
I love hosting coffee mornings for my girlfriends. Especially on cold mornings with the wood burner on at full blast, as we try and exchange our news over the lovely chaos of children running around the kitchen table.
During gatherings like these, I tend to focus much more on the children and the food, which works well, but not so much on drinks and other areas. So I was keen to check out tips from Tassimo’s Perfect Host Panel (which features Chef John Torode, coffee expert Hazel Middleton and Millie Mackintosh) to brush up on my hosting skills. They share seasonal recipes, kitchen hacks and tips on drinks and being the perfect host.
So during my most recent coffee morning I put quite a few of their tips into action
- Create a great ambiance – which I did easily via some Christmas decorations on the table, lamps and Christmas music.
- Serve crowd pleasing mini pastries for ease – IÂ prepared and served John’s ham and cheese bread pudding.
- Put out a selection of great hot drinks – a drinks and cookie corner including coffees and teas and of course children’s tea aka roiboos.
- I also added in a girlfriend’s tip of throwing in a children’s treasure hunt, which meant we had 20 mins of quiet grown up times to really dig in to those cookies and to savor that second cup of coffee.
And the morning went like a dream. It felt rather luxurious to sit round and have our own cafe style coffee on tap, along with the ham and cheese bread puddings and gorgeous cookies, and every now and then singing along to Christmas music. Even the kiddoes joined in with the sing along after their treasure hunt.
The mums were so impressed that one of them promptly borrowed the Tassimo machine for the book club morning she was hosting the following weekend. Now that is what I call a result.
Do pop over to Tassimo for some more perfect host tips, easy recipes and great selection of hot drinks.
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Ham and Cheese Bread Pudding
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to fan assisted 140C / 160C / 325 F / gas 3.
- Remove the crusts from the bread, cutting each slice into strips
- Mix together the cheese and ham in a separate bowl.
- Grease the muffin moulds well with salted butter.
- Start to layer the moulds with first a couple of strips of bread, then the ham and cheese mix until each mould is 3/4 full.
- Then top each mould with the egg custard mixture (from step two) and leave to soak for 10 minutes, so the bread absorbs the mixture.
- Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
- Bake for 40 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow them to set at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
- Pairs well with horseradish cream and a Tassimo Costa Latte.
Thanks to Tassimo for sending me a machine and some vouchers to recreate the recipe. All opinions are my own.
I love these hosting tips!!
The tips do make life so much easier.
I’d love an invite to your coffee morning, it looks so fabulous and I bet the food is great.
Maybe we can all have a virtual coffee morning?
Can I pop along to your next one, please!;) Sounds fab. Great tips from the experts. Tx
That virtual coffee morning is looking more and more likely. Yeap great tips from the perfect host panel.
I love the idea of the drinks and cookie corner. That’s a good idea. Ham and cheese bread pudding…that sounds interesting and tasty.
This is a great looking bread pudding Bintu!!
Cute mugs! The ham and cheese bread pudding sounds delicious 🙂
That’s weird, I’m sure I commented on this post when you first did it – hey ho! Love your photos as always, it all looks so pretty and inviting. I grew up on cheese pudding, but not with ham in it. Haven’t had it for years. Right now, I want one of your biscuits and a nice cup of rooibos.
What a lovely idea to host the ladies over for coffee and breakfast! This is a nice way to take the pressure off of cooking an entire dinner–and still gives the rest of the day to get things done. Thanks for the idea!
I’m not sure whether I like the sound of this or not, but I want to try it x