Sixtieth Birthday Party

My pops turned 60 earlier this month. We threw him a big surprise party. And even with all the cooking and preparation we did, he (shockingly) was surprised! We really went all out too; it's quite something that we still managed to surprise him.

I have photos of all the savory food, but I won't post them all. My favorite was the adorable Caprese skewers my mom made. Just mini mozzarella balls, fresh basil from our garden, and halved cherry tomatoes on a skewer. Finished with a drizzle of olive oil and good balsamic (whoops, I took the picture before she applied that finishing touch) they are simple to make yet quite an impressive and tasty plate for a party!

We also had three flavors of Palmiers: red pesto and parmesan, green pesto, and truffle. The truffle one was definitely the most popular, but no one complained about the pesto ones.

And no party would be complete without a nice charcuterie platter. Parmesan cheese, some other cheese (not cheddar, but I don't remember what it was), and two types of salami.

Of course we had to have drinks as well. No beer or wine, though. Just three cocktails: mojitos with fresh mint and pineapple; Arnold Palmers (unsweetened iced tea and fresh squeezed lemonade, plus some fresh squeezed orange juice and some of the kumquat simple syrup for sweetness) spiked with bourbon; and white sangria (made with a delicious peach sangria base from Williams-Sonoma, white wine, fresh melon, and strawberries.) I think the Arnold Palmers were my favorite but all three were crowd-pleasers.

And for dessert we had much to choose from. Five desserts total, plus a nice fruit platter (which no one touched, but we wanted a healthier option just in case.) Everything was easy to eat while mingling and I tried to touch on pops' favorite flavors, even if I didn't do the exact recipes that he loves.

Let's start simple: I made mini coconut cupcakes. Coconut cake with my favorite coconut buttercream covered in white nonpareils. I've always thought that looked like a nice way to decorate cupcakes because it doesn't involve being good with a piping bag (not my strongest area) but a little heavy on the not-terribly-tasty nonpareils. But on mini cupcakes it was a slightly better ratio of icing to cake to nonpareil, in my opinion.

Plus don't they look great?! And they satisfied his coconut macaroon craving while being more party-ish than a basic cookie.

I also chocolate fudge brownie cupcakes. That name is a bit dramatic, but they were freakin‘ good. Rich, moist, chocolate, chocolate chip cake with a swirl of deeply cocoa-y buttercream.

Then we get into the tart category. I made mini lemon curd tarts. The cute filo dough shells are store bought. Get good quality frozen ones, bake 'em, and fill 'em. No point in making your own. So I filled them with relatively thick lemon curd (you can use a bit of gelatin or some extra egg yokes to thicken it if needed, I prefer extra egg yokes but sometimes I'll add a bit of bloomed gelatin--get the sheet kind if you can, it's much easier than the powdered stuff) and topped them with a sweet crème fraiche star and a blueberry.

I also made chocolate mousse "tarts." I use quotes because I'm not sure tart is the right term, but it describes the appearance well enough. They were tempered dark chocolate cups (you can easily make your own--I didn't on this occasion) filled with white chocolate mousse and topped with a curl of very good quality milk chocolate. Simple and delicious!

Last but not least, I made individual Eton mess cups. Eton mess is, basically, a mixture of meringue, whipped cream, and strawberry. Not a terribly hard dessert to make, but a bit hard to make sophisticated--I think I managed though!

I deconstructed it a bit, using a small ice cream scoop to serve a small scoop of whipped cream mixed with medium-to-finely crushed meringues. I topped each scoop with a half a mini meringue for texture and finished them with a couple of wedges of fresh strawberry. This was probably the biggest hit of the night. (Not least because many of the guests were British expats so they all knew and missed Eton mess.)

You may have noticed the little spoons I served with the Eton mess cups. These are actually mini plastic spoons made for hors d'oeuvres and the like. I found them in my grocery store and I was just so excited to have an excuse to use them! (You may have thought these looked real in the photo. I assure you that it is not a tribute to my photography skills, most of the guests thought they were really silver/stainless and they were eating with them!)

All in all the party was a great success and we had shockingly few leftovers!