Delicious and Easy Canapés

Delicious canapés loaded onto a platter are a holiday or party must – and lucky for us, canapés can be effortless for a host or hostess to make. Canapés are traditionally a slice of baguette (crostini), a cracker or even puff pastry topped with a savory food.

How to Make a Platter of Delicious and Easy Canapés

Canapés are basically fancy finger food that is often placed on a napkin and enjoyed while standing and mingling at a party.

When it came time to plan a platter of canapés, I started thinking about all the varied tastes in my family. I have some people who eat low carb, I have some people who don’t eat meat, and then, of course, there are the kids who are the pickiest eaters of all. A well-balanced canapé platter has to, therefore, have something for everyone – but I also don’t have all day to spend in the kitchen, believe it or not.

The best part of all is that it’s a straightforward list of ingredients you need and everything is so easily interchanged to suit everybody’s needs! So throughout this post I’m going to show you guys how to make:

• a classic fancy liver canapé
• a delicious roast beef canapé which turns into a quick delicious vegetarian canapé with a few slices of radish or cucumber
• quick and easy low carb canapé versions

Classic Liver Canapé

The liver canape is your showstopper. It looks like a million bucks (and something you would find in a fancy restaurant and probably pay too much money for), but it is SO easy to make, and you won’t believe it!

I absolutely adore liver sausage and I also know that the best way to present liver sausage in a canapé is with something sweet and some salt to cut the richness. While I would have loved to have paired this with Saskatoon berries here from the Prairie, I actually don’t have any in my freezer this year!

My second choice for pairing with the liver pate? A delicious sour cherry jam of course, another fantastic product of the prairies that is going to pair perfectly with this. I highly suggest that you also get a savory and sweet cracker (like the ones shown in the photos) I have the ones with raisins, dates, and other fruits in them.

And that salty bacon? It adds the perfect amount of salt to the canape.

Ingredients needed

• one package fine liver sausage
• 3 to 4 slices double smoked side bacon, cut into 1/2 in pieces and cooked
• sour cherry jam
• chives
• assorted crackers

How to assemble a classic liver sausage canapé

• Remove the liver sausage from the packaging, and if desired, place it into an icing bag with a star tip attached.
• Set out your crackers on your tray.
• Pipe a small amount of the liver pate onto each cracker, trying to pipe it so you leave a small hole on the top to place the cherry jam in.
• Taking a small teaspoon place a small bit of cherry jam into the hole that you made on top.
• Garnish with a piece of the cooked bacon and a piece of chive.
• Serve.

Roast Beef with Herb and Garlic Cream Cheese Canapé

I’m not going to lie; there is always a tub of herb and garlic cream cheese in my fridge. So, while everybody thinks about pairing roast beef with horseradish, my thoughts went in different directions primarily because not many people enjoy horseradish (I think my dad and I are the only ones in my family, actually).

This is the perfect canape for those who aren’t fond of liver, as nothing beats an excellent roast beef with herb and garlic flavors. While the liver will always have first place in my heart, this is such a fantastic taste pairing that it’s running a close second.  This recipe uses a fresh baguette instead of crackers.

How to assemble a roast beef canapé

• Slice your fresh baguette into 1/3-inch thick pieces.
• Slather a couple of herb and garlic cream cheese teaspoons on top of the baguette slices.
• Place a small piece of roast beef on top of the cream cheese.
• Garnish with chopped chives.

Quick Vegetarian Canapés

The beautiful thing about the last roast beef recipe is that we will simply omit the roast beef and use thin slices of radish or cucumber to top the crostini for your vegetarian guests. I told you there’s a reason that I always have herb and garlic cream cheese in my fridge because that stuff pairs well with almost any other food you can think of!

In the photo below, you can see that I made cucumber slices with cream cheese and radishes, baguettes with cream cheese and cucumbers, and baguettes with cream cheese and cucumbers. You can even use the cream cheese on your fruit/nut crackers and garish with chives. You have a lot of different combinations.

How to assemble a vegetarian canapé

• Slice your fresh baguette into 1/3-inch thick pieces.
• Slather a couple of teaspoons of the herb and garlic cream cheese on top of the baguette slices.
• Top the cream cheese with thin slices of radish or thin slices of cucumber.
• Garnish with a sprinkle of crunchy sea salt and a small slice or two of chives

Low Carb Canapé Options

The easiest way to serve a low-carb canapé is to place everything on cucumber slices, it’s the oldest trick in the book. Everything that we have used in the recipes above can simply be placed on the cucumber slices.

• Pipe the liver sausage on top of the cucumber slices and top with diced chives instead of the cherry jam
• Pipe the herb and garlic cream cheese on top of the cucumber slices and top with the roast beef salt and chives as needed.
• For entirely vegetarian low-carb canapés, pipe the cream cheese on top, followed by slices of radishes, then a sprinkle of sea salt.

And there you have it! With only a few ingredients and simply rearranging them in different combinations you have a platter that caters to the classic canapé lovers, vegetarians and people who are looking for low-carb options!

To serve these all together you can add slices of cheese, some random baby tomatoes scattered on the platter, whatever is another easy finger food that you don’t have to prep!

Canapé Tips and Tricks

• You may think that piping on the liver sausage and the cream cheese is too much effort, but in reality once you fill the piping bags you can burn through dozens and dozens of canape in mere minutes!  It also is the only way to get the topping onto the wet cucumbers.
• You can pat the tops of the cucumber slices with a paper towel to dry them slightly and then add the toppings.
• Make sure to use enough cream cheese on the canapes so that the toppings stick on. Don’t skimp as this is also a lot of the flavor!
• I prefer soft fresh bread over dried out crostini as you already have crunchy crackers in the liver canape.

Happy entertaining everyone!

Love,

Karlynn

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