Party Canapes

Party Canapés

For Thanksgiving I decided I wanted to improve my culinary skills and create some easy appetisers. 'Easy' as I wanted to show you readers that even if you have limited cooking skills, like me, it is possible to fool your guest into thinking that you are a catering extraordinaire!

One of the most important things about creating a professional look for your Canapés is making sure your presentation of them is perfect. I purchased some crisp white table crockery from Matalan to help with this. They have a lovely range of smart plain and white crockery so I bought some large serving plates and made a bit of a collection. I think all of the plates were £4 each and they have a range of sizes. This should last me forever now, being white it is classic and smart and will not date.

Next it is down to what you serve. As I am a newbie in the canapé world I have made some basic ones to ease me into it.

Pâte on Melba toast

Melba toast is just super thin toast so this is the trickiest part of this one. Simply slice a normal slice of bread (horizontally) in half. Then I used a small round cookie cutter and cut out as many rounds from each slice. Then toast under the grill. You can toast the slices large first but they are fragile as they are thin.

Then smear any type of pâte on top that you might fancy and place nicely on a plate.

Goats cheese on apricots with walnuts and honey

This is really easy. Get some dried apricots and smear a chunk of goats cheese over the top. Smash up some walnuts to create a fine crumble and dust them over the goats cheese. Then quickly drizzle a small amount of honey on top.

Smoked salmon blini

So I looked up a blini recipe and found that you need special flour and ingredients to make them. On telling Rob he told me to 'man up' and just make tiny pancakes. I don't know why I didn't think of it!! So with my egg, milk and flour mix I used a melon scoop (as it was the perfect size) as a ladle to make tiny round pancakes.

Once cooled give them a smear of cream cheese and place a bit of smoked salmon on the top. You can drizzle them with fresh lemon if you like.

Olives with feta and rosemary

A delicious mix for people to pick at. I am using the plainest olives as they are the cheapest and adding them into a mix of olive oil, chilli oil and rosemary. Give it time to sit then add in chunks of feta cheese. This served in a glass bowl just looks amazing!

Goats cheese and onion chutney

Using some small crackers, mine are herb infused, smear your goats cheese on top then add a small dollop of chutney. Place nicely on a plate and enjoy.

Mozzarella, tomato and basil bites

This is a tiny kebab of italian flavours!  Simple skewer a mini mozzarella ball, fresh basil leaf and cherry tomato together and drizzle with balsamic vinegar. If you can not buy you mini mozzarella you can just chop a large one into chunks. You might want to put these in a dish with sides due to the sauce.

So there you have it. These need a bit of prep work but are quite straight forward and look great when presented nicely. They are perfect for any party especially drinks parties with friends.

Post by Emily