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Birthday celebrations last weekend called for food, and lots of it. We decided that the easiest way to cater for 25 people was tapas style nibbles. On the menu:

Looks like a lot of food written down like that but in fact it all disappeared pretty sharpish – and coupled with a couple of tureens of cosmopolitans and rum punch kept us sustained through a conversation about neutrinos at 3 in the morning.

Carrot and caraway puree

I would recommend all of the dishes above, but for sheer ease of preparation and a winning combination of flavours, the carrot dip won the day – simply roast 750g of carrots, sliced into 2cm rounds, with olive oil, salt and pepper, until soft (about 45 minutes at 200ºC). Puree the carrots in a food processor, stir in 1tbsp roughly ground caraway seeds and some chopped mint and spread on a plate. Crumble 100g feta cheese over the top, drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and some additional mint.

The boyfriend excelled himself on the pastry and cake front, rolling (with a little help from my unsuspecting cousin, who’d come to stay for a relaxing weekend) 60 empanadillas, baking shortbread and a beautiful marbled chocolate ring cake from Mary Berry’s ultimate baking bible. Check out this recipe on the Telegraph for something similar.

Sadly I have no photos of the cake (or much else really) as I was too busy drinking rum punch and burning myself on molten croquetas…