Italian buffet party menu

 

 

It’s the Italian Grand Prix and for Formula 1 Foods this time I’ve got not one Italian recipe, but a whole buffet menu!

 

We had family over for my boyfriend’s birthday earlier this year and I decided to do a buffet with a mixture of hot and cold food. I wanted to make sure there were a few fairly substantial dishes along with things like sausage rolls and hit upon the idea of giving the whole meal an Italian theme. There are so many things that work well for buffets, from pasta dishes to cold antipasti. Here’s a description of what I made and bought (after all who has the time to do an entire buffet from scratch?). As I was also catering for vegetarians I’ve noted which dishes are suitable with (v)

   

Cold food – nibbles and starters:

Bread sticks, aka grissini, with sour cream and chive dip which I bought (v)

 

 

 

Caprese salad of sliced mozzarella, tomatoes and basil leaves, drizzled with oil (v)

 

 

 

Antipasti: red peppers from a jar (v); stuffed olives (v); sliced salami and prosciutto

 

 

  

Hot food: nibbles and starters

Mozzarella sticks: mozzarella pieces in breadcrumbs which I bought from Iceland and cooked in the oven (v)

 

Sausage rolls – not really Italian but my boyfriend wanted them!

 

Garlic bread (v)

 

Mini margherita pizzas, which I bought and cooked in the oven (v).

 

Main dishes

Italian herb chicken mini fillets (from Tesco)

 

Tomato and mozzarella pasta bake (v)

 

Meatballs with farfalle pasta and tomato sauce

 

Tuna, cannellini bean and red onion salad with a mustard dressing (mix olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and garlic to taste). Can also do a portion without tuna for anyone who doesn’t eat fish.

 

 

 

Stuffed peppers, filled with risotto rice and melted mozzarella

 

 

 

Dessert:

Mini Profiteroles from Iceland – these are sometimes known as a French dessert but were apparently invented in Italy

 

Nigella’s cappuccino pavlova

 

 

 

I also served birthday cake, cupcakes and cookies, which you can read about here.

 

  

 I'm sharing this with Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host, as the theme this month is Italy.

 

 

Summer Strawberry-themed Baby Shower

Having a baby shower is really an American thing but like many US exports, the idea is becoming more and more popular over here. I’ve only been to one before, which was actually combined with the mum-to-be’s birthday; she received a selection of birthday presents which were mainly things she needed for the baby.

 

Then my friend P said she would like to have a small baby shower and we decided to make it the theme of a barbecue I was hosting at my house. I’m going to share with you some ideas for decorations, recipes and games if you want to host a baby shower yourself.

 

For three reasons: because it was summer; since P didn’t know if she was having a boy or a girl; and because I bought some cute strawberry-print tableware from Tiger, I decided to give the baby shower a strawberry theme. There’s also a connection between fruit and the idea of ‘be fruitful and multiply’ I suppose! So you could choose any theme of course, but if you wanted something along the same lines, any fruit would be quite fun for a baby shower I think.

 

I already posted a picture and instructions for a baby shower invitation which you can see here.

 

You don’t need to send out invitations, especially if there are a lot of people coming (stamps are expensive!) so you could email – or make one invitation, take a photo of it, and email that out.

 

I actually started with the decorations to decide the theme but if you didn’t do it that way, now is the time to think about what you want, as you may need time to make or source things.

 

There are loads of partyware websites with baby-themed paper cups, plates and napkins; most of them seem to be pink or blue but there are a few ranges available featuring animals for instance that would work for either gender. However, they tend to be expensive especially if you have to order oneline and pay postage (though do try Ebay) so my advice would be to try the pound shops or places like Tiger, and don’t feel it has to be baby-themed specifically. I bought these paper plates, cups and napkins from Tiger; I also got a tin tray with high sides that is perfect for carrying a round of drinks into the garden and a pretty ceramic strawberry bowl.

 

Also, bear in mind that while paper plates save on the washing up, many people prefer to eat from real plates!

If your party is outdoors like mine – or at least like mine started until it began to rain – you can put up bunting. The Dotcom Gift Shop sells some lovely bunting and I got this for mere pennies in their recent sale. This one you make yourself but it only takes minutes and everything is provided apart from the glue; they also sell lovely ready made packs.

