The DESSERTed Dinner Party - Christmas in July (in August)

     

      I know my blog has suffered neglect for so long now but a late blog post is better than never. This isn't a Christmas entry, but the theme is still Christmas as it's the Christmas in July edition of The DESSERTed Dinner Party dessert degustation/reverse dinner party that Ryan and I hosted in August (yes, August). We wanted to squeeze in at least one dessert degustation for 2014 despite renovations going on at my place and were keen to do the Christmas in July theme but the only time we could do it was the second week of August.

      We also usually give ourselves and our guests plenty of notice but this time with just a month to prep and manage rsvps, we weren't sure how fast or slow the uptake would be. We were worried about another mass influx of people wanting to come so were going to allocate seats raffle style but it seemed that with only a month's notice we were struggling to fill seats but all was good as we managed to get another good turnout of 20 of our friends in the end.

      Our Christmas in July menu, though it leans more towards Thanksgiving. Just realised I miss typed the hash tag but luckily most guests used the right one on the day except one stray photo from Jeroxie - sorry Penny! If you're on instagram and want to have a peek at the behind the scenes photos and photos of previous events search for the hash tag #desserteddinnerparty

      Transforming the back patio of Ryan's parents' place into our instant restaurant. I wanted to inject a bit of Christmas in the decorations but didn't want to go too overboard.

      We were also missing half the dream team with this event as Jessica was overseas and Celine attended with her mum as a guest instead. We managed to recruit our mate Phil and his girlfriend to stand in to help us but he had go solo in the end as his gf fell ill on the day but Celine couldn't help herself and still helped us out anyway - thanks guys!

      I packed everything but the kitchen sink over to Ryan's place. As we were still in the middle of renovations at home I couldn't do any prep at home.

Our run sheets for the week and the day of.

Mulled Wine.

       As our guests arrived they were warmed up with some mulled wine.We held this dessert degustation earlier in the afternoon due to it being winter. Though it was a bit of an odd time as it was a very late lunch/afternoon tea time. Some people were running late coming from other appointments and some had to leave on full stomachs only to have to eat all over again soon after. Hopefully next time we can have it at a more decent time and it will be indoors so we don't have to worry about our guests being left in the cold.

      First Course: Christmassy Bread and Butter Pudding with Brandy Custard.

      Ryan and I absolutely love bread and butter budding and we make a pretty mean one. This was a combined effort and we decided to put a Christmas spin on it and spiked the pudding (made with baguettes) with mixed spices and nutmeg and made a brandy creme anglais to go with it. Something so simple was surprisingly a big hit with everyone. Instead of individual serves Ryan thought it might be a nice way to start off with a shared dish so I found these cute little pots on sale. I was worried that the serving was too large but most of the pots came back empty. We almost forgot about serving spoons and bowls for everyone but that's why we have helpers on hand.

Second Course: Sweet Potato Fries with Maple Cinnamon Mayo.

      I accidentally switched the order of the savouries on the run sheet so we served up the fries as the second course or first savoury 'palate cleanser' to break up the sweetness in between courses. I love love love sweet potato fries. This dish is actually inspired by the baked sweet potato side from Outback Steakhouse where it's served with a dollop of whipped honey butter which I absolutely love. I did a bit of googling for some ideas for a sauce/dip for the fries and came up with the whacky combination of mayo, maple syrup and cinnamon. Ryan thought I was absolutely crazy until he tasted it. We knew we had a winner and everyone loved it too.

      I know I'm the dessert queen in the relationship but to keep it fare and balanced I assigned one dessert to Ryan. I loved the pumpkin pie he made for our Christmas lunch with friends a few years ago so requested that he make it again. He decided to put a modern twist on it.

Production line.

Third Course: 'Pumpkin Pie' - Pumpkin puree, macadamia crumble, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin chips, hidden pop rocks and eggnog ice cream.

      I loved Ryan's deconstructed pumpkin pie. Most people loved it, apart from a few whom thought it didn't work for them. Ryan took this feedback to heart but you can't please everyone! I think overall Ryan did a fantastic job. I loved all the different textures and flavours but you still got the essence of a pumpkin pie in every bite.

Fourth Course: Roast Turkey Sliders with Cranberry Coleslaw on home made Brioche Buns.

      Second savoury 'palate cleanser'. Even though the Americans have Turkey for Thanksgiving, I think we here in the land down under tend to eat it for Christmas. I thought some roast turkey sliders would be a cute idea as another savoury course. I made my own brioche buns however they were a bit on the dense side this time, baking in winter can get tricky and my dough didn't rise was much as I wanted it too. We also forgot to check on the seasoning of the turkey and Ryan went a bit overboard adding the onions into the coleslaw. Good idea but we could have improved a little bit on the execution of the elements.

