Yellow Dessert Table

I cannot believe it took me this long to write this post! I'm talking about my birthday party here which was on the 14th of September (my real birthday is the 11th of September). If history is anything to go by this won't surprise you. Last year I had two birthday celebrations, the Dr Seuss party -posted on the 25th of September (14 days after my birthday) and the Nutella Cake -posted on the 2nd of November (60 days after my birthday!) So this year after unveiling Lydia Bakes for the first time I posted my Rosette cake on the 1st of October (20 days after my birthday) and now we get to Tuesday the 23rd of October which is 42 days after my actual birthday, not bad...

This year I only wanted one thing for my birthday, the Little and Friday cookbook. All my friends had it and told me about the amazing recipes and after trying Little and Friday's baking first hand I knew I just had to have it! I decided for my birthday party to have all Little and Friday food at a beautifully decorated dessert table. I planned it for weeks and weeks without knowing what recipes I would actually use until I got the book on my birthday.

From the Little and Friday book I made cinnamon donuts, walnut date brioche and a huge lemon coconut cake. I also made my own caramel popcorn and filled some jars with chocolate mousse to finish the table off. When I finally finishing making all the food and decorating the table I felt so relieved and so proud of myself. This was the first time I had ever made lemon curd from scratch, deep fried donuts, baked brioche and made my own caramel popcorn from scratch.

The donuts weren't the easiest thing in the world to make. Firstly I tried using the dough hooks on my mixer for the first time which was obviously too-hard-basket for it so it gradually bounced its way off the bench (before I would catch it each time). It was quite funny but also annoying and made the use of a "stand alone" mixer a bit pointless. As for the frying part, it was fun to start with but then I realised that having oil on an element meant the temperature changed ALL the time. It would have been fine if I had a deep fryer but alas, I do not own one (can you imagine me with a deep fryer? I'd deep fry everything!) In the end these were by far the most popular item at the dessert table and definitely the most impressive.

The caramel popcorn was fun to make too. I found a recipe online and tried it out, it seemed weird to read how it was done but once I followed the instructions and tried a few pieces of popcorn I was sold! I think this popcorn actually tasted more like salted caramel popcorn, I've posted the recipe below.

Salted Caramel Popcorn
Recipe adapted from NZ Favourite Recipe

Ingredients:
4-5 C Popped Popcorn (I used one bag of natural microwave popcorn)
1/2 C Sugar
1/4 C Water
1 T Butter
1/2 t Salt
1/2 t Baking Soda

• Lightly oil a large bowl and place pre-popped popcorn (try saying that 10 times fast!)
• Place sugar, water, butter and salt into a small glass jar and microwave for 2 minutes.
• Stir mixture until sugar dissolves.
• Microwave for approximately 3 – 3 1/2 minutes until the mixture turns light brown. Be careful not to let it burn!
• Add baking powder to mixture and stir in quickly, it will become frothy and double in size.
• Working quickly, pour the mixture over the popcorn and mix with a wooden spoon, try and coat as many pieces as possible!
• Tip the popcorn out onto a large sheet of baking paper and break up large chunks of caramelly popcorn, be careful when using your hands it is very hot! 
• When popcorn is cooled transfer to a bowl to eat (heck, eat it warm if you want – I did!)
• Store popcorn in an airtight container, it will keep for days…though mine didn’t, it was too yummy to last that long!

I invited a bunch of friends over for some karaoke and dance games (which I beat everyone at -naturally!) and we had a fun night of games, eating and drinking. It was a lot of work to put this dessert table together but I have to say I think it was the most satisfying. I also decided to match the colour of my table and wear my favourite yellow dress, everyone thought this was very "me" but I told them they're lucky I didn't dress up Mr S and Pecan in yellow too!

If you're keen to try out some of the Little and Friday recipes go grab a copy of the recipe book in all good book stores, you won't regret it I promise! That's enough from me for today, later this week I'll be starting a new weekly series of simple cupcake decorating tutorials. See you on Thursday, have a great week!