Just a lazy afternoon tea

When I was at university I used to often miss those big weekend meals where the entire family would wolf down a heavy lunch and laze around the rest of the day. It was almost like a tradition. Late lunch, conversation, a nap, tea and biscuits; that’s how the day would go. Unfortunately when you are a student away from home those big meals are hard to come by. If you were able to open a bag of frozen veggies and mix it into your two minute indomie noodles, that would be special enough.

But what is really great about the weekends is everyone coming together. The amazing feeling you get surrounded by people and their stories and while insults and fights do occur, these are the days that are most memorable. Lately I’ve been feeling like the week drags on forever with no inspiration. So I decided that it was time to change things up a bit. Take a break from the dinners and have a nice cozy tea party with friends. Escape the loneliness for a little while.

Why tea? Well If I were completely honest, I like the little plates of food; the decadent and the savoury, crockery adorned in floral motifs, lace table cloths, the little cubes of sugar, the ribbons and the hats! If I could make all my guests dress up to suit the theme of my dinners and teas, I really would! However for right now I’ll just resort to people actually wanting to come eat my food over them finding my little shindigs troublesome.

 The menu!

• White chocolate and cherry macarons

• Orange glazed cookies

• Raisin stuffed cookies

• “Purple sparkle” cake pops

• Shrimp spring rolls with peanut sauce

• Pickle and salami canapés

• Mint and cucumber tea sandwiches

• A fruit platter of honeydew melon, plum, grapes and strawberries dipped in chocolate

• Ceylon tea (eh what else would I serve in my household)

• Lemongrass ice tea

It was exciting making smaller quantities of various kinds of food. Time consuming? yes, but a lot of fun! I tried my best to have a combination of simple things as well as complicated on the menu. There were those that I had made before, orange glazed cookies, cake pops etc.. as well as those that were first timers; macarons, spring rolls etc...

Macarons became a bit of a dilemma but I managed to scrape through. You can read about it here! I had never used wonton/ spring roll sheets before and I blew a big sigh of relief to find out how easy they were to use, especially when I was cramming for time. Everything eventually did fall into place, definitely a better success than my previous dinner when I had a bit of an accident cutting into my finger...boooo....

I even managed to find time to design some name cards. And of course in my books everything needs ribbons! Check out the next couple of entries for more on the menu!

Im back with the big dinner #2!

Those who know me well would already know how much I love big dinners, the preparation, the decoration, the theme and most importantly the food!
Ever since I got to Oman, its been days of working, dreaming about food and procrastinating on uni applications. Really really need to get around to it! No really!

My sister and cousin were in town so it meant more nights of long movies (I was always the first to nod off), idle chat and no sleep. Both of them are going back to uni soon while I remain behind still trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life. Its been lovely to be back home, no doubt but living here can sometimes be incredibly boring. Which means that most of the time you need to come up with things to amuse yourself like this dinner....
I figured ... a going away dinner? Why not?

For sometime now I have been really drawn towards pastels and neutrals, lace, flowers, the classics, stamps, postcards and antiques. There seems to be so much beauty and sentiment in things that have been collected over the years, so for this dinner I wanted to dress everything up to look pretty, elegant and detailed.
Scavenging through the house I came up with ;
 

 A whole load of old and new put together to set the mood perhaps?

 

Postcards and a few classic novels

 

An old pendulum clock, jewellery and a picture of my brother and mum

 

Dad's old briefcase and stamp album from when he was 12

 So here's me setting the mood with little vanilla cupcake, pomegranate fizz and my 'vintage' (almost) set up.  

 

Ditched the napkin rings for some peach ribbon and added a tiny bouquet of flowers to each setting. To make the bouquet I folded a sheet of dolly paper into a cone... thats it, but the little lace-like dolly paper added a little interesting detail

The Menu

Amalfi Salad

Ricotta and walnut ravioli

Prawn stuffed chicken rolls wrapped in turkey bacon

Poached pear

Keep posted for more on the food!

Cake Pops

Those of you on Facebook may know that for some time now I've wanted to make sweets for a baby shower. Not that I suddenly have the desire to be surrounded by all things baby, but mostly because I am intrigued by making all things miniature. Having followed Bakarella's blog for so long I finally got around to making cake pops! I probably should have made them a long time ago but other than the cake ball itself it is impossible to find the rest of the ingredients here in Oman. There is no way you'd come across candy coatings, funky sprinkles or even ready made fondant...... other than Dr Oetkers's White Regal-Ice Ready to Roll Icing! Now I came across this very recently and I solemnly hope that I continue to find it here. At least there is this and compared to reliving my horrible attempt at making pouring fondant, this is a life saver! Oh the effort and the mess.... no definitely NOT making fondant again!!

I used a white cake and mixed in classic chocolate icing. Now that I think of it, I probably should have used velvet cake, as it would have looked much nicer to bite into. However when I was making the cake I had no idea what the outside was going to look like so chocolate cake it was!

see! cute little baby girl pops :D

Making these cake pops have completely been based on me using what ever I could find. Didn't have Styrofoam so I used a white pizza box :D.... Didn't have any molds so I used a cookie cutter for the flower and cut the bows out with a knife. To add the tiny details I used..... pottery tools!! Im not saying that having the right tools is unnecessary, but if you are going for something super simple like these you wont need a lot.

What I initially wanted to do was make white and pink polka dotted pops, but that was almost impossible without the right cutters. So there you go. If you can find them buy the right tools and surely you'd be able to come up with really creative and neat my father keeps pointing out that my pops are irregularly shaped x) cake pops!

I told the sister-in-law that I needed her to hold the cake pops so I could get some pictures. She got super excited as you can see, got all dressed up :D earrings and all 

I've got some marzipan left from a pound cake I made sometime back so I think I'm going to try and make more cake pops before I leave.  I want a duck mold to make duck pops.. Has anyone seen one around?

 

Happy cake popping!