Holiday baking

I wanted to post about a couple of things I made during the holidays – one, Christmassy and one for New Year’s Eve.





The first is these place names that I made for the table for Christmas day. The biscuits are shortbread and I topped them with red fondant and wrote each person’s name with a green gel pen. My niece and nephew also had great fun with a piece of dough I gave them, rolling and re-rolling shapes and then decorating them. That’s my niece, Piper in the top photo. The place names looked great on the table and gave people something to nibble on (not that we needed it with all the food!!).



On New Year’s Eve we went to friends for drinks and nibbles. We had only just got back from Christchurch early afternoon so I didn’t have a lot of time to really think about what I wanted to take, but I was quite pleased with my results. On the first platter there are chicken and cucumber bites. I made these by marinating a chicken breast in equal amounts of mirin, soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine. I then roasted the breast for about 15 minutes. I cut cucumber into rounds, placed a cube of cooked and cooled chicken on top and then topped it with a dab of hoisin sauce. Quite easy to make.



On the second platter is two types of crositini – really easy to make when you are in a hurry. I bought some lovely ciabatta, sliced and toasted it and topped one half with a smear of cream cheese, store bought chunky pesto, some brie and strips of roasted red pepper and topped the other half with a smear of cream cheese, blue cheese, some quince paste and a walnut half. I really enjoyed these combinations.