Name that Macaron Contest & Giveaway

My lack of creativity is your gain. Name this torrone filled French Macaron. In order to help you name it here is a description of the flavors. The macaron shell is made with almond flour ground with powdered sugar. A hint of Pure Vanilla has been added. The filling is Honey Nougat with raw pistachios folded in. This creation was an accident as I had different desserts going on at the same time. The winner gets 6 Torrone Macarons with 1 secret flavor currently in R&D. 

Rules are on Facebook. There is no limit on entries. Look forward to the names, and lets have fun.    

The New Old Me

First ever of it's kind; French Macaron with Torrone filling

Well I am amazed that I have not posted anything since October 2012. I would not call it laziness but there are occasions when I like to do absolutely nothing :) After commuting most of my working life, while attempting to be a halfway decent mother and wife; in addition baking and designing custom cakes for my clients I have made the decision to stop commuting (Big run on sentence but you get the point). Magically, 12 hours of my day has freed up and I can decide what I want to do ! I do consider this a great blessing as I have a extremely supportive husband and family. Every second has not been dedicated to decorating cakes and I am not accomplishing as much as I thought I would or had planned to. I still find my days busy and fulfilling most important I am a present parent in my kids lives. I envisioned staying home I would find myself sipping tea and watching some morning talk show..NOT and no time for that (and they are really bad). I have become selfish and am hitting the gym with my little tike. I have made fitness part of my life and discovered a whole new world of Paleo, which I love. I take a minimum amount of orders a month working on projects that I enjoy doing. So really nothing has changed because I still am who I am, just this whole 9-5 which in my case was 7-7 is now done with and I can really explore endless creative and personal possibilities. Has anyone else made a major positive change in 2013, please share! With that said, here are some of my recent projects.

Lego is in this Spring

Vintage Barbie

Love Birds Meets Ombre High Fashion

Sometimes when I have an order I do not realize how nice the concept is until I actually start working on it. I must admit that when the bride showed me an example of an Ombre cake with a fresh lavender flower on the top I was like sure no problem, not a big deal in my head. After about the  6th hour of working on the ruffles, watching the sun rise as I sit on my work table I realize Ombre is no joke. Matching the ombre style of the cake to the cupcakes was the easy part. Playing with different quantities or electric purple, regular purple and regal purple helped me achieve the shades I needed.
For a quick tip on how to match buttercream to fondant as I did on the project see the end of the post...

The wedding was at the Jepson Center right here in Fredericksburg. I had no clue what the theme of the wedding would be other than they had purple as a wedding color. I was just delighted when I saw these adorable Love birds just scattered around the room and placed at every table...to cute! Here are some photos I managed to take after I set up my little display of sugar.
       

Yes this 6" tier took me over 6 hrs to finish...tedious but worth it 

This little bird watches over the cage for gift cards

Custom table runners, adorable

Flowers by Floral Palette, I met the husband of the owner nice guy. 

So here is the simple but effective tip for matching buttercream to fondant. I had prepared about 9 different shades of purple to white. I had six stands that I needed to get a decent gradient on. I picked 5 shades and one white. I started with white buttercream then slowly made my way to the dark purple. I had three different purple colors. One wilton purple and an americolor electric purple and regal purple. I basically color matched the buttercream to the fondant I set aside. Be patient when mixing colors and do not get frustrated. Don't be afraid to try different he's because you may need different undertones to make the color pop.   
   

Strawberries and Mushrooms

I have been too busy to post lately, but I wanted to share one project I recently completed for a client. Last year I created her a birthday cake in a cupcake theme. This year it was all about fairies with some whimsy. What I love most about this project was the strawberry cake the fairy is holding. Strawberries were an accident but I went with it. For most of my cakes I have a general idea in my head of the clients expectations but the design really happens on it's own as I am working on an order. Another cool feature was that instead of making mushrooms in fondant (which we know is pure sugar) I made merengue mushrooms. Some were vanilla and others had a hint of cocoa for the color and flavor. **I am not sure why the quality is so poor on this post, but if you care to look at a clearer image go here**

Happy Holidays

Thank you everyone for your continued support. This is my signature dessert, gourmet Baklava for two lucky recipients this Holiday season.

Happy Holidays all and have a great New Year!   

Diesal Cake

What a fun cake. Bodybuilders atop this traditional wedding cake. It was a lot of fun but also very challenging making the fondant toppers with some muscle definition.

Wedding Au Natural

What I like most about this cake is how it is not perfect yet beautiful. One of the guests commented how the cake looks like it was made of stone. I think of it as a sculpture too. The flowers are frangipani made of gumpaste. I then hand painted them in the colors the bride and groom wanted. The branches are made out of floral wire and covered in brown floral tape. This was my first request for an imperfect cake. I hope more clients will see that a smooth icing finish can be just as stunning as a rough one.