 

I bought this Mum to Be rosette badge from Amazon and thought it was so pretty; if you have time you could make a badge or sash yourself.

 

I also had some pink and blue sweets, in little cardboard trays with the same strawberry design from Tiger. We challenged the father-to-be (who was at the baby shower as well, as my friends had come to stay for the weekend and the baby shower was part of that) to close his eyes and choose a sweet as a silly gender predictor and he chose pink – both times! We joked that the sweets had spoken... but he ended up having a son!

I also bought a baby shower cupcake stand from Amazon, made by the Wilton brand; it’s cardboard so can be flat packed and I can use it again or sell it – at some point I must go through my themed party decorations and get rid of the things I am unlikely to use again! It was very easy to assemble and looked very cute filled with cupcakes. I made pina colada cupcakes and chocolate blueberry cupcakes and added some rice paper baby shower cake toppers which I also bought from Amazon.

 

For the food itself we had a pretty straightforward barbecue; sausages and burgers, marinaded chicken and veggie skewers. The side dishes were a vegetarian pasta salad, potato salad and crusty bread with oil and vinegar to dip.

 

 

For dessert we had the cupcakes; I also served strawberries and cream in my bowl from Tiger, and made a vegan pavlova – there seems to be some debate about whether pregnant women can eat meringue with some websites saying yes and others saying no. I think the point is that you shouldn’t eat uncooked or undercooked eggs when pregnant and sometimes meringues can be a bit undercooked if they are gooey in the middle. So by making a meringue that didn’t use eggs – yes, such a thing is possible – we didn’t have that problem.

 

To drink I had Pimm’s and lemonade, and plenty of wine and beer, but also made some non-alcoholic cocktails and iced tea which were lovely – and in one case in keeping with the strawberry theme!

I also bought this great little chalkboard from Tiger and some chalk markers from Lakeland in the sale, which you can write very easily with and wash off, so I could write up a menu:

 

The father-to-be was very keen to play some games and suggested one where everyone cuts a piece of string from a ball of the length that they think will fit around the mum-to-be’s tummy and whoever has guessed the right length or closest wins. However I think some women are a bit sensitive about their size in pregnancy and even though we weren’t taking actual measurements, the mum-to-be wasn’t so keen on the idea. In any case I couldn’t find a ball of string!

 

Asking guests to share advice for first-time parents from their own experiences of having children is a popular baby shower activity but I would steer well clear of this unless you know that everyone coming has had children. It would be awful to have one person unable to offer advice and feel left out because they haven’t had children if they want children but haven’t had one yet.

 

I’ve heard about other games that involve tasting baby food, or one where the host buys disposable nappies and smears things like nutella on them, for the guests to pass around and smell and guess what it is. That actually sounds pretty gross to me!

I did prepare some games of course which were a lot of fun to play. First, we did ‘pin the dummy on the baby’. I bought a cheap poster of a baby’s face that came with some cut-out dummies and a blindfold; take it in turns to stick the dummy where you think the baby’s mouth is. You can buy games like this on Ebay and Amazon or even make your own. Don’t forget to buy something to give as a prize!

 

I also did a quiz in two parts; the first round gave a list of famous parents and famous children and guests had to pair them up. The second round was celebrity parents and the ‘unusual’ baby names they had chosen; again the idea was to match the correct ones up. I thought it would be a bit of fun but was surprised at how seriously everyone took it – and how much some of them struggled! I don’t buy celebrity magazines but knew who almost all of these people were (I got some of the names by Googling) but a few of my friends were completely stumped by a lot of the celebrities!

You should be able to open and save both games as PDF documents here:


 

 

I made a list and then rearranged them in a different order onto pages which I photocopied and handed out – make sure you keep one copy with the correct answers!

 

We did buy presents for the parents-to-be as well but didn’t go overboard; in my opinion this was a UK-style baby shower and not on quite the same scale as I’ve seen on American TV shows but it was a lot of fun!

Aston Martin Supercar Theme Party

 

 

This year my boyfriend’s birthday cake was in the shape of his new car – an Aston Martin – but I didn’t stop there. I decided to throw him a car-themed birthday party and you can do the same for anyone who is crazy about supercars, or cars in general.

