Wednesday, January 2, 2008

New Year's Desserts

For our New Year’s party we asked our guests to bring appetizers and side dishes so that we didn’t have to drive ourselves crazy doing everything (like we usually do). Evan’s sister, Jessica, came to visit from Michigan and we spent the weekend making some pretty decadent mini-desserts. (Actually, Evan and Jessica made desserts while I was obsessing over my paper project.) Last week in Florida we had this amazing mousse that my Dad sells in his bakery. He gave us a little demonstration and the recipe so we could make little mousse treats for the party. We did a peppermint mousse (my favorite) and a raspberry mousse (Evan’s favorite). We used our Pampered Chef Easy Decorator, so they really turned out beautiful. I think I squeezed out about 4 mousses, and that was my contribution to that dessert. Evan and Jessica made Chocolate Covered Cherry Chocolate cookies from a recipe their mom sent before Christmas. These were a big hit. I watched one of our guests stand over the table and eat five cookies before he noticed I was standing there. I attempted to make mini brownies in my mini-muffin tin. It took me a few tries to get the batter and the bake time correct given the mini size of them, but they turned out really cute in the end. We also supplied a Honey Baked Ham that Evan got as a Christmas gift from his work, a shrimp cheese ball and a veggie tray and the rest the guests brought. (I have really great friends.)

We had about 12 people attend the New Year’s gathering. Our plan was to keep it casual. We ate tons of food, played some pool, played some “Catch Phrase” and celebrated the New Year with a Champagne toast. It was another great party with great friends.

No comments: