Let’s Talk about One-Bite Canapés: Managing the Challenges of Making Canapés

Do the challenges of making canapés cause you to avoid them for your gatherings? While I adore elegant little one-bite canapés / amuse-bouches / hors d’oeuvres, I have two hurdles to making them–one psychological and one practical.  Let’s deal with the practical challenge to making canapés first, because I find it the most straightforward to mitigate.  

Practical Challenge to Making Canapés – Time Limits and Planning

Some one-bite canapés pose the challenge of needing to be made or at least assembled shortly before consumption.  For example, if you make something that has a toast point or baguette as a base, top it with anything containing moisture–cream, meat, etc.–and then store it in the fridge overnight; you’re going to have a slightly soggy (or at least no longer crisp) base.  So you are probably looking at “day of” assembly.  

My dinner parties are most often after work on a Friday and pre-party prep time is limited (usually about 2 hours), so if I try to do a bunch of what I call “handwork” assembling one-bite foods AND try to cook multiple items that need close attention, it isn’t going to go well.  (Not to mention that I won’t be able to enjoy my pre-party wine selection, because my hands will be too busy.)

How can you handle this?

• Are these bites that you can make completely in advance and store in the fridge?
  • Yes
    • Great.  Get this done the day before your dinner party and just allocate time to set them out on their serving plate(s) before your guests arrive. 
  • No
    • Make a couple of practice pieces and figure out how long it’s going to take you to make / assemble the number you have planned.  Use the high / conservative end of whatever your estimate turns out to be.  (# of pieces X time to make 1 piece)
    • Look at your Menu Plan and your “Day Of Timeline” to make sure you can make the timing work with any other dishes that are going to require work in the last 2 hours before party time.  
    • Put the canapé making / assembly time in your Day Of Timeline schedule and stick to it.  
    • Prep any (or as many as possible) individual components in advance and store them in airtight containers in the fridge so that you can focus most of your time on assembly. 

You’ve got this!

Okay, we’ve got the time issue handled, let’s talk about my psychological challenge to making one-bite canapés and their ilk.  

Psychological Challenge (at least for Lori) to Making Canapés – Portion and / or Size Control

I have a REALLY hard time getting past the concept of “more is better” or “bigger is better”.  I know exactly where I get it from, and I realize the fallacy of both of those concepts, but that doesn’t make them any less of a challenge for me to overcome.  I love to eat one-bite creations when I am out and about.  They’re tasty little bites and because they’re small, you can have a million of them, right?  😛  Okay, perhaps not quite that many. 

I have a perpetual fear that guests will not have enough to eat and will still be hungry.  If you ever eat at our house, you will know that that is highly unlikely to ever happen.  

Here is how I suggest getting past this “hurdle”?

• Remember that you are trying to give your guests all of the flavors and textures in a single bite.  This isn’t a mix and match.  You (or whoever wrote the recipe) put those food components together for a reason.  
• Remember that it can be more of a pain for guests to take a half bite of something small, particularly if they happen to be standing while socializing in the first phase of the dinner party.
  • When you try to bite such a small piece in half, you usually wind up with:
    • crumbs from a broken base
    • a half piece of charcuterie pulled off and hanging from your guest’s mouth
    • a squirt gone astray from a piece of grape tomato
    • the comedy reel goes on
  • You are really being a good host / hostess by making the bite convenient for your guests.  
• Remember that if there happen to be leftovers, they are already the perfect snack size for an easy grab-and-go.  

Hopefully, with those tips in mind, you’re ready to tackle some one-bite canapés for your next dinner party.

Need Some Ideas for One-Bite Canapés?

Now that you have some suggestions for tackling one-bite canapés, give these tasty recipes a try!

• From my Whipped Pesto Obsession Dinner Party
  • Prosciutto Pesto Canapés
  • Soppressata and Manchego Pesto Canapés

I’m constantly inspired by the foods I encounter on my travels. I’ll be posting more ideas from there soon. Stay tuned!