Stilton and Sherried Fruits & Beetroot Brownie Canapés

Cheese, wine, chocolate, a roaring fire and snow outside. Three out of four will have to do, since the view out of my window is currently one of grey and uninspiring drizzle. That said, the amount of water coming in through our cough-“conservatory” does make me wonder if it could actually cope with snow. If you hear a crash coming from North London and see a mushroom cloud of icing sugar go up, then consider that a call to come and rescue me.

Right. On to warmer, tastier matters…

Stilton Spoons

Stilton spoons

I made two versions of these. The creamy Quark version is slightly easier to eat in company and standing up.

The night before (or several days if you have time) soak chopped dried fruits of your choice in sherry, 1/2tsp cinnamon, pinch allspice, pinch nutmeg. You want enough sherry to cover the fruit. Drain off any liquid before using. Obviously the number of canapés you are making will affect the amount of fruit. You won’t want much.

Creamy and Crumbly

Creamy Stilton and Cranberry
Stilton
Quark
Dried cranberries or cranberry sauce
Canapé spoons / oatcakes / cheese biscuits

Chop stilton up finely and mix with the Quark. I would use equal amounts of Quark and Stilton. It will look better the smoother the mixture is, so if you have time then blend or mash it up, but that depends on your timetable.
Fill the spoons with the mixture and top with cranberries.

Simple Stilton and Sherried Fruits
Stilton
Sherried fruits (see above)
Canapé spoons / oatcakes / cheese biscuits
Chop stilton finely and pile into canapé spoons.
If using oatcakes slice stilton and cut into rounds a little smaller than the oatcakes.Top with sherried fruits

Beetroot Brownie Cups

Beetroot Brownie Love

Huw F-W has thoroughly educated the country in the ways of beetroot and chocolate. So, whilst these little beetroot cups don’t have a very distinct flavour and could happily carry almost anything in them, I have put some gooey under-baked brownie in their middles. I used the Hellmans mayo-brownie recipe.
I have topped them with vanilla greek yoghurt (for tang) and sprinkled some beetroot powder to give them an extra beetrooty boost. I bought the powder from Spice Mountain in Borough market.

I used Caversham Cream Sherry (£5.29) and Long Clawson Mature Blue Stilton (special buy) from Aldi. The Quark is from the Lake District Dairy Company and the Canape spoons and cups are from Pidy.

Thankyou to all the companies for kindly sending me free samples. I’ll give you more info about them in the next installment of Food Frivolities’  which is on its way to you tomorrow.

As usual, all view are my own and I did not promise to write about them – positive or otherwise.