Riley and Bayley, number one and number two, had their first communion on the weekend. We had to take a plate for them to share as part of their sit down lunch to celebrate. They make it a big deal, the kids get served their lunch while the adults mingle.
Knowing Riley is potentially the only one who has an allergy always makes me a bit nervous of these events, and yes maybe I tend to go a bit overboard, but in my head all the other kids are going to have food that makes up lunch and dessert and my kid is going to miss out. This is the reason I like to do platters, it means that he is going to have a bit of everything and not miss out on what the others have.
So I thought in this post i would do a breakdown of what I put in the platters, as in how much food you need to buy to make your platter up, I got too much, and that is easy to do, but getting too little is not helpful either. So have a look anyway. of course you can swap anything out your kids wouldn’t eat, and I’ll add some extra ideas at the bottom.
This list is for the two baskets I did. My baskets are roughly 30cm x 50cm.
Savory first…
- Five mushrooms – slice
- One telegraph cucumber -slice
- One loaf of GF bread – toast and cut into triangles
- 100g ham ( I prefer hellers)
- 100g Pastrami (again hellers)
- 1 Packet of peckish crackers
- small bag of cashews
- small bag of almond
- 2 Packets of gf pretzels
- 2 pots of Lisa’s Hummus ( garlic, and beetroot)
- 1 packet of 6 bratwurst sausages or similar
- One jar of gherkins
- one jar of pickled onions
- toothpicks
- fresh herbs
and then the sweet…
- 2 oranges – cut into 8ths
- 1 Pineapple skinned cut into rings then 6ths
- packet of marshmallows
- 2 pottles of smooshed balls
- 2 Kiwifruit cut into 8ths
- chocolate bark – recipe below
- rice bubble cake – recipe below
- Mint leaves
It’s then just a matter of arranging them in the baskets. I line my baskets with tin foil before I start, and you can use a little bowl for the wet ingredients like hummus, or use a cabbage leaf to keep things organic. Use fresh herbs as garnish, it adds colour and scent as well. You could also use flowers of you have them as a bit of colorful decoration. Bare in mind that this is done in winter, so the fruit I have used is winter fruit. In summer use fresh berries instead. Other vegetables are also useful as fillers, carrots are inexpensive and add great colour. Swap out the rice bubble cake for a gf df slice if you prefer not to make it. The trick is to put things in that your kids, or family would eat.
Chocolate bark…
- 2 x blocks 50% Whittakers dark Chocolate
- handful of crasins
- handful of dried blueberries
- handful of pistachios
Get a big tray out and line it with baking paper, melt the chocolate in 1 minute bursts in a microwave safe bowl in the microwave. Give it a big stir in between times, less heat is better.
Pour the chocolate in a thin layer onto the tray and spread it out. It only needs to be a few millimetres think so spread it!! Then sprinkle over your fruit and nuts. Pop it into the fridge and let it set before breaking it up for your platters. Use a knife if you want but it breaks with clean hands super easily.
Rice Bubble slice…
- 5 cups GF rice bubbles
- 100g coconut oil or df spread
- 100g sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoon honey
- sprinkles
Melt the oil, sugar and honey, add the rice bubbles then press it into a lined slice pan roughly 10cm x 15cm
Sprinkle with sprinkles then pop in the fridge to set.
Slice up right out of the fridge to add to your platters.
three boys kitchen 