Smoked Salmon Cornmeal Blini with Homemade Crème Fraiche

My daughter’s preschool just had the annual back to school parent social that we call Autumn Gathering.  For the past few years I’ve helped create the dinner menu and then a team of talented cooks from the parent community prepare and present the food.  The salmon blini were just a small part of the wonderful dinner.

Autumn Gathering 2009

 

Homemade Crème Fraiche

The key to this luscious appetizer is the crème fraiche.  I make mine at home by mixing 1 cup of heavy cream with 1 cup of sour cream.  Cover and let sit overnight or until thick, then refrigerate.  The longer it sits in the fridge the more flavorful it becomes.  For this recipe I used tangy Mexican style sour cream, a new product from Darigold.

Makes 2 cups.

Cornmeal Pancakes

You can use either Kathy Casey’s Cornmeal bites recipe or spend fifty cents on a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix and follow the directions for corn pancakes on the side of the box adding a tablespoon of chopped chives. You can make the pancakes in advance just make sure they’re cool before you store them in an airtight container.  Separating the layers with wax paper is a good idea.

Makes 25 blini

Smoked Salmon Cornmeal Blini

makes 25 pieces

1/2 pound smoked salmon, broken into bite sized pieces

25 capers

Fresh dill

1/2 cup crème fraiche

25 half dollar sized pancakes

Assemble on the serving tray:  Place a dollop of crème fraiche on the pancake, center a piece of smoked salmon then garnish with a caper and a dill sprig.  Serve immediately.