secret squirrel project

OK, not a squirrel but a Pelican.

Now that the cat is out of the bag I can post this.

I was asked on Sat night (ok it might have been super early Sunday morning) if I could plan and make the food for a vigil to be happening at Red and Gold. As it was a friend asking, I of course said yes. Not knowing who the candidate was and apparently no one knew their wishes, I just had to sort of wing it! Not really having time to redact or plan big I reached for old standbys.  Tart de Bry, Mushroom tarts, a fruit tart, and an assortment of cheese, salami, pickles and olives. I did however add a recipe that was not redacted by me, Digby's fine cakes.

I invaded my apprentice sister's house on Wednesday afternoon. She lives close to site and we would be day tripping each day. This made the cooking and most other prep easier, especially when I saw how tiny the space there really was. There was no way I would have been able to do the prep on site. In total it took 8 hours on Thursday and 2 hours Friday Morning and about an hour and a half (with help) Friday evening.

The reception of the food was glorious. people stood next to the table nibbling and eating the whole night and used the bits leftover as a breakfast buffet in the morning, Not a scrap went to waste.

My notes on Digby's cakes. They are a lovely cookie. They would be spectacular iced with lemon and sugar as well as the rose ones. The are sticky and not easy to roll so I patted the dough out to the right thickness according to the redaction and used a floured cutter to cut them out. The time they needed in the oven was less than stated so the first batch came out browned but still tasty and not dry. I am sure they were at their best because they sat for a day. Next time, and there will be a next time. I will add more nutmeg. I found the flavor to be lost among the currants and icing. I will also make them thicker, closer to 1/2 an inch thick. I used a double batch of the recipe and got close to 30 cookies, I forgot to do an actual count of them so that is something I will add to the 'next time' pile as well.

I think  I will create a file of good finger food recipes in case I or someone else needs to do vigil foods on short notice.

I also bought new tartlet pans and they worked spectacularly!!! A little fiddly but well worth it! I need to experiment with my pie fillings for an accurate count of how many a batch makes but my estimate of doubling it went really well and garnered me about 50 to 75 tarts, again, silly me didn't write the count down. This will vary by type of filling I am sure. I do know that double my Tart de Bry got me 12 - 6 inch pies that I cut into six pieces each.

I look forward to more experimentation.