which will look wonderful.

Mini Chicken Quesadillas

These are the tiniest little quesadillas ever- they're bite-sized and fit comfortably in your fingers. And that makes them super-dangerous: you can eat the whole plate and not even realize it. They look like food for dolls- tiny little miniatures you'd find in a dollhouse..

They're also super simple to prepare and if you don't like the miniature size, you can just make them large, normal-sized quesadillas. You get about 35 pieces of minis.

Ingredients
7 flour tortilla wraps
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red capsicum, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cumin powder
450g chicken mince
400g can chopped tomatoes
100g cheddar cheese, grated

Procedure
Using a 3cm cookie cutter, cut out rounds from each tortilla wrap. One regular sized tortilla yields around five mini circles. Place them on to baking trays.
Heat half the olive oil in a pot and cook the onion and capsicum until onion has softened. Then, add the garlic cloves and spices and cook for two minutes, until fragrant. Add the chicken mince and the remaining oil and cook for 8 minutes until browned. Break up any lumps. Add the can chopped tomatoes and bring to simmer for around 20 minutes.
Spread one teaspoon of the chicken mixture on half of each round. Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top of each round covering all sides.
Bake in a 180C oven until cheese melts. Once melted, remove trays from oven and fold over to create a quesadilla.. the melted cheese will hold the whole thing together. 


ENJOY.

My friend demonstrating how tiny the quesadilla is. 

Teatime Treats

These are all adorable tea-time treats that are for the most part bite-sized. I used the same ingredients in a many of them. The tart filling is the same as the filling in the Victoria Sponge Cake. And the buttercream on the heart shaped cakes is the same that is in the mini tarts.. and the berries, well they're in everything. Almost.

I got around 30 little tarts, 4 big tarts, 20 heart-shaped cakes, and two 5" cakes from one pie dough and one cake batter. My dad took the Victoria Sponge (which was coffee-infused, tiramisu style) to his office, and I sent the rest of the cakes to friends' homes and took some to uni with me.

These are all pretty simple to make.

For the Victoria Sponge, make two vanilla cakes and when they're cool mix together 250g of mascarpone, 284ml of double cream, and two tablespoons of coffee together. Spread over one cake, top with berries, and place the second cake over it.

For the heart shaped cakes, either use silicon heart shaped cupcake cases, or a heart shaped cupcake tray. Make and bake them just like cupcakes and then pipe the frosting on top.

For the tart crust, make a normal pie crust and put them into pie tins for the normal sized ones and for the mini ones, place them in a mini cupcake tray. The berry tart's filling is the tiramisu filling and the mini tart filling is vanilla buttercream (tinted pink!)

Quick Canapes

I was walking home yesterday and happened to look at the window in the building to my left- and there was a guy in his kitchen, chopping some basil leaves and frying some tomatoes in a pan. I actually stopped and stared and had this intense yearning to go cook something. Sigh. I miss cooking up meals. I love those times when you just have to make do with what's the in the fridge. It fuels creativity. And so today, I created two little bites that would be perfect for a snack- or a canape (I feel like being fancy).

First one is crackers with marmalade and feta cheese. I was so tempted to try the marmalade and feta combination and Yasmin at Red Panda Bakes said she has them all the time! And so I piled them on top of little crackers and bit into them.

Marmalade and Feta Cheese Crackers
Ingredients
1 packet cream crackers
1 jar orange marmalade
40g crumbly feta cheese

Procedure
Spoon a generous teaspoon of marmalade over the cracker and top with crumbled feta cheese. That's it!

Next, I made bruschetta. I was GOING to make risotto and bought all the ingredients for it.. BUT, ended up forgetting the onion and garlic. And right now I'm not bothered to go down to the Tesco Express and buy any. And so I sliced up a mini baguette and spread some basil pesto on each slice. I topped each with a piece of sundried tomato and some feta. I thought the whole thing was going to be rather salty but surprisingly it wasn't!

And they looked pretty cute.. If I may say so.

