Good morning all...


Sorry for the late posting. I started a new accounting course today and was out of the house, and away from my computer. (I know, what great timing, huh?) Funnily enough, I felt disgustingly hungover even though I didn't have a single drop of alcohol last night! Must be this stupid cold.

I wanted to tell you all that the party was a big success!!! We all had a great time, there was heaps of food, and despite some huge dramas, the croquembouche managed to (just) hold together for the whole evening. My balls went down very well. (Ooh, cheeky!) I have never seen my house that crowded! Fun, fun fun.

Anyway, while I'm going through the photos from last night, please enjoy this photo of my breakfast. It was quiet, the kitchen was clean, and I was totally relaxed. I had one leftover raspberry frangipane tartlet, one chocolate choux ball, and a madeleine with a cup of tea. Perfection.

Good morning everybody!

Today is the big day. And guess who's not having any alcohol at the party? ME! This morning I woke up with a headache and a wicked sore throat. No prizes for guessing why I'm run down. Although I will add that working in the semi-outdoors in what felt like gale-force winds didn't help. Anyway, I've started my day with honey, tea and panadol, and I will keep myself doped up throughout the day. Obviously, med + alcohol = not good for your health, so if I keep needing panadol throughout the day, there will be no alcohol tonight for me. BOOOO.

And I should quickly mention - we hired 2x18 champagne flutes, 2x18 wine glasses and 18 beer glasses. Dad's bought 12 bottles of champagne, 12 bottles of white, 6 bottles of red (plus extras from Dad's cellar), 1 of campari, 1 of plum wine, and lots of coke/OJ/soda water. I'm bringing out a bottle of Pimm's from my private collection, and I'll have to send my brother out to get cranberry juice to go with it.

Dad is polishing the glassware, we're about to have birthday noodles and I've got some pumpkin roasting in the oven now. Here are some photos from last night. My kitchen looks like an pastry kitchen. YAY!

Last night everything ran smoothly, except for a drama with the sewing machine. As you know, Mum's supposed to be sewing the table runner, and late last night we realised that we'd lent the sewing machine to my aunty months ago and hadn't gotten it back yet. ARGH!!!! Luckily though, our uncle managed to drop it off at our house.... but didn't realise that he hadn't brought the plug for the machine! (So important). So my aunty came around at 12:30am to drop it off. Phew. Crisis averted.

Ok, the cooking.

1 quiche with mushrooms and cheese, ready for the cream/egg mixture.
Kitchen at around 7pm...
Spice mix for pumpkin...

Sweet shortcrust pastry for raspberry/blueberry frangipane tartlets. A last-minute addition to the menu.
Easy to use, lovely to roll out.

Filling the tartlets... no blind baking required.

The kitchen at around 8pm...
Defrosted madeleines!
Risotto. Home delivered at around 8pm. I was not going to cook anything extra for myself. Let the good people at Benedetti's worry about that.
Baked raspberry frangipane tartlets, the first tray (of 3).

Baked quiches and some tartlets.

Inside a raspberry frangipane tartlet. This one was "tested" by my mum and dad!

Decorating supplies, plus the savoury gougeres.
Choux pastry for the croquembouche!!

Baked balls. I only got 70 out of the mixture, which is the perfect amount for 35 people. As you know, "we recommend 2 balls per person". Mum says "of course, lah, otherwise people walk lopsided!".
Anyway, I didn't think there would be enough balls to cover my cone, so I whipped up another 1/4 batch. The Roux Brothers' recipe says it makes 110 balls. I must have bigger balls than them.
Testing to see if they'll cover...


Leftover bit of Careme sweet shortcrust pastry. Cook's treat!

Pumpkin. Spiced, ready for roasting.

Excess pastry shells. Not enough frangipane to go around.

My kitchen at around midnight... (notice: boiled beans for a canape, gladwrapped madeleines, 3 quiches cooling, raspberry/blueberry frangipane tartlets cooling, choux balls + tower).

And now it begins again!

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!

Just realised, that despite all my long and detailed posts about Mum's birthday party, (on Sunday night) I haven't posted up the menu!!


Nibblies
Cheese Stars
The Union Square Cafe's Bar Nuts
Chilli Olives (store-bought)

Food to be Passed Around
Beans & Prosciutto
Natural Oysters & Prawns
Gruyère Choux Puffs
Chicken Gyoza
Flammkuchen
Pumpkin and Bocconcini Skewers

Bigger Food for the Hungry Hordes
Mushroom and Tomato Quiche (whole, not mini)
Beef Chipolatas with Bread Rolls and Mustard


Dessert
Cheese Platter (Brie, Cheddar, Blue, Muscatels, Guava Paste, Apple/Pear slices, Cornichons)
Croquembouche
Madeleines

Including the family, there will be 35 guests. As you can see, the menu is a bit of a mixed bag. My original (loose) idea for the theme was French, but after the trials I've adapted it a bit to suit our tastes. And I figure that with such a big group of diverse guests, people will just choose what they like to eat and leave the rest. I've previously written that I wanted a stew and salads, but I've scrapped that idea because I just could not cope with 35 plates and sets of cutlery.

2 more sleeps to go!

