Mini Cupcakes

Mini cupcakes

I recently started a new job and on my first day a coworker brought around cupcakes his wife baked.  With the first bite, I fell in love.  The flavor, the texture, and the scent gave me pause.  I asked him if she was a professional baker.  He said she has a passion for baking and creates custom cakes and pastries for special occasions. 

I asked her to bake me a few for some of my catering events and she delivered these mini cupcakes that were a delight. 

Dinner Party for 6

Last Saturday I had the honour of catering a private dinner party for a group of six people.  This dinner was the result of a gift donation I made to support charity fundraiser that one of my friends organized.  I decided to help in the best way possible:  offer my services. 

Mango cranberry salad was served as the appetizer.  The main course was glazed short beef ribs on a bed of wild rice with grilled zucchini and carrots on the side. Finally the meal was finished off with my apple turnover pie. 

The dinner received rave reviews.

Mango Salad

Beef short ribs on a bed of rice

Apple turnover pie with ice cream

Golden Accra



Accra ( Fish Cake)

Every Carribean household near and far knows about these light, spicy, and flavourful fried puffs of dough.  There are many names for them: some call them

fish cakes, saltfish fritters.  In my Trinidadian house, we call them accra.

Accra is basically salted cod fish mixed with chopped vegetables and heavily seasoned with spices and pepper.  They take minutes to make and are full of nutrients.  You can vary the ingredients to give it different flavours and textures. Most recently, I had one that was made with curry and celery - different, but tasty.

Give my simple recipe a try and let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of salted cod fish boiled out 3 times and broken into small pieces
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1/2 onion finely chopped
• 1green onion finely chopped
• 1/2 a red pepper diced
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp fresh thyme
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 tsp finely grated scotch bonnet pepper

Steps:

1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together until you get a thick paste.  
2. Pre-heat a frying pan with 1/4 cup of cooking oil.
3. Using a tablespoon, scoop some of the mixture into the pan.  Fit as many scoops as the pan allows.
4. When the side is golden brown, flip the cake.  Brown the other side and remove from pan.  
5. Cool in a bowl lined with paper towels to soak up the excess oil.   

Enjoy!

Birthday Formal Dinner

Last weekend I had the honor of catering a 40th birthday party.  The event was a formal dinner at the host's home for a group of 15 people.  My main focus is appetizers parties so this event was going to take more effort and planning.  I was confident in my food but I was nervous about everything happening at the right time. My biggest concern was serving warm, fresh food (I hate serving my food when it gets cold).  I wanted my food to be warm but not dry so I told the host it was very important for us to stay on schedule: appetizers at 5pm, dinner at 6pm.  We stuck to that time!

The host selected zucchini bites, chickpeas bundles, and island skewers for appetizers for the guests to enjoy before dinner.  I had 2 servers offering these to guests.   They did a great job making sure all the guests were satisfied. 

Servers with appetizers

Dinner started with the serving of butternut squash soup and mango salad.  The main course consisted of a choice of 2 meat selections (salmon, goat, jerk chicken), rice and peas, grilled vegetables dressed with balsamic vinegar, and plantain rolls.  Dessert was  my famous "bullet cake".  I got great compliments on the meal and service. 

My bullet cake

I'm glad the night went as planned and the host was happy.  I had a great time and it was good to see people's reaction to the flavours in the food.