Vegetable flowers

Hi foodies!

This week, I'm bringing you a new savoury recipe. :o) Impress your guests with an appetizer that looks like a flower – perfect for spring, don't you think?

For 48 mini flowers, you will need:

- 2 puff pastry sheets or 2 shortcrust pastry sheets

- Various vegetables to your taste. Here, I used 2 small sweet potatoes, 2 zucchinis and 1 aubergine.

Filling

- 50gr full cream

- 100gr sour cream

- 50gr parmesan

- 1 egg

- 1 spring onion

- 1 clove of garlic

- pepper, salt

Preparing the pastry

The first thing to do is to prepare the pastry in the moulds. Here I used a puff pastry and a shortcrust pastry to see which one would give the best result in the end.

Result: No matter which pastry you choose, both look great after baking (see photo No. 2, shortcrust pastry on the left, puff pastry on the right), so choose whichever pastry you prefer! ;0)

Prepare 2 mini cupcake moulds and generously use the release spray. If you only have one mould, you can also prepare one batch, bake it, and then make the second batch.

Prick the pastry using a dough docker or a fork. Then cut out the pastry with the largest Decora flower shape (8 cm).

Place the pastry in the cavities and press lightly. Place the mould in the fridge while you prepare the cream.

Filling

For the filling, pour 50gr of full cream, 100gr of sour cream and 50gr of parmesan into a bowl.

Add 1 egg and mix everything together with a whisk. Finally, press a clove of garlic into the mixture.

For an extra touch, I chopped 1 spring onion into small pieces and added it to the cream. Season the filling to your taste with pepper, salt or other spices. Place the filling in the fridge for a few minutes while you prepare the vegetables.

Preparing the vegetables

Preheat the oven to 200 °C, fan-forced.

For these little vegetable flowers, I used 2 sweet potatoes, 2 zucchinis and 1 aubergine.

But you can also use other vegetables, such as carrots, celery, beetroot, etc...

Peel the sweet potatoes.

Since I sliced the vegetables very thinly with a peeler, it is easy to roll them into pretty flowers.

If that's not the case and the vegetables break when shaping them, blanch them briefly by bringing a pot of salted water to a boil. Place the vegetables in the boiling water, remove the pot from the heat and let the vegetables rest for 1 to 2 minutes before plunging them into cold water.

Be careful with vegetables that bleed colour, like beetroot, as this will dye the other vegetables pink.

Take the mould with the pastry and the filling out of the fridge. Add 1.5 teaspoons of filling to each cavity.

Cut the vegetables into strips using a peeler and roll them into a flower shape. Depending on the thickness and size of the strips, you will need 4 to 6 strips to make a flower that fits into the cavity. Then place the flower in the mould.

There are no limits to creativity – you can make flowers with a single type of vegetable or a mix of everything. For vegetables that release a lot of water, I recommend seasoning a little more.

Once all the flowers have been placed, bake everything for 20 to 25 minutes in the middle of the oven at 200°C (fan-forced).

Once baking is done, place the flowers on a rack and let them cool.

The third photo shows the two different pastries, shortcrust pastry on top and puff pastry on the bottom.

Visually, they are almost identical. In terms of taste, I prefer the puff pastry, especially for appetizers. ;o)

And there you have it, the little vegetable flowers are ready. Time for aperitif! ;o)

I hope you enjoy the recipe!

Have a lovely Sunday!

Jenny

P.S.: You will find all the materials used at the end of the recipe.