Textiles and Cake

Cake design is an art not a science.  At least that is what my cake design teacher, Bonnie Gordon once told me.  After making a dozen cakes and about a thousand cupcakes over the past three years, I agree.  Cake decorating is an art.  Baking is a science.  I will leave the  intricate, detailed oriented cake decor up to the real artists while I stick to baking!  I only excel at minimalist design.

The cake designer, like the artist, draws inspiration from his or her external surroundings and never more so than today has fabric and textiles become a gold mind for ideas. 

Take the work of creative cake company, Crumb de la Crumb not only has owner and artist Lorie Burcham successfully replicated damask and mosaic pattern, there is also a cool polkadot pattern that I like. 

crumb de la crumb damask cake

crumb de la crumb mosaid and swirls cake

crumb de la crumb sea trail cake

Martha Stewart Weddings also ran a piece back in 2005 on fabric inspired cakes.  What I enjoyed about the magazine’s article was that there was an accompanying fabric board with textile swatches pinned up to match the cake designs. I only wish my cake decorating skills reach the level of these talented cake designers one day.

 Here are a couple of my favourites:

Calico print cake (via martha stewart weddings)

Eyelet Cake by Wendy Kromer Confections (via martha stewart weddings)

Cookie Bar: The new dessert

I think you could put the name of a food and the word “bar” after it and make it sound fun, interactive and stylish.  Top of mind comes oyster bar, candy bar, vodka bar and now apparently, the newest food to join the list is the cookie bar according to Notes on a Party. 

For the cookie purist, this idea may be your heaven at an event.  No cake, no, pastries, no sweets, just cookies. 

To others, the cookie bar is a host’s lazy attempt at serving dessert.  However, to me, it is another way to take something so simple and turn it into the focal point of an event.  ,Think of all the empty platters and serving pieces you’ve collected over the years as blank canvases ready for you to fill with different types of cookies to awe guests.  If you do not know where to begin, just flip back to your holiday cookie recipes/guides/websites and start there. There are a plethora of cookie recipes published around November/December each year so you might as well put them to use on the off season.  In addition to baking some mouthwatering cookies, throw in some vintage serving pieces in the presentation mix and voila, a cool way to add pizazz to cookies and dessert.

Here are a couple of examples of different cookie bar presentations:

Milk and Cookie Bar (photo from brilliant ice sculpture.com)

Cookie Bar created by Dawn Casale of One Girl Cookie (via notesonaparty.com)

Organic Chocolate Treat

Today I went to a wine, chocolate and cheese pairing at Kakayo Chocolate Company where owner, Colleen Wong-Sala, graciously treated her guests to a tantalizing array of organic chocolate truffles. 

(photo courtesy of sweetspot.ca)

We began by pairing a white chocolate matcha green tea truffle with goat cheese and a fruity sparkling wine.   To participate in the tasting, guests were instructed to lick the cheese to coat our tongue (this gave a couple of us the giggles- the thought of licking cheese is a bit odd but surprisingly effective/fun) followed by a bite of the truffle, a full bite of the cheese and then a sip wine. 

After moving from white to dark chocolate filled with a spicy Mexican chili ganache and a glass of Zig Zag Zin and Beringer’s Third Century North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon, guests were gifted with more truffles and were out the door. 

The quality of the organic chocolate was superb.  Flavour combinations innovative and what’s best is that the chocolate be customized. 

If you are in the market for some chocolate to serve guests at an event or to treat yourself, I would recommend stopping by Kakayo.  I really enjoyed it.

Kakayo Truffles

In doubt of a colour palette? Laduree for inspiration

The start of the wedding season is soon upon us.  Brides, grooms and their wedding planners will be frantically making last minute decisions to ensure every charger is laid straight on the table, every petal is in full bloom and every favour is standing ready in its basket. 

For those of you who are commencing the planning process and have some time on your hands to sit back and digest all the upcoming decisions over your breakfast tea, I urge you to check out Laduree’s (Paris) website for colour palette inspiration.  If you read this blog regularly, you know I have a thing for macarons.  Laduree’s products are so stunning that they cross over from afternoon treat to event palette inspiration.  That’s right, I said that a dessert can inspire an entire event.

Here are some of my favourite colour combinations:

Pink and brown with an accent of lime green

Laduree Macarons (photo from Tartine Gourmande)

 Peach, creme with an accent of turquoise/bright blue

Laduree Macarons (photo from Such Pretty Things)

Earth Tones: Green, brown with an accent of orange

Laduree Macarons (photo from WenDaLicious)

For more posts on Laduree, the store, the macarons, the colours, the flavours and everything else wonderful about the Parisian brand click here, here and here for inspiration.

How to figure out beverage quantities

If have not planned many events, guaging how much wine and liquor to serve at your event may be a daunting task. 

The other day I found a great piece of information to help solve the beverage quantity enigma on the Beringer Vineyard website. 

Under the website section marked “Entertaining” you can find loads of information from recipes, to information about their wine, theme ideas and of course, how to estimate wine/liquor quantities. 

For your convenience, I have included the handy chart from their website in this post.  Hope this helps. 

Mad Mac : Macaron sighting in NYC

Not entirely new to the macaron scene (only new to me), Mad Mac has supposedly been taking NYC by storm since 2006 and has received a lot of favourable press over the past three years.  The two pastery chefs behind the brand have been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, Gourmet Magazine, Daily Candy just to name a few.

My question is, has anyone tasted these?  How do they match up to some of the other great names? Next time I am in NYC, I’m tracking one down to sample!

For more information on Mad Mac, the NIBBLE (a magazine about specialty foods) wrote about the brand and honoured it as a Top Pick of the Week in their magazine.  To read the NIBBLE review please click here

Mad Mac macaron courtesy of The Nibble.com

Mad Mac home page