      For the last dessert I wanted to do something special, something that would make everyone go 'wow'. Something that would push me out of my comfort zone, with multiple components, textures and flavours. I actually did a similar dessert a while ago which I called my 'rose garden' and one of my friends who tried it said that it should be on the menu for our next dessert party. I decided to give it a Christmas spin and I was really keen on making an edible Christmas Bauble so it was an amalgamation of that dessert and some ideas that I found while doing some research online and looking at different pastry chefs for inspiration.

      The other menu items we had were quite straight forward to prepare and considering Ryan was on his own for one dessert, this allowed me to get a bit technical. I attempted to temper chocolate for the first time, and picking the trickiest chocolate to temper - white chocolate. I also wanted to try my hand (or to be more specific get Ryan to try it) molecular gastronomy and wanted to make some spheres but we didn't have enough time to experiment so I had to resort to plan b which was the jelly. Ryan did help me a little on my dish though, mainly making my edible snow for me and also helping to cut my marshmallows up.

Fifth Course: 'Christmas Bauble' - White chocolate shell, strawberry mousse, rosewater meringues, vanilla marshmallows, pistachio praline, strawberries, cucumber jelly, coconut lime snow.

      My masterpiece - an edible Christmas Bauble. I was going to seal the two half spheres together but Ryan said that it was better to leave them unsealed so that the top half can be lifted off like a lid. Of course there were plenty of things I could do better, some of my tempered shells were uneven so some had a lovely crack whereas others were a bit thick due to the chocolate not tempering properly. The snow we could have done better too as there were some clumpy and gummy bits. But overall I was very very proud of my creation. I thought I was overly ambitious (and so did Ryan) but to be able to pull it off is so rewarding.

      All the flavours worked so well, and the cucumber jelly was a revelation. I wanted something refreshing to break up the sweetness and thought little exploding spheres would be nice but the jelly worked just as well. I even had someone reference this as the strawberry watermelon cake (from Black Star Pastry) and when I sat down later and ate some leftovers I could taste the resemblance.

      Not wanting guests to go home empty handed, I packaged up all the rest of the marshmallows into little gift bags.

      I also need to make a special mention to fellow food blogger and friend Thanh of the blog I Eat Therefore I Am who came all the way from Melbourne just to attend our dessert party. It started off as a joke over email but somehow on the Friday before the event we found ourselves picking him up from Sydney Airport. We hosted him for the weekend and ate a lot as food bloggers do. Here are some shots below from him.

      Thanks Thanh for the photos and thank you to all our wonderful friends and guests for coming along. Without you guys coming to support us we wouldn't be able to continue to do what we love. My parents place is just going through the final stages of renovations and will be the new location for future DESSERTed Dinner Parties. We look forward to doing it all again in 2015 and hope to see some new faces come along too. Life is short, eat dessert first.

The DESSERTed Dinner Party presents 'An Oriental High Tea Party'

      An Oriental themed high tea, who doesn't like the sound of that? For our third and final DESSERTed Dinner Party for 2013 last November, this is the theme we decided to do. As it was a high tea, we changed it from a later 'dinner' time start to a lunchtime/early afternoon start.

      I kept the decorations simple this time around, a few pretty paper lanterns from the discount store and some pretty parasols.

      And of course I had to make a special trip to the flower markets early on my day off to grab a few bunches of my favourite flowers. I love love love peonies and they were perfect for the theme, I was so glad they were in season.

      The other half of our dream team, Jess and Celine also helped with the decorations, redoing our chests and giving them an oriental spin with some pretty paper they had bought from Japan. They made signs with different Asian translations for 'feedback' and 'donations'.

      I was going to just grab some red envelopes but ran out of time to go buy them so sent one of our mates out to buy some for me. He returned with a couple of packets of red pockets from the local Asian grocers - such a smart cookie!

      Some more hanging paper lanterns and Ryan's dad also excitedly contributed with the hanging red things that he had in storage when he heard that we were holding an Asian themed party.

      We were worried that it was going to rain that weekend but luckily for us the weather turned out perfect. Even though everything is undercover the weather can have an impact on the ambiance.

      Individual place settings. Celine made some gorgeous name cards for our guests, I was very impressed at all the effort that was put in :) It doesn't show here but she even wrote out each person's name in Japanese characters too.

      And what's an oriental themed party without some origami? Some beautiful paper cranes (also made by Celine) to decorate the tables. It was a little breezy so we hid a few of the smaller cranes under the tea cups as a little surprise for our guests.

      Box of paper cranes and name cards that Celine and Jessica beautifully hand crafted for our high tea.

      I bought some mini bamboo steamers and filled them with fortune cookies and lychee jellies. There were meant to be some kopiko (coffee) candy too but I forgot to pack them.

