Blog party #20 - showers everything

• No I do not intend to take a shower and show you the pictures, no, no!

• Nor will I marry or going to have a baby
  

• And I've never been invited to something called shower.

Of course not, I'm German and I don't know any Germans having American habits.

• But now, finally I'm invited. Dispensing Happiness is throwing a bridal & mom-to-be party and I have to bring along something for the buffet.

For her blog Party#20 I've made several dishes.























Some appetizers:

Love-cherry tomatoes stuffed with fresh cheese and herbs

Hollow out
some ripe and aromatic cherry tomatoes.
Fill them with
fresh cheese.
You can mix the cheese with some herbs and/or minced shallots.

Parmesan shortcrust babies

Ingredients for the "babies":

115 ggrated parmesan cheese
140 gall-pourpose flour, preferably organic and stone-ground
100gbutter, cold, cut in cubes
1 Tbspsour cream
1eggyolk
salt

1eggyolk
1 Tbspwater
2drops liquid food colour


Preparation:

Mix all the ingredients together to a shortcrust dough. Put it into a plastic bag. Roll out to about 4 mm. Refrigerate at least ½ hour.
Preheat the oven to 200 °C.

Remove one side of the plastic bag. Sprinkle some flour on the dough-surface. Cover again with the plastic sheet. Turn around and remove the other side of the plastic bag. With a cookie cutter cut out some suitable shapes out of the dough. Place them on a baking sheet.
Combine the eggyolk with the water and colour. Brush the cookies with the mixture. Bake for about 10 minutes until golden.
Create some diapers on the cookies with fresh cheese or thin mozzarella slices. [The same way I made some cheese-hearts. Together with the yellow of the egg yolk the colours turned out more green and orange, but I'm sure you can still tell a boy from a girl ;-)]


As one drink I made something for the mother-to-be:

Galactogogues tea

For this simply boil some water with fennel seeds and fenugreek seeds. Sweet with honey if desired.


Something more smoothie-like are the two different

boy-or-girl(?)-shakes

Ingredients for the shakes:

300 gstrawberries
300 gblackberries
4scoops vanilla ice cream
150 mlheavy/whippening cream
1 lmilk
sugar or honey to taste


Preparation:

Purée each of the berries in a seperate bowl each toghether with 2 scoops ice cream and 75ml cream. Pour in 500 ml milk to each berry-mixture and whisk until combined. If possible use a blender for this. Taste with sugar or honey.

Bridal petit-fours

Ingredients for the petit-fours:

125 gsemolina/durum (wheat)
1egg
125 gcaster sugar
125 gnuts, grounded or shreddered (I used blanched, grounded hazelnuts)
250 mlmilk
8 gbaking powder

235 gmarmelade or jelly (I used raspberry jelly)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Whisk the egg until frothy. Pour the sugar in, spoon by spoon and whisk until the batter becomes white. Combine the dry ingredients and stir them into the batter together with the milk.
Pour the batter into a buttered baking tin and beat it a couple of times against your working surface to achieve a plain surface. (Don't be afraid this batter is thin like a milkshake! But there is nothing wrong with it.)
Bake for about 40 to 50 minutes until the dough is baked through. (Try it with a wooden skrewer.)
Let cool.

Cut out some shapes in different diameters.








Stack them together with the marmelade.








Cover with frosting - fondant made with 2 eggwhites and 400 g icing sugar - and decorate.
(Usually I make double the amount of the batter. Cut the baked cake in half. Brush the halves with aprocot jam. Put them together again and cover the whole cake with cuverture-chocolate. If you bake it 2 to 3 days ahead the taste will enhance.)


Something more for the sweet tooth:

Pavlova-cradle with pastel-mousse

Ingredients for the cradle:

3egg whites
175 gcaster sugar
3drops vanilla essence
3drops pink food colour
3drops blue food colour

vegetable oil


Preparation:

Turn the oven on to 100 °C.
Heat a bowl over boiling water for about 2 minutes.
Pour the egg whites in it and whisk vigorously. Add the sugar slowly during you continue whisking the batter. Drop in the vanilla essence. When the batter forms peaks and has a glossy shine divide it into two portions. Whisk in the different colour in each of the batter-halves.
Lay some parchment/baking paper out to a baking sheet. Brush it with the oil.

With a pastry decorating bag and a suitable tip pipe some rectangulars on the paper and form rims to resemble a cradle/bed.
Let them dry in the oven for about 1 hour plus until they 're firm and sound hollow when tapped gently.






Ingredients for the mousse:

200 graspberries, puréed and sieved through a strainer
200 gbluberries, puréed and sieved through a strainer
some berries for decoration

3eggyolks
120 gicing sugar

200 mlheavy/whippening cream

3egg whites
1hint salt

(If you want you can thicken the fruit-mousse further either with a starch-water mixture, gelatine or cold butter.)

Preparation:

Whisk the eggyolk together with the sugar. Devide the egg-mixture into two halves.
Over a hot water bath/double boiler whisk each half of the eggmixture together with each berry-purée until creamy and thickened. Let cool in an ice bath, stirring occasionally.
Whisk the cream until firm. Same with the egg whites, whisk them with a hint of salt until it forms firm peaks.






Gently fold half of the in the egg whites into each fruit-batter. Then add half of the cream to each batter and fold in carefully.
Refrigerate for about 2 hours.

Fill the mouse into the "cradles". Decorate with some fruits.

And resist to lick the mousse right away. Even if it's tempting you have to add it to the shower-buffet. Otherwise you have to bring along something store bought like these

cute pink sushi.

"Where's the bride?"..."Do you know the groom?"..."They're such a lovely couple!"..."Brigitte, how could you dare to bring along some alcohol!"..."Will it be a boy or a gilrl?"..."What! Twins! Really!"..."Have you heard..."...........