Basil Pesto, Sun-dried Tomato, and Feta Cheese Bruschetta
Ingredients
1 baguette
1 jar basil pesto
1 jar sun-dried tomatoes
20g crumbly feta

Procedure
Slice the baguette.
Spread a teaspoon of the basil pesto.
Top with one sundried tomato slice
Add some feta.
Eat.

Yes, eating is part of the procedure.

http://redpandabakes.blogspot.com/

Double Chocolate Cinnamon Muffins

Why is that whenever a recipe has the word "cinnamon" in the title, only 1/2 a teaspoon or 1 teaspoon of it is listed in the ingredients? In my opinion, for a dish to have the word "cinnamon" in the title- it needs around a tablespoon- at least!

And so when I read the recipe for 'chocolate "cinnamon" muffins' in my Marks and Spencer cookbook, I scoffed.  Half a teaspoon? Really? Ohh no, I'd add three more teaspoons, yes I would.

And that's what I did. Cinnamon works really well with cocoa powder.. And makes your kitchen smell like heaven. I just wish our oven was in the inside kitchen so that the whole house could smell like muffins. Or whatever it is that I'm baking. But an outside kitchen does have its benefits- especially when you have guests over and don't want the house smelling like onion and garlic.

But back to muffins, I love making them, perhaps because I don't make them that much. And also, the super-risen texture of it makes them look wholesome. There are so many ways that you can vary muffins, and make them savoury, unlike cupcakes, so that muffins make a great snack any time of day.

Anyways, without further ado, I present to you my modified version of chocolate cinnamon muffins.

Ingredients
butter, for greasing
225g plain flour
55g cocoa powder
1tbsp baking powder
4tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
115g soft light brown sugar
160g chocolate chips
2 eggs
250ml milk
85g butter, melted and cooled

Procedure
Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and chocolate chips.

Lightly beat the eggs in a large bowl then beat in the milk and butter. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the beaten liquid ingredients. Stir gently until just combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon into prepared muffin tin and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until well-risen and firm to the touch. Serve warm, dusted with icing sugar if desired. (which I did but didn't take pictures of because the muffins were already in my tummy).

*

I got an idea for "gourmet" muffins.. I wanted to serve these with a scoop of vanilla icecream and some caramel or butterscotch (or even chocolate) sauce drizzled along the middle of the muffin and ice cream scoop....something like my version of a peach melba.

Random Recipe: Pea and Potato Pakora

At 5PM this afternoon, I was browsing through food blogs and came across Belleau Kitchen. Specifically, I came across this post in Belleau Kitchen. It was a blog challenge with a closing date of.. TODAY. I had never taken part in a blog challenge and I immediately thought that I should participate in this- especially since I loved the theme.

Often, when I am bored and do not know what to make for dinner.. I close my eyes, pick up a random cookbook, blindly flip through it, and then open my eyes to see what I'll be having for dinner that night. This blog challenge called for exactly that. I rushed over to my bookshelf and since I didn't want to "take all your cook books off the shelf and shuffle them" as the challenge called for, I closed my eyes and picked out around six cookbooks at random. If I were to take all my neatly organized cookbooks off the shelf, the perfectionist OCD in me would throw a fit....

Anyways, the book I ended up picking (by further closed eyes) was one called 500 Appetizers by Susannah Blake. The recipe that the book opened up to was "pea and potato pakora with yogurt".

Very ironic. I'm half Pakistani and have never made pakora.. something of a staple in a South Asian's diet. I have eaten it though.. a lot. Apparently pakoras are perfect for when it's raining- as I'm told so often.

(I sent some of these over to my aunt for her to try and she said that these actually aren't PAKORAS.. they're something called batata wara... sounds funny, I know. Sounds like Hakuna Matata. The batter for these is the same batter used in pakora.. only difference is that this contains potato.. hence batata wara and not pakora....)

Anyways, back to the pakoras. I usually try to avoid making anything deep fried... because of the high oil content... but I made these because obviously that was the spirit of the blog challenge.. randomness and spontaneity... and who better to indulge in spontaneity than The Spontaneous Euphoria herself? Hmm.

These were exceptionally easy to make (and fun!). I loved swirling the pakoras around in the oil as they fried....

