We were scheduled for a Progressive Dinner when we returned from Arizona. Our neighbours John and Nancy were the main-course hosts so they chose the theme: the Kentucky Derby. This group is a hoot and everyone chose something fun to wear that was indicative of the Derby. JT and Tom wore bow ties (JT made his bow-tie from a standard tie using this video, don’t you just love Google?!). Iona and I wore crazy hats and Nancy dressed up as a jockey, she is around 5 feet tall and really looked the part. Neighbour John dressed as a stable-hand, all in denim! It was a super fun night that ended somewhere around 2am!
I was responsible for dessert and I went a little crazy and did Mint Julep three ways: Panna Cotta, Macarons and Trifle! You may notice a sablé horse on the plate too but I didn’t like the recipe so it will be ignored. The desserts went over well, the bourbon was noticeable but not overwhelming, as was the mint. I doubt I’ll make these flavours again but it was fun for the night. And yes, we were served Mint Julep’s at Tom and Iona’s as part of our starters.
My crazy hat!
Kentucky Derby, Mint Julep Three Ways
- Panna Cotta
- Macarons
- Trifle
Mint Julep Panna Cotta with White Chocolate Almond Crumb
To print the Mint Julep Panna Cotta, please click here.
Serves 6
Ingredients:
- 8 g Powdered unflavored gelatin
- 50 mL Cold water
- 700 mL Whole milk
- 75 g Sugar
- 2 g Tonka bean, finely grated
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 g small bunch Fresh mint leaves, including stems
- 1/4 tsp Real Mint extract
- 65 mL Kentucky Bourbon (to taste and optional)
- 1-2 tablespoon finely chopped mint leaves
Directions:
- Dissolve gelatin in the cold water. Set aside. Lightly rub vessels with a non-flavoured oil, set aside.
- Warm milk with sugar, grated tonka bean and cinnamon to 150° F (DO NOT BOIL), add mint leaves and allow to steep for 10 minutes Stir in gelatin until dissolved.
- Strain milk mixture through a fine sieve and discard mint. Into the strained mixture, stir in the mint extract and Kentucky Bourbon a little at a time, tasting each time until the desired flavour is achieved. Cool slightly.
- Pour into prepared vessels and chill for 2-4 hours or until set.
White Chocolate Almond Crumb
Ingredients:
- 50 g white chocolate chips
- 5 mL Bourbon
- 25 g ground almonds
- 15 g coconut flour
Directions:
- Melt the chocolate with the bourbon on low heat, stir in the ground almonds and coconut flour, it will be rather thick.
- Sprinkle/spread relatively thinly on a Silpat and bake for 3 minutes in a preheated 350° F oven, until golden.
- Cool completely and crumble with a fork until relatively fine. Reserve for assembly.
Mason Jar Mint Julep Blueberry Trifle
Please click here to print this recipe.
Serves 6
The Blueberries
Ingredients:
- 300 g Blueberries
- 125 mL Bourbon
Directions:
- Combine the blueberries and bourbon and allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes or one day.
- Strain, reserving the blueberry bourbon. Set aside until assembly.
The Sponge
Ingredients:
- 4 large eggs
- 120 g sugar
- 120 g all purpose flour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 350° F. Line a 23 cm x 33 cm (9″ x 13″) cake pan or jelly roll pan with parchment paper, carefully folding the corners. Spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- Separate the eggs into two medium bowls. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, but not dry. Set aside.
- Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and creamy and falls in a thick ribbon.
- Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the pale egg yolk mixture.
- Sift about 1/3 of the flour into the egg yolk mixture, then alternate folding in with the egg whites being careful not to deflate the batter.
- Once all of the egg whites and flour have been folded in, the mixture will be thick. Pour carefully into your prepared baking pan and spread out evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean.
- Lift the cake out of the pan using the parchment edges and allow to cool completely.
- Measure your Mason jar diameter and select a round cookie cutter of similar size. Cut 12 rounds for the trifle and set aside.
