A little of what you fancy...

Following on from my post yesterday, I was reminded that I had promised to write about both savoury and sweet canapes.  Upon doing some research, I have discovered that there is technically no such thing as a sweet canape.  The nearest thing to a sweet canape is probably a petit four, which can be sweet or savoury but is usually sweet. Confused? You will be!  The word canape is French for covering (for a bed) but applied to a covering of a wafer, cracker, bread, toast with a savoury topping.  Petit four means "small oven" and refers therefore just to something small and bite sized, usually served at the end of a meal with coffee but can be savoury and served with pre-dinner drinks.

Anyway - the savoury ones have been discussed already, so here are some thoughts on the sweet variety of whatever-you-want-to-call-them!

I got the inspiration for this post from two new recipes made at my recent Pampered Chef party.  I had bought a mini muffin tin, with a wooden "shover downer" (it's proper name escapes me!) with which to make mini quiches, muffins, and all sorts of delicious bite sized morsels.  We made rolo tartlets - a shortcrust pastry case with a rolo in, baked then topped with a white chocolate button that melts into the gooey rolo - you get the idea!  Also Bailey's cheesecake tartlets using cookie dough instead of normal pastry, filled after baking the cases with a mixture of cream cheese, icing sugar and Bailey's, piped in and dusted with cocoa powder:

Other ideas I really want to try are lemon curd mixed with whipped cream and topped with strawberries, and apple sauce topped with crumble mixture.

Another bite sized sweet treat I've attempted to make is the fondant fancy, I'm going to admit here to being a big fan of the Mr Kipling ones!  I saw them being made on the bake off and thought "Can they really be that tricky?"  Er,yes. The home made ones were good, but made the most hellish mess of the kitchen (and me!!) and were rather larger than bite sized in the end!  I even made a really posh version from a recipe in a Sunday supplement I found in the tea room at work with chocolate icing and chocolate decorations on top and a whole macadamia nut under the icing, which looked a whole lot more glamorous,but I can't find a photo.

There is also the malteser and Mars bar square:

And the peanut butter square - which must be one of the unhealthiest recipes ever, containing only peanut butter, butter, chocolate, sugar, digestive biscuits and vanilla extract. But hey, you only need a small piece.  Stopping at one is sometimes a problem though.

Of course, the highly favoured macaroon/macaron can be made in a mini version too. After dinner coffee will never be the same again.  

Thank you for reading, Caroline x