Cocktail Menu Ideas

The best point about cocktail party food is that it can be a fun and diverse selection of items. Since at cocktail parties nobody really eats a lot of food you can have a lot of different varieties of appetizers. You can even experiment with some new food items and still have enough safe for everyone at the party.

 Some of the most basic guidelines you need to know when planning a cocktail menu are as follows:

·         Try to have some variety in your menu. Meaning try to seafood, meat selections, finger food and some cold dishes like salads.

·         Desserts or anything sweet is not the norm in most cocktail parties but if you want to serve them you can at the end of the party. This way your guests will also know that the party is about to end and will start leaving themselves and you will not have to feel awkward about asking them to leave.

·         It usually helps to estimate food quantity by assuming each person will take approximately six bites per hour. So using a bit of mathematics you can calculate how much food you will need to serve at a two hour party.

·         At cocktail parties you can never go wrong with hors d'oeuvres. And the general rule regarding them is that one ounce is equivalent to one bite.

·         It is always best to overestimate the amount of food you serve rather than underestimate just to be on the safe side.

Some great ideas for the menu could be like for example serving shrimp cocktails.  You would need a few martini glasses to serve these prawns in them. If you don’t have any at your home and need to purchase them you can purchase premium plastic cocktail glasses. These look amazing and you will not even be able to tell the difference between them and real glasses ones. All you will need to do is prepare a few tiger prawns and make a sauce to go in to the martini glasses and presto you have a great appetizer for your guests.

If you want to make the event an informal one and make it a bit different and funky you can use flashing margarita glasses for the shrimp cocktail. These glasses flash in seven different colors and with the margarita glass's shape the shrimps attached on the rims of the glass looks extremely beautiful and also yummy at first glance.

Another great dish to serve at your cocktail party would be corn muffins with roasted red peppers, scallions and cheddar. These bite sized muffins taste savory and are like corn bread with a subtle sweetness. You can make these mini muffins using a mini cupcake machine. All you need to do is create the batter and simply pour it in to the machine and it will bake them in about five minutes. This machine has the capacity to make seven mini muffins every five minutes so making enough for all your guests won't be a problem at all using this nifty product.

Now we can focus on how you can best showcase these lovely muffins which are great to look at and equally yummy to taste. A 5 tier cupcake stand would probably be the best option to serve these cupcakes as they will look very messy and unorganized if you just simply put them all on a tray and served them. These muffins would look great on this white 5 tier cupcake stand and all your friends and colleagues will compliment you on your immaculate way of presenting the food.

To spice up your champagne glasses you can use a great and innovative product known as champagne flowers. These are basically syrup soaked blooms that you simply place in your champagne flutes and when you pour in champagne or even sparkling wine the bubbles in the drink make the flower open up in to a beautiful crown shaped flower. You can even add a bit of syrup to the flute to give your champagne that wonderful rhubarb and raspberry flavor. After finishing their drinks your guests can even eat these flowers. They taste quite good.

There are so many ways to plan out a cocktail party menu and you can even try out new recipes and create some of your own. All that you need to worry about is making the event one to remember for all your guests as well as yourself. So to avoid last minute stresses prepare all the meals beforehand so that you're not running in and out of the kitchen during the actual cocktail party. Also make sure that all your necessary supplies are in stock before the party starts as you need utensils to serve food and drinks in. 

Written By: Jarrod Brake
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