I distinctly remember meeting my friend Anna for the first time. It was at a party at a mutual friends house in Singapore. I had just moved there and didn't have many friends. We immediately clicked as we were both single girls in our late 20's and didn't have any family with us. We spent lots of time eating and dancing away our time in the 6 years I spent in Singapore. When I left and moved to San Francisco we vowed to stay in contact. Then you get on with what you do daily and only had sporadic conversations on Facebook over the years.

Then on July 9 she got married and a few days later she told me she was going to be in San Francisco for a part of her Honeymoon and asked if they could come over. I said yes immediately and went on to planning a simple yet very special brunch for my newlyweds. 

I love those plan your own adventure books and thought a sweet and savory toast bar would be perfect as everyone can just pick whatever toppings they wanted and honestly it required minimal cooking. At the most I boiled some eggs. The rest was all plating and arranging. I couldn't wait for them to come and see what combinations they would come up with from all the goodies I had for them. 

To get our appetites going I had a yogurt parfait amuse bouche waiting on the plates as they walked in after we had a champagne toast first of course!

Yogurt Parfait

Ingredients

1 container of vanilla flavored Icelandic or Greek yogurt
1/2 cup of granola
1/2 cup blueberries
4 shot glasses
mint sprigs

Instructions

Layer the yogurt and granola in the shot glasses and top with blueberries and granola and finish with a mini mint sprig. Serves four.

For the next few hours, the three of us ate a loaf of sour dough bread and then just stopped talking for the rest of the day from being so stuffed with good food and drinks.

Savory Toast Bar

Ingredients

Sour Loaf Bread
6 eggs
Handful of arugula
2 heirloom tomatoes
quick picked red onions (slice a whole red onion into rings and place in a jar and top with 1/2 cup of white vinegar. At the least let steep for an hour at best do the night before)
Smoked salmon or trout
1 avocado
1 tub of sour cream
1 jar of capers
1 lemon cut into wedges

Instructions

Take one loaf of sour dough bread, slice and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. 

Heat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden, but not hard.

While the bread is toasting grab 6 room temperature eggs and place in already boiling water for 8 minutes. This will give you hard boiled eggs. Place in water bath and let cool. Once cool peel and cut in half.

Now all you have to do is arrange all the goods on a board or platter. 

Sweet Toppings

1/2 cup of any nut butter
1/2 cup of any jam
1/2 cup of mixed berries
1/4 cup of coco nibs
1/2 cup of honey

Place each of the goods in a nice bowl or jar and place around the table.

Cheese Plate

Choose one hard cheese like gouda or cheddar and pair with a soft cheese like a triple cream or brie. Add some cucumbers, grapes and cherries around the platter and serve.

Paleo Chocolate Cake with Rose Petals

Ingredients

1 box Simple Mills Chocolate Cake Mix
3 Eggs at Room Temperature
1/3 Cup Almond Milk
1/3 Cup Oil of your choice
1 cup of Apple Sauce
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Essence
1 bag mini vegan chocolate chips
Vanilla or Chocolate Simple Mills frosting

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line and grease a 10x15 baking sheet

Place the eggs, almond milk, oil, apple sauce, vanilla in a bowl and mix until fully incorporated. Add in the Simple Mills chocolate mix and stir until smooth. Add in the whole bag of chocolate chips and pour into your cake pan.

Bake for 15 minutes. Cool put in the freezer to cool down and harden a bit. Once hard take out a 4 inch round cookie cutter and cut 6 circles out of the cake and place in the freezer again. The scraps you will use for the cake balls. 

Take out 3 of the cake circles and place one cicle on a serving board and ice with 1 table spoon of chocolate icing, place the next layer and repeat with the icing, place the last layer on top and ice the whole cake with chocolate. Decorate with dried roses and cacao nibs.

Follow the above instructions for the second cake and change the icing to vanilla and decorate with other dried or fresh flowers.

To make the cake balls place the cake scraps in a bowl and add in the remaining chocolate frosting mix until it all comes together. Form into one inch balls and decorate with dried rose petals.

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