Yeah that doesn’t surprise me, given the steep increase.
What about mini brioche sliders with chicken salad? They are quite moist. My MIL from the Midwest is a devout chicken salad fanatic.
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Mini quiche would be elegant but a bit fiddly.
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Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to make so many mini ones. I’d have to bake big ones and cut them up.
Does she have a favorite recipe?
Too bad I can’t make brioche buns. (This is not going to happen.)
It’s delicious with ½ mayo, ½ sour cream, learned that from Silver Palate.
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She’s pretty equal opportunity, but I think she especially likes the ones with grapes, dried cranberries, and pecans or walnuts.
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How about baking along the lines of “Pie Squared” and cutting in small squares?
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Here are two NYTimes recipes (gift links in case you need them) that I have made recently.
Stuffed Mushrooms. I used regular dry bread and Parmesan/Italian seasonings instead, but this is a very flexible recipe so you can vary the flavors to suit your guests;
Baked Brie Puffs. I used Dufour frozen puff pastry and they were wonderful. Leave off the chili crisp, and sub another flavor of jam if you like.
I haven’t made this particular recipe, but it’s a slab quiche and may be easier to serve than round ones.
Other suggestions:
Potato Leek Soup
Mini Potato Pancakes (with smoked salmon and sour cream??)
Lemon Bars for something on the sweet side
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This had crossed my mind too, not least because lower proportion of eggs.
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@iluvcookies Re: the slab quiche - that’s exactly what I had in mind. Thanks for the pointer to an existing recipe! I do have a NYT Cooking sub but it’s great to post gift links for those who don’t.
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I’m a little worried about how puff pastry bites would hold up.
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Other finger food ideas - Purchased phyllo cups, filled with small scoops of egg salad/ham salad/chicken salad.
Veggie pizza squares, using crescent roll dough as crust.
Bake your own shaped bread in tube-molds to slice for appetizer base or sandwiches.
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In terms of overall menu, everything that worked last year will be back on the menu. So:
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Cream scones - last year I made blueberry-lemon and apricot-ginger. I’ll test-run another flavor before the event to see if I want to switch out the apricot, otherwise I’ll go with the same two.
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Soup - I made a really surprisingly good carrot-ginger last year. I made it ahead of time and just reheated for the event. I’m poking around for other varieties this year, will test run a couple of things.
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Cake - last year it was Victoria sponge, which I left whole to be cut and portioned at the table. This year it’ll be some bundts instead. Thinking blood orange, lemon, and chocolate chip-pistachio. These will be so much better-tasting, not to mention they can be made several days in advance for best flavor.
Things to change:
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Instead of finger sandwiches, I might switch to quiche. If it passes my tests, I’ll bake large-format ones, but serve as slices/squares.
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Second sweet - last year, in addition to the cake, I made lemon-rhubarb-buttermilk cakelets, baking up a batter I already knew I liked into small-format cupcake tins, and decorating them with stabilized fruit-flavored whipped cream. The rhubarb made the cakes wet, which is what happens with all fruit baked in a cake, but it’s way worse with rhubarb. So I will test some replacements for this; might look at something like fancy cookies instead of fussy cake (jammers, for instance.)
I love cooking and baking with fresh, seasonal fruit more than almost anything in the world… .but in early May in SE PA, no local fruit is in season yet. That’s just my reality. Only a few weeks later and there would be local strawberries, the love of my life… but alas.
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Fruit. What about some kind of fruit curd? @Nannybakes fruit-i-misus with savoiardis and crème pat with fruit curds are haunting me. Thinking of making cranberry curd this weekend to get the monkey off my back.
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Love fruit curds! I have some Meyer lemons and I haven’t made any lemon this season.
The cranberry curd from the NYT cranberry curd tart is delicious although I have changed the way it’s assembled. Either ATK or CI has a really excellent cranberry curd.
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I have my eye on one that uses whole eggs on the Buttermilk by Sam website.
P.S. - I am not operating at your level at all. I aspire to be you!!
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That’s the NYT one by David Tanis!
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Here’s the one I currently use, I’m very pleased with it.
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