Flowers for Wendolonia

Have you been following the 3 Tools challenges over at Wendolonia? A few weeks ago I joined in  with this cute owl lunch and I had such a hoot (pun intended) that I lined up again!

I had grand plans of filling the large space of the EasyLunchBox with ham & cheese sandwich roses like those I made for this Paint the Roses Red lunch last year. You can see the sad remains of them as the 'rolling hills' at the bottom here. I ended up making a flower pocket sandwich 'cloud' with some ham & cheese flowers atop a bed of lettuce. By using a Tupperware square round I was able to pack a small Sinchies of yoghurt in this compartment too.

I'd planned to make rockmelon/watermelon layered flowers but the rockmelon proved too popular with Miss M & Honey and didn't quite make it. Lucky there were some strawberries and grapes in the fridge to make this mini salad. I kind of like how it gives the whole lunch a reddish feel :-)

Those puff pastry bites were also a slight change of plan. I first thought to make some pizza-puffs but ended up piping some strawberry cheesecake mixture into these two. Cream cheese counts as dairy right?

So why all the change of plans? Have a look behind the scenes with me. . .

Cutting & imprinting some store bought puff pastry

Wondering if they would make nice pie shells

In different sizes

And different moulds

Should I weight them? Nah, they won't rise that much, I only want a little filling.

This was after I'd thought to change to a sweet option. Can you see my attempt at clouds on the top left? How good would they look puffed up?

Nutella - can't go wrong, right?

Strawberry jam - a must!

Lots of Nutella surely must equal lots of yum?

A smaller jam flower

And cooked. Those clouds didn't quite work how I wanted :-(

A lot of detail lost

And not as pretty as imagined

Note to self - it's called 'puff' pastry for a reason

This one looked nice

So try the savoury version

Might try doing pocket pizzas

Same size flower pastry on top, imprinted & spread with pizza sauce

Sealed with the next size down cutter

And left a little too long in the oven *sigh*

But the pizza parcels worked!

Albeit a little burnt. They still tasted good

Ok, ditch plan C, back to plan B.

Cream cheese, cream & a little strawberry jam piped into some sweet puffs. Worked well in the end.

This is how I folded the ham before rolling into the rosettes. A little different from a traditional ham flower.

What do you think? Worth the change?

Did you notice I even changed my mind on the lid colour beneath the box? 

Ah, I used to be indecisive. . . 

And this is what it looks like with a Sinchies yoghurt in the main compartment and a popper strapped to the box.

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.
~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on personal experience with the product.