Jr.P's Birthday Party - Berry Semifreddo And Vegetable Puffs

It was Jr.P's birthday last Sunday. He turned nine, and a whole lot naughtier! He's been making plans for this day ever since the morning after his eighth birthday:) - a rather long list of friends (which I had to somewhat hard & half-heartedly cut down to ten due to space and 'strength' restrictions). It was tough for him to choose but it had to be done.

I was busy the previous day with the semifreddo as he wanted this instead of a cake, and the entire Sunday morning was caught up in making the puff pastry dough, vegetable puffs and vanilla cookies. The party was kept simple in terms of decorations as the kids have grown out of that phase and we only concentrated on the fun element - I thoroughly enjoyed the 'tornadoic' activity that threatened to dislodge a few tiles or a few bones, what with ten happy, energetic boys rolling and imitating 'power rangers', and one lone princess proving she was their equal!! We played a few games, this time managed by my daughter and I kept those veg. puffs flying from the oven to the plates - rather we fell short, and I also ended up with one batch of charred puffs thanks to getting involved!!

Since there is 'Potter mania' going on in Pogo (TV channel), the children were using P's drumsticks (He doesn't play drums but uses it for dandia) as wands and uttering charms. When the wands looked like they would snap into two with 'wingardium leviosas' and 'avada cadavra' flying, I rushed in and yelled 'accio wand' in a throaty voice that I imagined, sounded like Prof. Dumbledore's and retrieved them - the children were very very amused - it pays to read children's books;)

The result was twelve happy children, one messy house, and one zapped mama (the father took off for a mens' night out during the commotion!) in that order! I think I may have used more refined flour and butter in this month than I ever have in a whole year - but what the heck, it was a birthday!

A peek into the menu:

The eggless birthday cake had to be bought as I did not have time to bake one!

Very berry semifreddo - with milk cream as this is how the children wanted it!

Vegetable puffs - Using twice the amount of pastry puff as I did in the black plum tarte tatin, and stuffed with my regular samosa stuffing in small quantities and,

Vanilla hearts - I made these mostly in circles as the heart cutter broke:(

Recipes:

Very Berry Semifreddo: (This has to prepared a day before for best results)

Semifreddo is an Italian term and applies to a 'class of desserts' that are served 'semi-frozen'. It could mean half frozen custards, or ice-cream cakes or even fruit tarts which have a semi-frozen filling. I looked up some vegan versions this time but they were more or less what I had in mind. Since this dish was made for a childrens' party I kept aside some vegan version and folded in cream in the rest, not as much as I did earlier in the red grapes and strawberry semifreddo. Please check up the recipe in the link. There is no difference except that I have substituted the strawberry juice with mixed berry juice from Godrej XS. Here are the pictures that were taken during the making.

The chocolate, biscuit base:

The berry compote:

The creamed tofu folded into the berry custard:

All set, poured and ready to go into the refrigerator:

The name being new, the little guests were not willing to even taste the dessert - and then my son gulped down his portion, started sucking the chcolate base, and asked for more! That did it:) Most of them took two helpings and loved the biscuit chocolate base. This one is more of a show stopping dessert! I just managed a click before it all got over:)

The semifreddo gave me the perfect purple I had been looking for (Phewww....). This goes to FIC-Purple and Black hosted by me.

Will post the puffs (plain, savory and sweet versions) and vanilla hearts later.