Wooaaaaaaaaah, time sure does fly! In exciting news, Alphabake recently celebrated its one year anniversary (and we still have not gotten through the entire alphabet--oops). The other thing that reflects time's quick passing is that I actually made this recipe and took the photos for this post last Christmas Eve (I think my style has changed a bit since). I realize that making a quiche or something with quinoa would have been a better match for the letter 'Q' but these Queen Olive cheese balls were made in honour of my sister's dog, Olive. I felt that I needed to make letter 'Q' before I left for Scotland in order to get the puppy photo op.
The recipe comes from Hors D'Oeuvres by Eric Treuille and Vitctoria Blashford-Snell. The main reason I decided to try this recipe was because it was one of the very few I had that started with 'Q'. I did not expect them to be particularly tasty but I was pleasantly surprised and everyone at the dinner really liked them. HRH Queen Olive Cheese Ball herself tried to get her paws on a few!
The recipe comes from Hors D'Oeuvres by Eric Treuille and Vitctoria Blashford-Snell. The main reason I decided to try this recipe was because it was one of the very few I had that started with 'Q'. I did not expect them to be particularly tasty but I was pleasantly surprised and everyone at the dinner really liked them. HRH Queen Olive Cheese Ball herself tried to get her paws on a few!
Ingredients
20 pitted large green olives*
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 tbs cold butter, diced
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
salt, cayenne pepper
1 egg yolk, beaten with 1 Tbsp water
1 tsp poppy seeds
Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Pat olives dry with paper towels.
Place parmesan, butter, and flour with pinch each salt and cayenne pepper in a food processor; blend until smooth pastry forms. Divide pastry into 20 equal-sized pieces. With floured hands, press 1 piece of pastry around each olive to enclose completely. Roll pastry-wrapped olives between palms of your hands to make smooth, olive shapes. Place on an oiled baking sheet. Refrigerate until firm, 30 minutes.
Brush pastry with beaten egg. Sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake until golden, 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Makes 20
* Instead of plain pitted olives, I could only find ones that were both marinated and stuffed with cloves of garlic (it was Christmas Eve and the shopping scene was crazy). These two features really added to the flavour so I would recommend using a fancy kind of olive if you come across any.
HRH Queen Olive Cheese Ball
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