Stabilized Mint Julep Whipping Cream
Ingredients:
- 3 g unflavoured gelatin
- 15 mL Cold water
- 15 mL Bourbon
- 1 mL mint extract
- 125 mL whipping cream,
- 8 g icing sugar
- 2 g freshly chopped mint, as garnish
Directions:
- Dissolve the gelatin in the cold water, mix in the bourbon and mint extract, set aside.
- Whip the cream with the icing sugar. Add a bit of the whipped cream to the gelatin mixture and whisk well to combine. Strain this mixture if it’s lumpy. As you are whipping the cream, add the gelatin mixture and whip until well-combined.
Assembly of the Mason Jar Mint Julep Blueberry Trifle
- Layer one sponge round into the bottom of each mason jar, sprinkle about 5 mL to 10 mL of the reserved blueberry bourbon onto each sponge in the mason jar. Add about 15 blueberries on top of the sponge in each jar. Using a pipping bag, trop the blueberry layer with the stabilized whipped cream. Sprinkle lightly with the chopped mint garnish.
- Layer the second sponge on top of the whipped cream, sprinkle about 5 mL to 10 mL of the remainder of the reserved blueberry bourbon onto each sponge in the mason jar. Top with the whipped cream and finish with about 12-15 blueberries in each jar. Sprinkle with the remaining mint garnish. Tightly close lid and refrigerate until serving.
Mint Julep Macarons
Makes about 10 macarons (four ;-)for the cook!).
To print this recipe, please click here.
Ingredients:
- 35 g blanched, finely ground almond meal or flour
- 58 g icing sugar
- 1 large egg white, room temperature
- 25 g granulated sugar
- A pinch of gel food colouring (I used green)
Directions:
- Pre-heat the oven to 350° F. Line your baking sheet with parchment with circle-round templates beneath it (this is a more detailed account of this recipe).
- Combine the almond meal with the icing sugar and sift a few times, discard or reserve the larger bits for something else.
- In the small bowl of your stand mixer, whisk the granulated sugar and egg white together by hand and then beat on #4 for 2 minutes, #6 for 2 minutes.
- Add the pinch of food colouring now and beat for a final two minutes on #8.
- Pipe onto the prepared parchment onto the circle-rounds. Tap the baking sheet on the counter to remove any air bubbles and bake for 13 minutes or until feet have developed but the cookie does NOT brown. Cool on parchment and remove carefully. Fill with Mint Julep Buttercream (recipe below).
- Unfilled cookies may be kept in the freezer for up to one month in an air-tight container.
Mint Julep Buttercream
Ingredients:
- 57 g butter (softened)
- 200 g icing sugar
- 2.5 mL mint extract
- 25 mL bourbon
- 2.5 mL brandy
- Gel food colouring of choice
Directions:
- Combine softened butter with the icing sugar, mint extract, bourbon and brandy and beat until extremely light and fluffy.
- I wanted this buttercream to resemble the colour of bourbon so I coloured it with a little brown, red and yellow gel colouring.
- Fill a piping bag with the buttercream and fill each half cookie carefully. Top with the second half of the cookie. Store on its side in an air-tight container in the fridge. Cookies remain fresh for up to one week. Allow to come to room temperature before serving, but make sure the room isn’t too warm otherwise the buttercream will melt.
Mint Julep Four Ways Plating
- Sprinkle the white chocolate crumb on one side of the plate. Top with the mint julep pannacotta and garnish with small mint leaves.
- Add the macaron on its side and finish with the uncovered trifle. Serve with a shot of bourbon, or pass like we did (I just thought it looked nice for the photo).
It looks like you’ve had so much fun! Your progressive dinners always make me so jealous… I wish I had such a group here!
Your mint julep desserts look amazing! So haute cuisine! I’m seriously impressed!
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What beautiful desserts all in 1 plate! i love your tasty creativity! 🙂
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I wish we still were doing neighborhood progressive dinners—so much fun. Your desserts look fabulous!! What a fun theme.
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Thank you kindly Liz. The progressive dinners are a blast, for sure.
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What fun! Your desserts sound wonderful and are such a pretty presentation. I love the horse!!
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Thank you kindly, Chef Mimi. It was a fun evening.
