I can't say that I am original in most sense, I get my ideas from other people, other recipes. And I love it! I guess I should say I love finding the BEST recipes. A couple months ago a good cousin of mine got engaged and I offered to make anything she needed for the reception, to you know, help out! Well, fortunate for me it turned into me getting to decide and make everything. I was so excited to have my first little "catering" experience. It turned out really well in the end and most of it in between went pretty great too. After several trips to the grocery store on each day, unexpected baking failures, and continuing to forget this and that here and there I felt thrilled that it turned out great and was OVER. To complete everything, I spend about 60+ hours this week working on it. Mmmmm...now I know why caterers charge an arm and a leg, because I wouldn't want to work that much again for anything less. To be honest though, even though so many things went wrong...I learned the most from my mistakes and some of my favorite results came from me correcting mistakes. I am going to use this blog as a way for me to document my ideas, my mistakes, and the things I have tried and loved!!!
I decided to do chocolate/vanilla covered pretzel rods decorated with a variety of things like drizzles, sugar pearls, and jimmies. I also did half dips of Oreos in the same variety. The idea, pretty little treats to make up for any lack of food we might have. Frankly, they had no idea how many to expect. I then wanted to do 4 different kinds of cupcakes and cakeballs. A couple weeks before the party, I took a jab at my own creation-a pudding cupcake. I found a blog call "Your Cup of Cake" that was too hard to not try. I hadn't tried any of the recipes but they all looked so fun. So, I picked 4 of them and then created something of my own by the end of the night. It was one of those mmmm, another unexpected detour in my baking. And, that cupcake ended up being my favorite! So, that is why the mistakes ended up being the best part of all of this!
Here are some pictures that I took:
A little over view of the table, the punch was amazing. My aunt told me she wanted a punch she had that a lady by the name of Tamara Houghton had made for a Relief Society function. It ended up being my favorite that I've had too. It wasn't too sweet, just perfect. I am a huge fan of balance when it comes to sweets. You can't feel like a mummy after you eat something but you want to get a little zip! Here is the recipe:
1 can of white grape juice concentrate-made according to directions
1 bottle of 64 oz of white grape juice
2 liters of Fresco
Put fresh mint leaves and raspberries to float on the top. Loved it!
The restocking cart!
So, these cupcakes are off the "Your Cup of Cake" website, and she is a genius! I am not a fan of her chocolate cupcake. I will probably stick with my own creation which is: Chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding-instant-preparing it with the same amount of oil and milk/water the recipe calls for. So, if you use Duncan Hines like I did, I prepared the pudding with only 1 1/3 C milk. I let it set up and cracked the 3 eggs in the cake mix. After, whipped the batter with the pudding and eggs included and then filled the liners baking them at 350 for about 17-22 minutes. Now for the frosting, I love her idea to whip heavy cream and add a little raspberry gelatin (not prepared) and powdered sugar. It is light, sweet, and pretty. I was nervous that it wouldn't hold up but it did perfect. As I got more and more nervous that it wouldn't, I decided to add powdered sugar to make it more firm...uh, bad idea. It didn't, it just made it heavy. So, the trick with this little recipe is the use just enough to get the flavor and sweetness you want but no more! I loved them decorated like this too...they look like little flower pots. I could picture this with a green colored cupcake and little dabs in the middle to make it look even more like a flower pot!
Your Cup of Cake calls them hot cocoa raspberry cupcakes, but I called them Chocolate Raspberry Twinkie Cupcakes.
This is the strawberry lemon cupcakes, not my favorite kind-I am a chocolate kind of a girl. But lots of people enjoyed them.
I love the recipe for vanilla cupcakes on Your Cup of Cake for the Classic Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcakes. The recipe calls for 3/4 C of unsweetened cocoa. I am not a dark chocolate fan, so I don't think I will ever add that much in the future. I think about 1/2 that much would be about perfect for this recipe. I love this tip with these pretty sugar pearls, I think it is a classy look.
Those bars you see are tasty little morsels! Anybody would be glad to ever have even one, mmmmm m! I got them here on a website called "Tracey's Culinary Adventures." I haven't tired any of her other recipes, but wow! She has some that I will try really soon...
http://traceysculinaryadventures.blogspot.com/2012/04/salted-caramel-chocolate-shortbread.html
These were my favorite, I called them "Brown Bottom Butterfinger Top Cupcakes" They don't even need the Butterfingers but it gave them a little color. I messed these up by not doing a trial run and the cupcakes were way too SHORT. I didn't have time to bake the 24 cupcakes over again-I was using two ovens, so somehow I thought, I'd just take them off and dip the bottoms in chocolate. They were a favorite among many others. The recipe for the whipped frosting is the good old fashioned way of making frosting, not with the overly sweet powdered sugar but with butter, granulated sugar, flour, and milk. It's the perfect frosting. I am going to try this technique-just slight variations of it with other types. I think powdered sugar can be a little much on the sweet side. The exception website I got this recipe off of is here:
http://www.canyoustayfordinner.com/2010/12/28/the-best-whipped-frosting/
Again, this chocolate cupcake is just okay but the peanut butter frosting was amazing!!! I LOVED the ganache idea and will be looking at different ways to do this too-different flavors and applications. I would have thought these were perfect with my favorite chocolate pudding cupcake recipe.
I am also interested in photography...so many interests. So little time!
Vanilla Amaretto Chocolate covered cakeballs
Double chocolate covered two ways: Candied Walnuts and Toasted Coconut
I know these pictures are both the same, but I can't decide which one I like better.
Anyways, I have a lot of ideas and things I want to try. There were a lot of people interested in having me cater some of their events. I am excited to do a little for friends, family, and community!
