Preparing for Goh Family Gathering For Tea

Last Sunday, we had the Goh family gathering at our place. This was really a rare occasion when all the family members gathered. The last time was during our wedding 4 years ago. Jerome's younger brother and family returned for a 3 weeks visit from Perth, Australia. He is a lecturer at Curtin University. Jerome's elder sister ,who is an A/Professor at Ohio State University,  returned from Ohio, USA for a month visit.

The family gathering consisted of 9 adults and 5 children. Jerome felt that it would be difficult to manage a proper meal (lunch or dinner) for such a big group. So far the largest I've managed was a dinner for 8 adults during Mother's Day and another dinner for 6 adults and 2 children for my Father-In-Law's birthday.  Our dining table just can't accommodate so many people at one seating. Hence, Jerome decided that we would just have a gathering for tea. He wanted to tabao some curry puffs and other stuff from Old Chang Kee. He didn't want too much trouble and wanted to keep things easy.

But his wife was grabbing this opportunity to try some new recipes... and to do more baking... :P

On Friday afternoon, it was my most productive day.
 I made some choux pastry and baked some puffs and eclairs shells.

Puffs Shells

Eclairs Shells

After that, I baked a jar of double chocolate chips cookies. 

A jar of double chocolate chips cookies

After dinner, I went on to bake some cinnamon buns. 

This is a tested recipe and I know that the children love them.

Soft Cinnamon Rolls hot from the oven...

We spent almost the entire day out on Saturday and returned home only after dinner. I only had time to bake a sponge cake. And I had no idea on how to decorate the cake yet. I had forgotten to buy strawberries and that was the easiest way to decorate any cake...

Sunday morning, I woke up at 7.30am and it seemed mission impossible to get everything ready for tea at 3p.m. At this point in time, only the cinnamon rolls are ready to be served after some heating in the oven. 

First I whipped up some fresh cream and made some vanilla cream and filled up the eclairs. Then I melted some chocolate and covered the top. Item #2, the vanilla cream and chocolate eclairs, on the menu done!

Vanilla Cream & Chocolate Eclairs

And since I had some vanilla cream left over, I decided to use it  on the sponge cake. And in between working on the durian puffs, the logan and lychee fruit cake was born. 

Logan & Lychee Fruit Cake

And shortly after, the durian puffs were also ready.

Durian Cream Puffs

It was 10am and I had the following ready:

1) Cinnamon Rolls

2) Logan & Lychee Fruit Cake

3) Durian Puffs

4) Vanilla Cream & Chocolate Eclairs

5) Chocolate Chips Cookies

And I still had the most important thing that I needed to do... my first attempt at puff pastry for Portuguese Egg Tarts! While I was busy folding my puff pastry, Jerome was involved in a minor accident where he 'smashed' his own feet with the bench while vacuuming the floor. There was a huge swell on his foot and I almost wanted to call for an ambulance. I finally felt the importance of having a license to drive. After 2 ice packs and the swelling has gone down a bit, I finally completed my Portuguese Egg Tarts!

Portugese Egg Tart 

with Flaky Puff Pastry Skin and Caramelized Egg Custard

Everything was new except the cinnamon rolls which were tried and tested...

Anyway, I was ready to serve tea :)