 

 

As he’s an adult I wanted to steer clear (steer, geddit?!) of a Disney Cars theme, though it easy to pick up all sorts of partyware from many supplies if that is the theme you want. I wanted a more sophisticated supercar or Aston Martin theme.

 

I found these paper plates featuring a steering wheel and a related range of tableware on a couple of websites but unfortunately they were all out of stock so I ended up not buying any. There were others which might have worked but I felt were more of a Formula 1 theme than supercars.

 

When I made the birthday cake, I had some batter left over so used it to make cupcakes.

I'm not sure why they came out perfectly flat but that was just what I wanted!

I had ordered some rice paper discs printed with the Aston Martin logo from Ebay and put a circle of icing on each cake and the disc on top. I made the icing silvery-grey by using a little Dr. Oetker black food colouring – it’s hard to get a true black particularly with a liquid, but if what you are after is grey then this is perfect!
 

 

I also made some car cookies. A German company called Mein Cupcake which also has the UK website CakeMart contacted me recently and offered a selection of products to review and I had a wonderful time browsing their site and making a wish list. They have a massive range of baking and cake decorating supplies and the section on cookie cutters is outstanding. You can buy cutters in shapes I would never have imagined, from the Eiffel Tower to a peace sign to a guitar to the Facebook logo!  I was particularly taken by the cookie cutter in the shape of the head of one Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – I guess you could describe him as the German equivalent of Shakespeare – as I did my university dissertation on him!

 

That might sound very random but CakeMart is actually a German company, hence the odd Germanic-themed cookie cutter or Gugelhupf cake tin. But I was using the UK version of their site, which has prices in pounds (very good prices too – a high proportion of the cookie cutters are under £3 and there are a lot of great novelty cake tins around the £10 mark) and shipping in the UK is no more than you would pay from a UK –based site – in fact less as you can get free delivery if you spend over £65. Delivery time is 2-5 working days and my parcel arrived very promptly after only two days – the only thing I would mention is that the delivery confirmation I received by email was in German!

 

While I was browsing the huge range of cookie cutters I found this sports car one which I knew would be perfect for my boyfriend’s birthday:

 

Staedter is a very well respected German bakeware brand and the cookie cutter was very detailed and sturdy. It is easy to use – I learnt after a couple of attempts not to press right down or the middle sections would cut through the cookie dough. Instead, press almost the whole way and you end up with indentations showing the pattern – which come out perfectly after baking.

 

I didn’t want to decorate the cookies as the cutter makes them look so good just as they are, so I decided to make the cookies chocolate flavour. I used a basic sugar cookie dough recipe with cocoa powder added, which tasted delicious. I served them with some of the leftover chocolate ganache from the cake for dipping which was very well received as an idea!

 

So what else did my boyfriend have for his supercar-themed party? I wrapped his presents in Batman paper as I couldn’t find anything car-related and thought that as far as supercars go, the Batmobile is right up there!

 

I also managed to get him quite a few car-themed presents. His main birthday present was a car photography day at Brooklands, with Jason Dodd. He did this just before his birthday and really enjoyed it – they were a small group so had a lot of one-on-one support and tuition from Jason. The best thing was that my boyfriend was able to bring his own car so got some very professional looking photos of it; there were other cars available for them to photograph as well but I gather his car was the favourite!

 

 

I think the supercar theme works really well as a party whether it's for a teenager or an adult and I'm really glad I came across the car cookie cutters as they went perfectly with the cake.

Thanks to CakeMart for the cookie cutter to review. All opinions are my own.

Doctor Who Party Food - Recipes

Last week I wrote a blog post about throwing a Doctor Who themed party ahead of the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who. I included ideas for food, costumes, decorations and games, though I wasn't planning to do all of them myself. Last night was the Day of the Doctor and I gathered with my parents, my boyfriend and his mum to watch; I didn't throw a full themed party but planned a Doctor Who-inspired menu. I'll go through each dish that I made and give the recipes below.

For the party I made:

Fishfingers in custard (an Amy Pond favourite - and don't worry, it wasn't actually custard)

K9 dogs - hot dogs

Potato wedges

Adipose (mini marshmallow men)

Dalek cupcakes (Devil's food cake with Lakeland decorations)

Cybermen and K9 ginger cookies (as the Doctor has had several ginger companions)

Sonic Screwdrivers (screwdriver cocktail served in a flashing glass).