Flammkuchen

Small change of plans. I've scrapped the pissaladière as a canapé, and replaced it on the birthday menu with flammkuchen. I received the recipe via email this week (danke schoen!), and having loved it in Germany, had to try my hand at it. The dough is so easy to work with. I let my KitchenAid do the heavy kneading, and I was able to leave the dough overnight in the fridge before rolling it out, without it coming to harm. I topped them with sour cream, thyme and red onions. I added bacon pieces to half the flammkuchens, and diced cooked chicken to the others. It worked! It more than worked. It was amazing. Sour cream + onions = happy times. The whole flammkuchen was like a giant crunchy Arnott's shape. Hell yeah!

Although we loved the pissaladière, we loved the flammkuchen more. It's also a safer option, because lots of people, unfathomably, don't like anchovies.

So, with the flammkuchen decision made, let's go back to the party planning. If you're organising an event, it helps to be organised. Here's a small pic of this week's page in my Kikki.K Weekly Planner Pad.


Yesterday, I made a triple batch of shortcrust pastry (Nigella's recipe from How to Eat, naturally) and popped it in the freezer...

... baked those cheese stars I'd frozen... (The instruction: "DO NOT EAT!!" is more for me than for my family... they're so addictive!).


... and made more flammkuchen dough, letting it rise slowly overnight in the fridge.


Today, I kneaded and rolled out the flammkuchen dough. (I say "I kneaded", but in reality the KitchenAid dough hook kneaded, while I sat down and had a cup of tea and biscuit). It's really easy to roll the dough out very thinly. I think the buttermilk in the dough makes it extra pliable. I got 6 pieces out of the dough, and layered them between baking paper to stash in the freezer.


I also started preparing my paper cone mould for the croquembouche, following these instructions...

... and whipped up a triple batch of The Union Square Cafe's Bar Nuts (recipe from Nigella Bites).


I've just gotta buy some chilli olives from my fave Italian supermarket, and nibbles are sorted!

Who ever thought I'd be doing a whole post on decor and decorations? Not me! How things have changed since I started cooking. Nowadays I am totally obsessed with party planner to the stars Colin Cowie, and I am loving the process of choosing and making party decorations. In his lifestyle bible, Colin Cowie Chic (ooh, the cover is textured, like a crocodile-skin wallet. Such attention to detail!), Colin suggests that you choose a theme for your party and stick with it, right from the invitations, through to table settings, and to the dessert.

My mum's favourite colour is red! So that's a start. Obviously, just red won't look good, so we decided on a colour scheme of red and gold. (I know, could we be any more Asian?)

For the invitations, I had a few good walks around Kikki K, Pepe's Paperie and Riot Art and Craft for inspiration. With a bunch of good ideas, my bro and I had a bit of an Art Attack, and made them ourselves. We bought some sheets of red cardboard, red DL size envelopes, gold heart stickers, and pearly translucent paper. We cut the red card into 3, printed the invitation text on the translucent paper, and stuck the translucent paper onto the red card with the gold heart stickers. Then we sent them out. I didn't get a photo, and we've sent them all now, but they did look pretty good, even if I do say so myself.

The first photo in this post is of a sugar rosebud, from Cake Deco. I bought 5 of them (at $3.90 each - faint!) to decorate the croquembouche, and a few other supplies to assist with my croque-making. I found out from the staff that styrofoam cones don't come larger than 25cm in height. D'oh! So I'll either have to go free-form with my croque, buy a $100 metal mould, or fashion one out of cardboard and staplers, MacGyver style.

Stiff-syringe-icing set (easier than piping bags for injecting choux puffs), gold cachous, sugar rosebuds in the box, red ribbon.

The next day I went to Spotlight, for more supplies.

2 bunches of fake roses - only $2 a bunch! I'll be using a few of these around the bottom of the croque. They're not expensive like sugar or real roses, and are easier to maintain. At the shop, I hadn't decided if I'd definitely use them, but they were cheap, and I figured that they'd look pretty festive in a vase in the corner even if I didn't end up using them for croque decoration.


4.5 metres of red cloth. It's going to be a table runner for our island bench in the kitchen. I'll get mum to sew the ends in. Napery can be so expensive, but if you have basic sewing skills and a machine, you can save a lot of money and get more creative with your table settings. (I have no sewing skills whatsoever, but I'm very, very lucky that my mum does!)


More decoration stuff...

In the background we have a 2-tiered cake stand, which I picked up for $10 on sale at Matchbox.

These are some little teacups that we got as a gift from a family friend who used to own a Lebanese restaurant. Their gold colour fits in with our theme, and we can fill them with tea-light candles!

Now, speaking of candles, Colin says (yes, this will be a recurring theme) that having lots and lots of candles creates a great atmosphere for a night-time party, making everyone look younger and "as if they've just come back from somewhere fabulous". Sounds good to me! Dimming the lights and lighting candles will take our kitchen and lounge room from "drab to fab in an instant!" Excellent entertaining and home-organisation advice aside, those ostentatious little phrases are another reason I just love Colin.

I put my brother and his girlfriend on candle duty. Daniel is arty, and Su loves candles! They went to Ikea and came back with the following...

1. Potpourri

For strewing about the place. Scented flowers and candles are generally a no-no at a gathering where food is served, but it's going to be spread out, and potpourri never really gives off a strong scent unless you stick your nose right in it.


2. Little black plates for arranging candles. I LOVED these plates! Good work Dan & Su!


3. Candles in various sizes, and the essential tea-lights.



There are only 3 more sleeps to go until the party! Yay!