Birthday Celebrations

This week was my brother's birthday and farewell celebrations and I was given the honour of preparing some desserts and making little pizza's for a group of about 25 guys. Having grown up around mainly boys and knowing their ability to consume large amounts of food, I realised that a fair amount of food was needed, so I started a day early.

When there are a few people coming I prefer to make lots of small desserts (finger foods), rather than a big cake or tart, I just find it easier to serve and eat that way. As long as some of the desserts were made of chocolate, then I knew it would be fine. This made the decisions pretty easy: choc brownies, choc caramel slice, mini pavlovas and Greek almonds biscuits.

The choc caramel slice consists of 3 layers, so I started that the day before. It's not hard to make, it just needs time to set. The base is like a biscuit and is pressed down into the pan and baked. While that is baking I made the caramel, which requires continual stirring for 20 mins (definitely a good work-out for the arms). This is then poured over the biscuit base, cooked again, cooled and topped with a chocolate mixture.


Next dessert were the choc brownies which always go down well, and are easy as pie to cook! I think everyone prefers moist and rich brownies as opposed to dry ones, and these are the BEST brownies to make. Small, rich, gooey............ mmmmm! Never had a complaint haha

I also thought I would try make meringue baskets, however after that attempt failed (they cracked because I took them out of the oven too early), I opted for pre-made meringue baskets bought from the supermarket (I know that's cheating but they taste great and no-one would know any better).


On the actual day of celebrations, I decided we didn't have enough desserts, so in the morning I quickly whipped up some Greek Almond Biscuits. Threw all the ingredients into the mixer, and placed in the freezer to rest.
Problem # 1 - I forgot I had the dough in the freezer, so when I took it out to roll and put in the oven, the dough was frozen. After allowing the dough to defrost after about 2 hours (woops!), I rolled the biscuits and shaped into half-moons, and placed it in the oven.
Problem #2 - I made the biscuits too big so they flattened out quite a bit and overlapped a little. Ah well, I guess not everything can go as planned, at least they tasted nice!

Next I thought I would prepare some little pizza's as an entree to make sure there stomach's were satisfied. Unfortunately, I was neither in the mood nor had the ingredients to make my own pizza dough, but I usually prefer to use a nice Lebanese bread or already-made Italian pizza base anyhow. With all the ingredients cut up and ready, it was onto the assembly. The two types of pizza on offer were:
1) chicken, pesto and feta
2) margarita (tomato (five brothers) pasta sauce, tomato, onion, capsicum, four cheese pizza mix)

I find it is much nicer when the ingredients aren't all piled up onto the base, so I cut the Italian pizza base into small squares, spread a little bit of either pesto or pasta sauce, and then topped with a small amount of the remaining ingredients. Then popped it in the oven at 180'C for about 8-10mins until the cheese was melted or the feta was softened and slightly brown, and the crust was crispy and brown. I served them straight away, and in all honesty, it took about 10 minutes for all the pizza's to be finished. No suprises there, they were all asking for more. Sadly, i forgot to take a photo, and they looked sooo nice :(

Next course was a bbq, which the men were in charge of (I keep my distance from the bbq when the guys are around). After all, the boys like nothing more than some good bourewors and sausages on bread rolls with pickles and tomatoes. Sometimes the simple meals are the best!

After a few requests and questions as to when dessert would be served, I realised that was my calling. I had already wiped the cream, so all I had to do for the pavlovas was put it all together. Placed some wiped cream in the meringue baskets, topped with berries and passionfruit pulp and served alongside some left-over almond praline that I made the other day (for the sticky date pudding). Once everything was put onto their platters, and placed on the table, it took about 30 secs for all the guys to surround the table and dig in. Luckily, there was more than enough and we have some left-overs.

Here is the spread, before it was demolished (I made them wait till I took photos until they could dig in, they were not happy haha):


Top left = choc caramel slice
Top right = choc brownies & Greek almond biscuits
Front = mini pavlovas

Doesn't look to bad ey ;)