      Ryan and I did a lot of brainstorming for this menu. We felt that the last menu for our Winter Warmers dessert party fell a little short of our expectations (mainly due to technicalities), so we made sure that this menu would be a winner not only with the way it read but also that it would be items that we would be able to pre-prepare in mass. We had to have to have everything ready to be served when the guests arrived (and an earlier start time), compared to the last two dessert parties where everything was served up by course (and a later start time).

     The menu was made up of flavours and things that we liked to eat so it was quite a personal composition. I wanted an Asian flavoured tea to go with the food and chose the T2 blend of China Jasmine which is one of my absolute favourite teas to drink. It's a very mild green tea base which has been infused with the delicate flavour of Jasmine. An homage to the Jasmine tea that you would get when you have Yum Cha. I also decided to make an iced tea blend as it was a warm spring day. Ryan suggested that I make my famous Honey Lemon Earl Grey iced tea but as I wanted to keep with the Oriental theme I decided to replace the Earl Grey with an Oolong tea instead.

Lychee and Rose Cake.

      Lychee butter cake with rose buttercream. I first made this cake for food blogger Jenius' wedding, it was such a hit and these are such great flavours for an oriental themed party that I had to recreate the cake.

Mum's Cassava Cake.

      I am addicted to this cake that my mum makes and I thought it was only fitting that I asked her to make it for our high tea. It is so heavily fragrant from the coconut cream and mung bean and cassava that she uses, I always find it hard to stop at one piece. 

Leche Flan and Miso Caramel Macarons.

      Ryan raves about my Leche Flan (Filipino Creme Caramel) and his mum even said that my version is 'almost' as good as the Filipino one so I suppose I should take that as a compliment. I felt a bit disappointed with this time though because I was baking them for the first time in these Chinese tea cups so was a little off with the baking time resulting in quite a firm custard. Also too much sugar syrup at the bottom because I misjudged the depth of the cups. Most people didn't seem to mind though which is a good thing I suppose.

      The Miso Caramel Macarons were made by Jessica this time. I had taught Jessica how to make them and was confident enough to ask her to contribute an item to the high tea :) She was nervous on how they would turn out but I thought they were pretty perfect. They tasted pretty awesome and the miso caramel was a great balance of sweet and salty. And look at how perfect they look.

Pandan Waffles.

      These were a MUST HAVE item on our menu. Our waffle maker had died a few years ago and I only had a Belgian waffle press so had to go out and buy a waffle maker especially for this high tea. It had to be the heart one as it's the signature look of the pandan waffles that most of us South East Asians grew up eating (or you may have eaten these on the streets of Cabramatta). You can find my recipe here.

Matcha Scones.

      Scones with jam and cream are an integral part of any high tea/afternoon tea in my books so I wanted to give them an Asian spin to fit with the theme. I decided to make matcha flavoured scones but these could have done with a bit more matcha (green tea) powder in them. I had to put some green colouring in as they were looking a bit grey green which wasn't very appealing. I also reduced the sugar a bit but that may have been a bit of a mistake combined with the weak matcha powder it meant the scones were a bit on the bland side.

Azuki Bean 'Jam' and Coconut Cream.

      A winning flavour combination is matcha (green tea) and azuki bean (red bean). I made a red bean paste and whipped up some coconut cream to go with the matcha scones. First time ever to try whipping coconut cream and the result was amazingly light and fluffy. To make it you just pop an unopened can of coconut cream in the fridge over night, shake it before opening and then pop it in a mixer with some icing sugar and use the beater attachment to whip it up. A great diary free alternative to whipped cream.

      Serving suggestion for the scones. Together with the 'jam and cream' the scones were pretty awesome.

Crispy Pork Belly Mini Banh Mi.

      Ryan is the brain behind our savoury items. Well, I'd like to say we make a great team in the kitchen because we're always bouncing ideas off each other and the best results are usually when we collaborate which is how our savoury items for the high tea came about. Ryan makes a kick ass roasted pork belly and I knew that we had to make a 'Banh Mi' to go on the menu as it is quintessentially only THE BEST Vietnamese sandwich to grace the tier of our Oriental high tea spread. We did under estimate how far the pork would stretch though even with making mini rolls, managing to make just enough for one mini banh mi for everyone with a few extras for lucky seconds. Next time we'll make double the amount of pork.

      We had a bit of a fusion (or confusion) theme with these mini Banh Mi. We made sure that we made the pickled carrot and white raddish (Ryan made this under mum's watchful eye), but we didn't have enough time to make the pate so Ryan suggested using 'Mang Tomas', a Filipino pork liver sauce (very popular and especially used for pork) in place of the pate. Combined with Kewpie (Japanese) mayo (because I ran out of time to make the mayo and who doesn't love Kewpie mayo) and the Sriracha hot sauce, it was a winning trifecta of sauces for our Banh Mi. Mind you, we hadn't tasted this combo together before so we were crossing our fingers and toes that it would work and boy was it a hit with Ryan's awesome crispy crackly roast pork. We dubbed it our 'Confused Banh Mi'.