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Wow, Eva, you really outdid yourself with these desserts! Your creativity inspires. And although the horse cookie recipe did not turn out as desired, it is the perfect centerpiece for your display – I love the theme. I’m intrigued by the almond crumb on your panna cotta, what a nice complement of texture and flavors there. Beautiful work. ps: such a fun photo of you and JT!
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Thank you so much for your kind words, Kelly. We have another progressive dinner coming up and I’m struggling for a theme, we’ve done so many of them!
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Yesss Eva!!! You guys look AMAZING!!!
It sounds like you guys had a wonderful night, what fun for neighbors!!
xx
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Thanks Dana, it was a wonderful night indeed.
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The real standout to me is that you can make a bow tie out of a traditional tie! Who knew? Anyway, it sounds like it was a really fun night. Did you say you think you won’t be making these flavors again, but the recipes seem interesting. Maybe bourbon and mint is an acquired taste?
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Isn’t that completely crazy? I didn’t believe it when I first googled it but then the video was convincing. JT mastered it on the first try. I liked the flavours well enough but not sure that I would want them as a group again. I might do the panna cotta and the trifle, there are far better flavours for a macaron than the mint julep combo.
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Your progressive dinners always sound like fun. Those desserts look fabulous — really inspired stuff. And that video on making a bow tie out of a regular tie was such a fun find. 🙂
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Thank you kindly, John. We are very fortunate to enjoy the company of our neighbours, it really makes living on our street wonderful. Crazy video isn’t it? I found it when we had a difficult time finding a real bow tie without being a clip on.
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So pretty and creative! I’ll bet you guys had a blast and that everyone went crazy for your desserts.
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Thanks again for your advice Betsy, The three desserts turned out quite well and even though we were full from three previous courses, they were polished off!
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You’re progressive dinner always seem like such fun. It’s been ages since I’ve had a proper dinner party at my house. Sure I’ve had friends in for dinner, but while enjoyable, it’s just not the same as on “event” dinner. These desserts certainly are a festive way to close out this “event”. GREG
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Thanks so much Greg, I love the planning and serving of a proper dinner party. I love using all the ‘good stuff’ and even mixing and matching. Casual dinner parties are relaxing and fun too.
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You guys are SO cute! I’ve never been to a Kentucky Derby but it sounds like fun! 😀
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Thanks Lorraine, I suspect they are a lot of fun, particularly if the horse you bet on wins.
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Great trio of desserts. I keep meaning to give macarons another try but I have such a long food bucket list already.
I want a set of those small mason jars )and the large ones with the handles) so I can make various things I’ve seen posted on this and other blogs. (I’m so shallow.) 😉
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Thank you Maria, I bought these at Dollarama so they probably have them down your way too. Macarons are best made when it is not humid out. I reserve them for spring and fall, sometimes winter.
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I’ll have to check out my local one. I’m just trying to stay out of there cause I can get a little carried away by the glasses and serving dishes … and then there are the chocolate bars. 🙂
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Wow that looks great and like a lot of work. We call this running dinner, but I haven’t participated in one for ages.
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Hi Stefan, I usually spread out the work over several days and that way I don’t exhaust myself. Thank you for your kind words. If the glass wasn’t so heavy to ship, I’d send you some of those cute mason jars! I didn’t realize progressive dinners were popular in Europe too, running dinner sounds like a fun name, but our dinners usually take about 3-4 hours at each house so ours would be more like strolling dinner!
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Looks lovely! Both the desserts and the hat. 🙂 One of my oldest friends is from Kentucky, and visited Louisville years back. Always wanted to go to the Derby….
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I’ve never been to the Derby but I love things that have history and pomp and circumstance. The dinner was a lot of fun, thank you for your kind words.
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They look bsolutely gorgeous! And these dinners always sound like so much fun. Your hat looks amazing too!
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Thank you kindly, Michela. The dinners are a lot of fun, we are running out of themes to use!
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That’s a star restaurant quality dessert, Eva. Party until 2am…wow..I am too old for that… I love your crazy hat :-))
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Hi Angie, we really don’t party like that often, but once in a while it’s fun. Thank you for your kind words.
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