Basket O' Strawberries

One of my colleagues (M) is getting married on Saturday so we decided to throw a little surprise party for her at the last minute.

I was asked to make a cake for the party at the last minutes so I knew it had to be quick and easy. M likes chocolate so I used Dorie Greenspan's infamous Devil's Food Cake smothered in a chocolate buttercream. The outside is decorated with Pirouette cookies.

M is getting married in the Grand Tetons National Park so I thought the rustic decorations were perfect! Congratulations M!!!

Wedding Cake???

My friend Lisa D. called a few months ago and asked me to make her wedding cake. There was only one catch...she wanted it to be made of Rice Krispie Treats.

She wasn't too particular about the design. Her colors were navy blue and yellow (go Orem Tigers!!!). She wanted fresh flowers and multiple tiers. So I drew up a little sketch and she approved.

The next step was to try to visualize how it would all look. I couldn't decide how tall to make the layers but finally decided on about 3.5" each.

My tower fell down very soon after i took that last picture!!!

I figured it would take about 4 batches of RK Treats for the whole cake...boy, was I wrong!!!

It took 7 batches! That's 7 lbs. of marshmallows, 1 lb of butter, and 49 cups of Rice Krispies. (I had to run to the store at 9pm just to get a couple more bags of marshmallows!)

Here are the RK Treat "cakes" all finished. My cake pans are only 2" high so I had to use cardboard collars to get the cakes as tall as I wanted.

Gratefully, the flowers arrived on time at the flower store. I could barely fit them in my tiny fridge for their overnight stay!

It's amazing what a little ribbon and a few flowers can do to make RK Treats look quite elegant!

Congratulations Lisa and Spencer!!!

Maria's Wedding

I have a few more picture from Maria's wedding. The reception was so perfect. I loved her Damask pattern and the food...delicious!!!

Maria had lemon tarts and chocolate tarts...they were both yummy but the lemon was my favorite.

Check out Maria's blog for the recipe...http://lichtyfamilyblog.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-06-27T07%3A58%3A00-07%3A00

I loved all of her platters!

All the food was so amazing!

Mmmm! Shrimp Cocktail!

The candy jars were so cute!

Check out Maria's cute shoes...they are Damask!

Maria and friends!

B-day Apron

Rosie (Sister Aston) sent me an apron from my Birthday!

It is bright and colorful! And I love it!!!

Thanks Rosie!!!

Damask Dejour

Maria's wedding had a black and white theme with a damask pattern.

I tried and tried and tried to figure out how to get a damask pattern on her cake.

I finally decided the best way would be to paint it on. So this is a dark german-chocolate cake with chocolate chips. It had chocolate filling and was covered in fondant. I hand painted the design with a special food coloring.

It took 14 hours plus one catastrophe at 1:30 am in the morning...but it was so worth it! Maria loved it and that's all that mattered.

L...L...L...L...L...L...L...L

Maria's wedding has come and gone so I thought I would catch up on some of the fun baking I got to do for her wedding.

Three batches of Soft-Chocolate Sugar Cookies (a Dorie Greenspan recipe, of course) made ~105 cookies.

They first had to be outlined.

Then they got a Royal Frosting coat. I had a minor catastrophe and so about 10 of them had to be sacrificed (not that it was a big sacrifice since that meant we got to eat them!)

I added the specialized L for Lichty!

And finally, Maria put them in individual bags with ribbons.

It took three days to make all of them...but it was definitely worth it! How cute!!!

Ebony and Ivory

I have been working on Maria's wedding cake. Maria has a favorite baker named Dorie Greenspan who is the author of numerous cook books including Maria's favorite, Baking: From My Home to Yours. Maria wants her wedding cake to be from Dorie's book so we have tried a few different chocolate cake recipes to find the perfect one.

We first tried a milk chocolate cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue frosting. The cake was not quite chocolaty enough and frosting (though fun to work with) was like eating raw butter (not too tasty!)

Next up: we tried a devils food cake with chocolate frosting. This cake has four different kinds of chocolate (cocoa, bittersweet, semisweet, and unsweetened). It has a dark, fudgey, moist interior spotted with chocolate chips which is perfectly contrasted by the fluffy chocolate frosting. (I took this cake to a ward party...hence the decorations.)

It was perfect! If you read my previous post (I'm in Love!) you'll know that I am not a big cake fan but this was absolutely delicious. Yea!

Sticking with the black and white theme. I made some chocolate crinkle cookies with chocolate chips and a dollop of raspberry jam in the middle. They were very rich...but absolutely delicious!