Maple Cider Cocktail

Hello and welcome to my virtual Christmas Party!  Come on in to the kitchen, I’ve prepared a delicious Winter Cocktail for you…

So who is driving? Oh that’s a shame, but never mind, I have a drink  that you can enjoy.   It’s a lovely Spiced Winter Red Tea from Tea Pigs.  I’m not usually a fan of rooibus tea, but I really like this tea, the balance of spices is just right. 

Now that you have a drink, can I offer you some nibbles to go with it? These ‘Wonderful’ Pistachios are very good and they come in a variety of flavours: Sweet Chilli, Roasted Salted, Salt and Pepper or No Salt.

Come and let me introduce you to a few people…I don’t think you two have met before. I’ll leave you to get to know each other and I’ll be back in a minute with some canapes.

Ah here you are, would you like to try one of these little bites?  These fun pastry cases are made by Pidy, they are so handy because you can keep them in your cupboard and rustle up a party whenever required.

The vol au vents? They are filled with Crushed Pea and Ham.  Or you might enjoy  one of these little Veggie cups, the red colouring comes from dried beetroot, no artificial ingredients, they are so pretty.  I’ve  filled them with an ‘All Day Breakfast’ of egg, bacon and tomato on shredded lettuce.

I see you are eyeing up the Spoonettes, they are really great for little bites.  I’ve  filled  them with  rice pudding sweetened with Clarks Maple Syrup and topped with spice plumped raisins and chopped almonds. 

Ah I see you have a sweet tooth!  I can also offer you a homemade mince pie served warm with some smooth and creamy, Clotted Cream Cornish Ice Cream from Kelly’s of Cornwall, how does that sound?

Don’t tell me you are full!  You must try a few chocolates, this Classic Christmas Selection from Hotel Chocolat has so many glorious flavours, there’s bound to be a festive flavour that grabs your attention.  What would I recommend?  Well I really enjoyed the Caramel Supernova and the Marzipan and Amaretto Truffle was pretty good too.  But really?  They are all good.

Thank you so much for coming along to my kitchen party and sharing a few party treats at my kitchen table.  What did you say?  Oh you’d like the recipes, but of course, here they are:

First the cocktail

Orchard Fete is the cocktail I served at the party, it comes from the book above “Winter Cocktails” by Maria Del Mar Scasa with photographs by Tara Striano.  Winter Cocktails is published by Quirk and distributed in the UK by PGUK  RRP 17.99

Orchard Fete Serves 24 (but you can cut it down for smaller gatherings)
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
8 sprigs rosemary, plus more for garnish
8 sprigs thyme, plus more for garnish
4 cups applejack (Calvados)
2 cups apple cider
2 750ml bottles alcoholic sparkling cider

Combine maple syrup, rosemary and thyme in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Remove from heat and leave syrup cool to room temperature.  Remove and discard herbs.

Stir cooled syrup, applejack and apple cider together in a punch or other serving bowl. When ready to serve, stir in sparkling cider.

Garnish cups/glasses with rosemary and thyme sprigs and serve.

I used Clarks Original Maple Syrup for the cocktail.  it’s the UK’s best selling maple syrup.  It is a blend of pure maple syrup harvested from the Quebec region of
Canada, carob fruit syrup – made from the sugars of the Mediterranean
carob fruit – a low glycemic ingredient that has, gram per gram, 25%
less calories than sugar.

Spiced Winter Red Tea is naturally caffeine free combination of rooibus, orange, cloves and cinnamon form Teapigs.  It’s a well balanced combination which convinced me to have another try at rooibus!  A pack of 15 tea temples costs £4.49.

Nuts are great for snacks and nibbles and I was very impressed with Wonderful Pistachios we liked all the flavours and cracking the nuts from their shells is fun and stops you eating too many at once!  They are available at most of the major supermarkets and health food stores.  150g  on sale for between £2.29 – £1.79.

Pidy have been creating a wide variety of ready to fill puff pastry, short crust, fonçage dough and choux pastry for over sixty three years. Pidy is very well known in the foodservice and catering industry and now they want to launch their most innovative pastry ranges to the home cook!

Thanks to food PR agency CLIP Creative and PR for the Pidy samples.

 I’m entering this post for Four Seasons Food (Winter) the blog challenge run by Anneli at Delicieux 
and  Louise at Eat Your Veg