A few weeks ago, I wanted to make an hors d’oeuvre which could be served both warm and room termperature, and had the ability to invoke the desire in anyone to lean over for one more! I find that mushrooms and parsley are one of those heavenly matches – like strawberry and balsamic, orange and dark chocolate. Puff pastry is an obvious and amazing choice. How can you go wrong with something that has 1000 layers, and rises butterfully (see what I did there – beautifully with butter).

On a free afternoon, I pre-thawed the puff pastry for a few hours in the fridge and then rolled it out, cut 2″ rounds using a cookie cutter, and pressed down the corners with the back of a fork – providing those pretty little ridges in the pastry. The indentations also allow the corners to rise more and get nice and golden, whereas the centre remains a little dented, paving way for filling of choice. After they were indented, I popped them back into a freezer layered with parchment paper between each circle, to prevent any scope of sticking. This method saved me a huge amount of time and effort on D-day, and is also a great way to utilise any excess pastry.

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