First I began by making the cupcakes, and decided that a Devil's food cake recipe was the most appropriate for the evil Daleks. This recipe is adapted from a little book called "Easy Cupcakes" from Marks & Spencer.

To make a dozen large cupcakes, you need:

100g margarine

225g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g plain flour

1 tsp bicarb of soda

50g cocoa powder

250ml sour cream

For the buttercream

200g butter, softened

400g icing sugar (adapt the quantity depending on how stiff the icing is, which will partly depend on how soft your butter is)

50g cocoa powder

For the filling: Nutella chocolate spread (optional)

To decorate I used these Dalek cupcake wraps and toppers from Lakeland 

Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the marg, sugar and cocoa powder in a large bowl,

Mix in the eggs and the soured cream until you have a smooth mixture.

This is the Dalek cupcake set. It costs £9.99 for not an awful lot - you get 24 cardboard cupcake wraps in four colours, and four matching heads which are also made of cardboard, with a pick you insert into the top of the cake. They are well made and really easy to use. The cupcake wrappers can fasten on three notches as well so you can adapt them to the size of your cupcake.

So here I have the cake batter

Spoon into cupcake or muffin cases

Bake in the preheaten oven for 15-20 minutes until the cupcakes have risen and a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cupcakes to cool on a wire rack.

I decided to fill the cupcakes by scooping out the top and adding a spoonful of Nutella, and then replacing the lid. I then piped chocolate buttercream in a swirl on top of the cupcake. Place the cupcake wrappers around the cake and put the Dalek head on top. I think these look great!

 


Next I made ginger cookies, to reflect the Doctor Who's companions Amy Pond, Donna Noble and Mel (Bonnie Langford) - were there any other ginger companions?

I used a simple sugar cookie recipe
100g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
200g plain flour
1 egg
2 tsp ground ginger

I actually ended up making two batches of this.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix the butter and caster sugar then mix in the flour until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency.

Mix in the ginger and the egg and knead into a dough

I use this cookie cutter set from Lakeland. You get a cybermen and a K9 cookie cutter for £4.99 which I think is good value. They are plunger cutters so leave an indentation on the cookie of the design, that looks really good.

Here are the cookies before they go in the oven

And after they came out

 I like how the cookies are decorated in the picture on the Lakeland website; you can use the same cutter on a piece of rolled out fondant to imprint the same design, then decorate it with silver balls and piping icing. I didn't have a huge amount of time so I decided to leave some of the cookies plain, and sandwich some of them together with leftover buttercream from my cupcakes.

I also used a tube of Dr. Oetker writing icing to pipe along the lines of the cookie. I was a little wobbly but it was very easy to follow the design so I think these look OK.

Setting out the cakes and cookies on the table

I didn't go to great lengths to decorate the house but I did buy this Tardis door poster from Ebay which I hung on the entrance to the living room.

I also couldn't resist making Adipose - from an episode of Doctor Who were diet pills make people's fat cells turn into little creatures that scurry away. I thought they were really cute! This is what they look like in Doctor Who on the left, and on the right is what they look like made out of marshmallow! I used a normal marshmallow for the body and two mini marshmallows for the legs, and a mini marshmallow cut in half for the arms - they are stuck on with a little buttercream but you could also use edible glue. I drew on the face with an edible ink pen which you can get from Amazon or cake decorating suppliers.

I bought some Doctor Who paper plates and napkins; here you can see a group of Adipose on a Tardis plate.

I made a screwdriver cocktail (which is just vodka and orange) and to make it sonic, I used a glass I got from Bubba Gump's restaurant in America - when you press the button on the bottom, the base and rim of the glass light up and flash! Now if that isn't a sonic screwdriver, I don't know what is...

The main courses were then cooked in the oven. There's an episode of Doctor Who I haven't actually seen yet as I am playing catch up, where a young Amy Pond gives the Doctor fish fingers dipped in custard. I added some yellow food colouring to a small bowl of mayonnaise which gave the desired effect!

And finally K9 (hot) dogs with onions. Did you watch the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode, and did you do anything like this?