Baby Shower

I helped with a baby shower on Saturday. I was responsible for the food and my dear friend made the darling centerpiece for the occasion. It was fun. I haven't helped with a baby shower in a long time. So it was fun coming up with games and new ideas.

I wanted to share some of the ideas for the shower. My friend has a beautiful assortment of blue and white dishes as well as some lovely milk glass dishes. Since the baby is a boy we decided to use blue and white dishes and to use navy blue instead of the traditional baby blue. It really turned out beautiful. We had a shower with just desserts. Petit fours with a little blue booties on top, cut out iced sugar cookies with a baby theme, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberries with a fruit dip, chocolate bonbons, and watermelon and cantaloupe in a carved watermelon that looked like a stroller. I tried a new punch that I had seen in Southern Living which I really liked called Governor's Manson Summer Peach Tea Punch.

The two recipes I want to share with you are the punch and the chocolate bonbons.

3 family size tea bags
2 cups loosely packed fresh mint
1 33oz. bottle of peach nectar
1/2 (12 oz) can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1/2 cup Simple Sugar Syrup
1 (1-liter) bottle ginger ale, chilled
1 (1-liter) bottle club soda, chilled
Garnish with fresh peaches

Bring 4 cups water to boil in medium sauce pan. Add tea bags and boil one minute. Turn off heat and add mint leaves. Cover and steep for 10 minutes. Discard tea bags and mint leaves. Pour into a one gallon container, add peach nectar, lemonade and Simple sugar syrup. Mix well, cover and chill 8 to 24 hours. Pour chilled tea mixture into punch bowl or pitcher. Stir in ginger ale and club soda just before serving. Garnish with peaches if desired.

Simple syrup - Bring 1 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Let boil for about 4 minutes stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Let cool before using.


Chocolate Bonbons - This is a recipe my daughter saw on Food Network and told me about. These are very rich.
For the shower I used 2 chewy brownie mixes. Cook according to package directions. Let cool.

Chocolate Ganache
1 cup heavy cream
1 (12 oz) package of Semi Sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons of coffee
In a double boiler add heavy cream, chocolate chips and coffee. Stir until chocolate chips are melted.

Toppings
1 small pkg. coconut
1 jar salted peanuts, chopped
1 pkg. mini chocolate chips
Get 3 dinner plates and put coconut in one, peanuts in one and mini chocolate chips in one.

After brownies have cooled take a teaspoon and run it across the top of the brownie to break it up. I would get enough brownie to make a round ball. They were bigger than a walnut but not as big as a golf ball. Make all the brownies into balls then dip them into the chocolate ganache and then dip them in either the coconut, peanuts or mini chocolate chips. You can stick Popsicle sticks into them but I found little signs that said baby boy and that's what I used. These would be cute for a kids party with a Popsicle stick in them.