Dinner Party Delights

Our first dinner party in our new house was a couple of weeks ago. It was a pretty casual affair – my two youngest sisters were up from Napier for the weekend, so it was us, them, one of their boyfriend’s and a young friend from work and her boyfriend who are about the same age as my youngest sister. We have just had our dining room chairs re-covered in a gorgeous bright turquoise fabric, so this was the first time sitting on those as well.

My youngest sister organised nibbles. The main was a roast of beef which I rubbed with dried mustard powder, salt and pepper before roasting. With that we had a yummy roast pumpkin and baby spinach salad with a tahini and yoghurt dressing and cous cous studded with dried cranberries, pine nuts, almonds and chopped coriander.

Pudding was my favourite part though. It was the tart pictured above, a caramel berry crumble tart. This pudding encompassed some of my favourite things – raspberries, caramel and crumble. Yum! The recipe is one that I pulled out of Delicious magazine a very long time ago. I can’t remember the writer whose recipe it is – other than that she is a Scottish lady called Sue someone. I did adapt the recipe slightly, making my own caramel rather than using store bought (I did this by microwaving in small bursts, ½ a tin of condensed milk, 1 tbsp each of brown sugar and golden syrup and about 25g butter), and using raspberries rather then the brambles specified in the recipe (I don’t think you can get those here). When I make this again (and I will as it was so delicious) I would use brown sugar rather than raw sugar, as the raw sugar granules were a bit big and left the texture of the crumble a little crunchy I thought.

Oh, and here is a sneak preview of our not quite finished kitchen. Still waiting on a few things to complete it, but it is so functional – I am loving it!!



If you love berries, caramel and crumble as much as I do, this is a must try recipe.

Caramel Berry Crumble Tart

• Line a tart tin with your favourite shortcrust pastry recipe (you don’t need to pre-cook the tart shell)
• Fill with 300g dulche de leuche (or use my caramel recipe above, cooled)
• Scatter over 1 cup berries of your choice (I used frozen and they were fine)
• Top with crumble made with 75g flour, 50g rolled oats, 75g raw sugar (I would use brown next time) with 75g butter rubbed in
• Bake at 180c for 35-40 minutes until golden