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I’m hosting a party at our home in a couple weeks, cocktails and appetizers. I have a recipe I like for little meatballs in puff pastry. I was wondering if I can bake them all ahead of time and keep them in the warming drawer or oven or if I should bake each batch fresh.

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    Welcome! How far ahead -- a day, an hour? Do the meatballs have a lot of sauce and/or grease?
    – Erica
    Nov 14, 2018 at 22:36
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    An hour ahead or so. I serve sauce on the side, but the meatballs are a little fatty. The event last 3-4 hours. It’s a neighborhood holiday party and we’ll have four large groups come in the house every hour. We hosted last year and I made each batch in between but I’d like to bake them all off. I’m just worried about the pastry getting soggy
    – BuddyElf
    Nov 15, 2018 at 22:22

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Puff pastry itself holds fine a couple days (and the raw dough can be kept frozen months!); it's normally very dry so there's very little difference between baked fresh and "old". As long as you don't burn it and don't make it soggy when reheating, the pastry will be fine. OTOH if you keep it on heat, it will start getting too dry and unpleasant in some 3 hours or so.

The meat stuffing is another thing you should worry about. 4h on very modest heat will dry it up badly.

Just bake everything ahead of time, leave in the open in room temperature or even refrigerate and reheat every batch before serving.

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It should be fine if you uncover the pan of the meat puffs. It will prevent sogginess. That sounds very stressful to keep baking them after every group. I would rather have them a bit soggy than have to worry about the puffs during the party. Good luck!

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