Satay Chicken Spring Rolls (served with Satay/Peanut dipping sauce).

      Ryan is a sucker for Satay, he'd put satay sauce on everything if he could. Satay pizza on the menu? You'll know what he'll be ordering. I didn't want to just make your regular satay chicken or beef on a stick. Ryan suggested we make little fried wonton cups and fill them with a satay meat mix. I thought the wonton cups would be a little bit too fiddly and time consuming to make and came up with the idea of the spring rolls. I've got to admit that was pretty genius. And I LOVE my spring rolls. Instead of using minced meat I very finely hand diced some chicken thigh meat and marinated it in a satay mix and Ryan made a satay/peanut sauce to go with them.

Yaki Onigiri (Grilled Japanese Rice Balls).

      These are Ryan's babies. I said that we needed a third savoury item on the menu ( because three always sounds better than two) so Ryan wanted to make these Japanese Rice Balls, inspired by Adam Liaw's Destination Flavour - Japan. Ryan has travelled to Japan before and is a bit obsessed with most things Japanese. These little balls of grilled rice brushed with a miso butter soy sauce were so simple yet so delicious. Ryan put his own little spin on it but you can find Adam's original recipe here.

      Before we had even planned this high tea I had stumbled across these Maxwell and Williams 'Kimono' design cake stands on sale and went and bought four of them for personal use. Jessica happened to have one in the same design but in pink but it worked out well that they were all matching and worked into the Oriental high tea theme.

Filled cake stand on the table.

      There wasn't enough room on the cake stands so we've used these bamboo boards for the overflow.

      We really did try to stretch all the pork out to offer our guests seconds (seriously, who else offers seconds at high tea?). We ran out of coriander sprigs though.

Our guests enjoying themselves and our Japanese waitresses serving tea.

      The one thing we enjoyed about the high tea was that because everything was already made, we were able to spend some time mingling with our guests who were all our friends, or friends of our friends and be proper hosts rather than being cooped up in the kitchen pumping the dishes out. Hence why we rely on our two girls to make sure everything is running smoothly in the 'dining room' while we are busy in the kitchen.

      And because I am always the hostess with the mostess, rarely letting my guests leave a party empty handed, I made some rose marshmallows for them to take home. They were originally meant to be jasmine flavoured but the jasmine tea I tried steeping for the sugar syrup was just not strong enough so I had to go to plan b. I don't think many of them actually even made it home with the guests. I should have given these to them as they were walking out not while they were still sitting down.

      Our DESSERTed Dinner Party dream team, Celine, Ryan, me and Jessica. The girls wanted to wear their Kimonos which they had purchased from Japan which was very cute. Thank you team for all your hard work resulting in another successful event. Can't wait to do another one soon!

      We usually ask our guests for donations to help us cover the costs of running these dessert parties (we don't pay ourselves for our time and labour) and this time we all agreed that we would donate most of that money to charity to help the Typhoon Haiyan victims in the Phillipines. (In case you didn't know, Ryan, Celine and Jessica are Filipino (or Filipina) and I thought that this was a worthy cause that was close to home for them). We chose the Caritas Typhoon Haiyan emergency relief appeal, one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies, The Catholic Agency for Aid and Development. Thank you Ryan, Celine and Jessica and also to all our friends and guests for your generous donations towards this cause.

      I usually don't let people in to our work space because a) the kitchen is very cramped with the two of us frantically working and b) I can't work with people watching over my shoulder and constantly talking to us and distracting us. This time though I let one lucky person into the kitchen with his camera. The following few photos (including this one) are from our talented food blogger friend/photographer Simon (from The Heart of Food). I absolutely love this photo as I really enjoy watching Ryan when he cooks and is in his element. And the food that he plates up at the end of it - I really do miss it since he's been so busy with work to cook for us. I guess we're both lucky to still be living at home though we've been eating out a lot lately.

      What started out to be a bit of an experiment for me to play with desserts and serving them to a wider audience has turned out to be a very successful and in demand event amongst our friends. Ryan and I are keen to run at least one or two more dessert parties this year, possibly reverting back to the original format where we serve 3 courses of desserts with savoury 'palate cleansers' in between to break up the sweetness. We're on a bit of a break at the moment as my parents kitchen where I do all my prep work for the dessert parties during the week has been ripped out for extensions to the house and a brand new kitchen will be built. Once that is done, we can start planning the next dessert party. I usually post up the details on facebook but I recommend you subscribe to our email list as the high tea got booked out within 24 hours all via email.

Until next time friends, remember - 'Life is short, east dessert first'.