As part of a New Year's resolution to make the most of our time at home, our house became a late adopter of the quarantine "themed dinner" trend.
Our first theme: James Bond.
Chocolate Cigars
These were very messy to create, but the final product made it all worth it! I used Sprinkle Bake's recipe to create these Smoky Chocolate Cigars. The hardest part was piping the chocolate into the wax paper rolls. I recommend working in small doses (smaller wax paper rolls held up in a shot glass) to help control the mold and reduce the mess. If you have trouble with your molds like we did, you can re-formed once you take them out of the fridge.
I didn't have the time to find a fancy label, so I found an image of the Golden Gate Bridge from the internet, pasted it into a Word doc and then cut out little paper stripes with the logo in the center to make my "cigar" labels. I backed each stripe with parchment paper to help keep the paper dry and unencumbered by chocolate.
With Sprinkle Bakes' recipe we had a decent amount of chocolate left over. Per their suggestion we turned the extra into little truffles which we included on our cheese platter.
Tuxedo Cheese & Crackers
The Tuxedo Cheeses were a highlight of the meal, and the best part was it was quick and easy to make! To make these we got two different hard cheeses, round crackers and black and red decorating gel. We sliced the cheese into triangle wedges, placed the cheese on the cracker and then drew on the bow ties and three buttons with the gel--easy as that! Some people were concerned that the decorating gel would taste weird with the cheese, but you can't really taste it. If the thought of the frosting with cheese still freaks you out, another alternative is to cut olives or red bell pepper to create the bow ties, as suggested by Cute Food for Kids.
Martini Cupcakes "Shaken Not Stirred"
We took a lot of artistic liberties with this one. I was inspired by Maison Cupcakes' interpretation of the martini. I baked cupcakes (red velvet!), covered them in white frosting and sprinkles and then placed them in a plastic martini glass that I got from Amazon. For the "olives", we wanted to have a little fun. In honor of the COVID vaccine which is currently being rolled out, I ordered mini syringes from Amazon which we filled with green frosting and then placed in the cupcakes. Guests could either give themselves a "shot" of green frosting or inject the frosting into the cupcake before eating. It was a fun and playful twist on the classic James Bond drink.
Cheese Plate
No party is complete without a cheese plater! This turned out to be a great place for us to feature our extra chocolate truffles and tuxedo cheeses as well as add some savory foods to our otherwise very sweet snack spread. To help balance out all of the desserts, we made brie bites (cubes of brie, wrapped in Pillsbury croissant dough), Caprese skewers, and then added some extra cheese cubes, almonds and grapes.