Savoury treats for a birthday

As I already mentioned, I turned 30 whether I wanted it or not. The birthday cake and its disastrous ordeal deserved their own post, so here is a separate post for tips and recipes for some savoury party treats.


The beef pasties I made well in advance and put it the freezer to wait for the party, and for the occasion they were decorated with the number 30, which I cut with number shaped cookie cutters from a thinned out puff pastry sheet and attached on top of the pasties with egg glaze before baking.

The second savoury alternative was a ham and onion cream cheese cake, the recipe of which can be found below. For the base I used sweetish digestive biscuits, because the version I made for my actual birthday had a very crumbly cream cracker base which didn't hold together. The combination of sweet and savoury wasn't such a bad idea after all :)



Ham and onion cream cheese cake:


180 g      digestive biscuits
80 g        margarine

100 g      smoked ham
200 g      black pepper and spring onion
               flavoured cream cheese
200 g      chive falvoured cream cheese
2 dl         double cream
4             leaves of gelatin
2 tbsp     water

Fresh chives to decorate.


Crumb the biscuits and mix together with melted margarine. Press the biscuit crumbs on the bottom of a (ø24-26cm) springform cake pan and let set in the fridge for a bit.

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water for about ten minutes until they're soft.
Cut the smoked ham into small squares and mix together with the cream cheeses.
Whip the cream to soft peaks in a separate bowl.
Squeeze out excess water from the soaked gelatin leaves and mix well with a couple of tablespoons of boiling water. Add the gelatin mix to the cream cheese mix.
Add whipped cream and mix until smooth.

Pour the cream cheese-whipped cream mix into the springform pan on top of the biscuit crumbs and let set in the fridge for a few hours, preferably over night.

NB! With this recipe the cheese layer in a ø 26 cm cake pan was about 1,5 cm in height, which I think is just enough because of the relatively greasy texture. The attached picture was taken from the earlier cream cracker -based cake (which due to its thickness left a greasy after taste) because I didn't have time/remember to take a picture of this cake.