Canapes are often served during cocktail hours to encourage guests to drink more. They are also referred as finger food. The Spanish have the outstanding snack termed tapas. They are all within the same category.

Crackers and small slices of bread or toast or puff pastry, cut in various shapes, serve as the base for savoury butters or pastes, often topped with a “canopy” of such savoury foods as meat cheese, fish, caviar, foie gras, purees or relish.

It is simple to build these tasty treats.
You need a base (where you can shower your mix food ingredients).
You need a spread (where your food ingredients can adhere to the base).
You need your food ingredients to sit comfortably on the spread.
Finally, you need garnish on top of the food.

Traditionally, canapés are built on stale white bread (though other foods may be used as a base), cut in thin slices and then shaped with a cutter or knife. Shapes might include circles, rings, squares, strips or triangles. These pieces of bread are then prepared by deep frying, sautéeing, or toasting. The foods are sometimes highly processed and decoratively applied (i.e. piped) to the base with a pastry bag. Decorative garnishes are then applied.

The next time during a party, give yourself a lot of courage to try this form of serving snacks. You can also go to the extent of preparing the ingredients and allow the guests to test their own imagination.

	Bruschetta with nutty bread as basePuff pastry with salami, cream cheese mix & cheese curl
	A combination of samosa, smoked salmon on baguette Mini chicken skewer, vegetarian mini spring roll

Food should be fun. We used to say, “people eat with their eyes before they eat with their mouths”

If nothing else, it can help you get rid of the left-overs easy.

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