Mum's birthday party

Mum's Birthday Party: More preparation....

7/12/2008 12:57:00 AM

I must be insane. It's 1am, I had work today and I'm still up cooking!!!!! At last the last batch of gruyère choux puffs is in the oven and I have a chance to blog.

After work, I hit the supermarket. Then, at home, I blind-baked 3 shortcrust pastry cases, cooked a lot of mushrooms (for quiche filling) chopped and prepped red onions, bacon, chicken and parsley, all stowed away in little Decor TellFresh containers.

Some photos....

One shelf of my freezer last night - madeleines, ricotta and chive puffs, shortcrust pastry in bags.

The croquembouche mould... fashioned from cardboard, foil, and stickytape. I'm MacGyver. (Made this one yesterday).

One (of 3) blind-baked shortcrust pastry cases.

Mushrooms cooked in butter with garlic, parsley and spring onions. Filling for the quiches.

Gruyère puffs = choux pastry + grated gruyère cheese. The recipe was emailed to me by a friend. When I piped them out, they were disappointingly flat and liquid, but they baked up good! In fact, when the first tray was in the oven, I was convinced they'd stay flat, and I nearly threw out all the mixture. However, they did puff up after about the 15th minute. Thank goodness I didn't chuck out the mixture!

Wet dough...
Decently puffed up dough.
My dough only made 36 puffs (not enough), so I whipped up another half-batch of choux pastry, but used the Roux Brother's choux recipe, which is a lot stiffer (heheheh) and easier to pipe. It held its shape better. They will be kept in an airtight container, and will be re-heated in the oven on the night.

Next: pre-prepped stuff in the fridge. From my various kitchen and cafe and hospitality jobs, I've learnt that pre-prep is the key to fast service.

From top left hand side: chopped parsley, chopped bacon, chopped red onion, chopped cooked chicken, cooked mushrooms (in the blue container), defrosting sweet shortcrust pastry (in the pink box).
1.5kg of beef chipolata sausages and some prosciutto.
1.8L of cream (for the croquembouche), butter, almond meal, stuff for the cheese platter.

I am absolutely fucking knackered. But with all this pre-prep, the actual night should be a breeze, right? Right...?

Goodnight everybody!

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7 comments

  1. Hi. I just stumbled upon your blog and I absolutely love it. It was the Daimaru posts that I first read (was in Japan last year and also loved the food area...holy cow), but I just kept reading. Will definitely stop by again.

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  2. Gadzooks! Sarah, you are the best. daughter. ever.

    Such dedication. I commend you! :)

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  3. Holy smokes. That's a lot of work after work. I hope it all runs smoothly on the day.

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  4. Those choux puffs sound delicious. Good luck for the party :)

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  5. Good luck for the party! Hope that you got a good nights sleep :)

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  6. This is more exciting than the Oscars red-carpet preview. I hope you got a little sleep.
    Have a GREAT time! Colin would be so proud.

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  7. Thank-you everyone!

    I'm glad the party went well. Now I'm having a very relaxing week, hehehe.

    xox Sarah

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