Project Baking: A Mother's Day Tea, 2025

Cooking Discussions Baking, Sweets
181

Second pass:

Removed dill
Added snipped chives

Added a little rice wine vin
Added a tiiiiiiny bit of Dijon
Removed celery salt

Everything else the same as trial #1:

Chicken
Celery
Apple
1:1 sour cream and Mayo
Salt

I think I liked yesterday’s better (except for the dill) which is odd. Today I also ate it on the intended slider rolls (Hawaiian “savory butter” rolls) vs yesterday on a lettuce leaf. Today I felt it needed something and I couldn’t figure out what; added some black pepper and that was better. It would be funny if celery salt had such a big impact! It could also be that the bread dampened the flavor.

I’ve made a separate test sandwich, set it aside, and set a timer for 60 minutes. We will see how it fares.

Also, as I feared, it’s hard to get the chicken salad to stay in the bun without spilling out. I dug a little cavity in the second test bun before filling it. Doing this for the party would be annoying, to say the least.

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182

60 minute test:

The sandwich was perfectly fine, even though I didn’t cover it at all, just left it naked on the plate:)

So if I DO cover them as I make them (per @Nannybakes suggestion) before the party, to guard against drying out, I’m confident they will be more than fine.

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183

Shredding the chicken might make it less likely to squish out of the bun

And serving some on lettuce leaf might be nice for the carb watchers. Not traditional but save the carbs for the Bundt buffet

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184

On Little Gem leaves would be perfect.

Also, endive leaves hold up well, various fillings. I buy excellent ones at TJ, great prices.

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Next day report on pass #2:

Mom and I both liked it, but both thought there was a little something-something missing. I guess celery salt is coming back for pass #3 :slight_smile: I just checked the ingreds for “celery salt” and it’s just celery seeds and salt. So it could be that pass #2 was simply undersalted.

It was a bit watery from the overnight rest. Easy enough to drain off though, which I did. Another note, the apples didn’t visibly oxidize, likely because they were covered in mayonnaise.

I might separately portion, chop and store everything except the apples the night before. Morning of, dice the apples and throw everything else (already measured out) into a big bowl, mix, done. I can outsource all of that to a helper.

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186

That’s exactly how I would do it mig, sounds perfect! It won’t take long to fold everything together and the taste will be nice and fresh…Brava!!

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187

Thanks. I still have a ways to go with testing for this event, but this feels like progress.

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Definitely, I think you are ahead of your game from last year. The chicken salad was a big decision to get finalized.

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189

Just had my final test of the cake. I don’t find it special enough for this event. Back to the drawing board.

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190

You are too much of a perfectionist. Im sure any of your baking would be much appreciated.

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191

Thanks for the kind words. Many/most of the ppl at this event have eaten my cakes before so I don’t want to trot out the same old recipes. Also it’s a forcing function for me to keep trying new things. Otherwise I’d make the same three recipes over and over forever.

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well, well, well, look what the algo served me today: “best chicken salad” (gift link to NYT Cooking.) tell you what i’m not going to do, and that’s cook chicken like that for 30+ people.

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What is the age range of your guests? FWIW, some elderly have difficulty masticating longer pieces of chicken shreds without cutting them down.

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How are you thinking of doing it? I get the most tender b/s chicken in the slow cooker (really IP).

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Did you look at the various chicken salad threads here? Lots of good ideas.

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God, I am so tired of chicken salad.

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The sacrifices you make in pursuit of your goals!!

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198

It’s the weekend, which means time to recipe test for the tea!

I’ve got a churro bundt in the oven. If this gets added to the menu, I’ll just call it a “cinnamon-sugar donut bundt.” I’m not sure about the chocolate sauce - I’ll make a small test batch, minus the pepper.

This recipe is appealing for a couple of reasons: approachable flavor profile, nice contrast to the other to flavors I’m making, and no out-of-season or exotic ingredients.

Fingers crossed.

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Your dedication to this is so amazing, and so loving.
Thanks for sharing with us.

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I just like eating cake, any excuse will do!

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