Event #18: A New Decade of AJRBs
Menu
January 1, 2020
Savory
Mini Beef Wellingtons
Zucchini Salad
Avocado Mousse Toast with Smoked Salmon or Mushrooms
Homemade Bagels with Schmear
Kale Pesto Mozzarella Salad
Sweet
Gateau Saint Honore
Black Sesame and Lemon Poppy Seed Macarons
Olive Oil Cookies
Raspberry Knots
Triple Chocolate Chili Muffins
Cream Tea Scones
Sip
Selection of Fine Teas
Selection of Coffee Drinks
Fresh Orange Juice
Fresh Grapefruit Juice
Pomegranate Juice
Iced Tea
Sparkling Wine
We always love our Holiday AJRBs so much that when it comes time to the New Years Tea - we usually leave most of the decorations up and just change a few things here or there.
This year, we decided to try really making the tea its own event. We scrambled to get down all the holiday decor (like I said, I was sick of it by then) and we ordered a bunch of gold, back, and white balloons for the event. Only when I arrived at Party City on New Year's Eve, did I realize what a mistake that was. The parking lot was PACKED and I had to make two trips given our tiny little Prius C would not fit all the balloons on the first trip...and come to find out that Sirius hates balloons when we got home so he kept barking at them.
All that being said, it was worth it when our guests arrived and the vibe was very clearly not holiday but New Year's celebratory. And unlike any other events we do, all the food comes out at the same time, instead of in courses. So on the Sip side, we kept it relatively similar - a selection of teas, coffees, fresh juices, iced tea, and sparkling wine to be used with the juice for a mismosa bar. But for both Savory and Sweet, we went with not only a lot of actual items, but we tried to make items that were challenging.
Savory items included Mini Beef Wellingtons (with homemade puff pastry!), Zucchini Salad, Avocado Mousse Toast with Smoked Salmon, Homemade Bagels with Schmear, and Kale Pesto Mozzarella Salad. John made everything in this category except for the kale pesto salad (which is by far the easiest one haha). The Sweet items were definitely my domain, except, of course, John's macarons, which were very visually beautiful. They were Black Sesame macarons (with charcoal shells so they were this gorgeous black) and Lemon Poppy Seed macarons, so it was black and white and very on theme. My other items were raspberry knots (which definitely did not prove enough - and were a bit of a let down), triple chocolate chili muffins, classic cream tea scones, olive oil cookies with a lemon glaze, and my personal show stopper - Gateau St. Honore.
This showstopper was definitely the most difficult pastry dessert I've ever made (some pastry cream setting issues, choux bun issues [I ended up having to remake them :/], and even puff pastry issues - basically anything that could have gone wrong, went wrong). Somehow, though, we ended up with something to put on cake stand, that tasted pretty delicious and didn't look like it had gone through all the travesty it had.
Overall, it was clear as we set all the food out that it was a more ambitious menu than it was a year ago - and it was exciting to see how much we had grown.