Here's the recipe.. I added double to triple the amount of chili powder and fresh green chillies though.. also, don't forget to SEASON it!

Ingredients

450g potatoes, boiled and mashed

125g frozen peas, thawed

2-3 fresh green chillies, seeded and finely chopped

4 spring onions, finely sliced

2tsp ground cumin

1tsp ground coriander

3tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves

115g gram flour

1/2tsp chilli powder

1tsp turmeric

1tsp baking powder

200ml cold water

Sunflower oil for deep frying

Salt

Procedure

Mix the potatoes, peas, chillies, spring onions, cumin, ground and fresh coriander. Season with salt and stir to combine. Shape into 16 walnut-sized balls, place on a platter and chill for at least 30 minutes, until firm.

Mix the gram flour, chilli, turmeric, and baking powder in a bowl. Using a fork, stir in a quarter of the water to make a thick, smooth paste. Stir in the remaining water smoothly.

Heat oil for frying to 180C. Dip the balls in the batter and fry for about 2 minutes, until golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Keep hot until all are ready.

Chocolate Fest! (And my 100th blogpost!)

This is my 100th blog post -and what a better way to celebrate it than by posting about the chocolate fest that we (our food bloggers group had today!)

Sarah, Ruth, Sukaina, Yasmin, and Sally came over and we made (and ate!) chocolate shortbread drops, chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, rich chocolate pots, and black forest cupcakes.

Ruth brought some lovely flour-less chocolate cake over which was wonderful- it tasted like a super-moist brownie. I think I ate like half of it. My neighbor Emma brought over chocolate tiramisu which was amazingly light and would be just the perfect dessert for any occasion!

Here are some of the recipes!

Basic Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, 1 cup caster sugar, 1 egg, 2 teaspoons vanilla essence, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1 ½ cups self raising flour, ¾ cup cream

Procedure

Preheat oven to 180C. Brush deep 20cm round cake tin with melted butter, line base with paper, grease paper.

Using electric beaters, beat butter and sugar in small mixing bowl until light and creamy. Add egg and vanilla essence, beat for 1 minute on medium speed or until well combined. Add sifted dry ingredients and cream to bowl. Beat on low speed for 1 minute or until just combined. Beat 2 minutes on high speed until smooth. Spoon mixture into prepared tin, smooth surface. Bake for 55 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when inserted in centre of cake. Turn onto wire rack to cool.

Rich Chocolate Pots

Ingredients

300g plain chocolate, in pieces. 284ml carton double cream. 250g tub mascarpone. 3tbsp cranberry juice. 1 tbsp vanilla extract. 6 tbsp crème fraiche

Procedure

Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Leave until melted, then stir until smooth. Remove the bowl from the heat. Add the cream, mascarpone, cranberry juice, vanilla extract, and mix well together- the hot chocolate will melt the mascarpone. Divide the mixture between six 150ml glasses and chill for 20 minutes. Spoon a dollop of crème fraiche on top of each dessert and decorate with chocolate curls.

Black Forest Cupcakes

Ingredients

90g dark chocolate, chopped. 115g unsalted butter at room temperature, 115g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons ground almonds, 150g self raising flour, 1 tablespoon cocoa powder, 2 tablespoons cranberry juice, 50g glace cherries, halved. To decorate: 100g dark chocolate, finely chopped, 100ml double cream, 1 tablespoon cranberry juice, 12 glace cherries

Procedure

Preheat oven to 180C. Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Do not let the bowl touch the water. Leave until almost melted, then set aside to cool slightly. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the melted chocolate, then stir in the almonds. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the mixture and fold in, followed by juice and glace cherries. Spoon the mixture into paper cases and bake in a preheated oven for about 20 minutes until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. To decorate, put chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream in a saucepan until almost boiling, then pour over the chocolate and leave to melt for about 5 minutes. Stir until smooth and creamy, then stir in the cranberry juice and leave to cool for about 1 hour until thick and glossy. Spread the frosting over the cakes and top with a glace cherry. Using a vegetable peeler, make some chocolate shavings and pop them on top of the cakes.