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PARTY: PART TWO
To ensure that everyone coould party, there was a separate gathering in Florida. Since it had a beachy-Floridian theme I sent down cookies packaged as party favors for the guests. Lesson of the day-- just because the USPS marks it fragile, does not mean that they will stop the herd of elephants from trampling it during the overnight mailing process. Apparently no amount of foam or bubble wrap could protect them from whatever crushed the box. Oh well!
Before
After
I've always loved cupcakes and there is photographic evidence to prove it.
However, if I had to limit myself to one dessert for the rest of my life, it would definitely be the pignoli cookie. So before heading to the beach for a little birthday break I whipped up a batch for my friends.
I used this recipe from AllRecipes for the cookies. I didn't even change much, though I have a few notes since several folks asked for the recipe.
#1- Watch your almond paste! This is the main ingredient in the cookie so shop with care. My preference if for the Solo Almond Paste in the can. Note that this is NOT the same as the almond pie filling and that you should not substitute marzipan. The recipe calls for 12 oz of almond paste, which is a can and a half.
#2- Don't make the cookie too big. These are going to spread out quite a bit, so don't get too excited.
#3- Toast the nuts. When the cookies are done make sure the nuts are brown on top. Otherwise move the oven rack up a notch 2/3 through the cooking time.
Enjoy!
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I'd also like to give a shout out to my friends who whipped up a WONDERFUL strawberry shortcake with sweet biscuits and berries from the local farmers market. This is what summer tastes like. Yum!
When you put it all together you get yumminess.
I am looking forward to upping the fun factor, but enjoying the end product for sure!
Cake Details:
Cake: Chocolate Birthday Cake mushed with vanilla-lime buttercream
Icing: Enrobed in red melting chocolate
Decoration: Rainbow sprinkles
I've been slacking on my web posts again because my "real" job is getting underfoot this month. Perhaps I will achieve life integration by making cakes about spreadsheets... except that I have been told that "normal" people do not have the love for Excel and data tables that I do. I know my cakes for NCACS were taking on some spreadsheet-based planning before I ran out of time and ditched "planning". This series of events actually explains a lot about my life. Ha!
Cakewrecks posted a guy who submitted his letter of resignation on a sheet cake. Weird and extreme. Plus I have no plans to resign. But I think my coworkers might enjoy a weekly report or PowerPoint presentation on a cookie though. (Somewhere in my office Sharon is reading this and laughing.)
OK, back to cake.
I need to get in gear for cake show, but I will post more cakes soon.
The Country's Best Cupcakes from MSN Cityguide
MSN published thier list of the top 11 cupcakes in the US. Eleven is a round number for a list, don't you think? But I guess you can't ever have too many cupcakes.
Here is a link to the full article, and a short list of thier picks.
1* Saint Cupcake - Portland, Oregon
(The Fat Elvis) Sweet banana and chocolate chip cake, smeared with peanut butter fudge frosting and topped with a fried banana chip
2* Baked - Brooklyn, New York
(Sweet and Salty) Dark chocolate cake infused with salty caramel, topped with caramel chocolate ganache and fleur de sel
3* Main Street Cupcakes - Hudson, Ohio
(Half-Baked) Dark chocolate cake stuffed with chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookie dough, then finished with chocolate buttercream
4* Cupcakes - Chicago, Illinois (Peanut Butter & Jelly)
5* Cupcake Royale - Seattle, Washington (Lavender)
6* Dozen Cupcakes - Pittsburgh (East End Chocolate Stout)
7* Love at First Bite - Berkeley, California (Ginger Babycake)
8* Sugar Sweet Sunshine - New York, New York (Pistachio Cupcake) -- one of my personal favorites!!!
9* Cake Fetish - Albuquerque, New Mexico (Fluffer Nutter)
10* Lilly Jane's Cupcakes - Eagle, Idaho (Orange Ginger)
11* Back in the Day Bakery - Savannah, GA (Lemon Coconut)
It's a solid list, though the DC area is noticeably absent! I'd have to add the following three to make it complete. :)
* Honeybee Bakeshop - Arlington, Virginia (Wine & Cheese)
* Hello Cupcake - Seattle, Washington (Chocolate Mocha)
* Lavender Moon - Alexandria, VA (Smores)
Our merry band moved north to the city center of Seattle and surrounding vineyards. The city has distinct little neighborhoods with their own styles and cultures. The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about the city is the flying fish market at Pike's Market. But the market has so many more layers with vendors selling homemade huckleberry honey, amazing macaroni and cheese, tiny doughnuts and of course-- the original Starbucks Coffee.
And what goes best with coffee? Doughnuts. Hey, it's your birthday, live a little.
Downtown we shopped and enjoyed observing the "rugged chic" inhabitants. In DC a casually nice restaurant calls for a black dress and kitten heels. In Seattle it is apparently alright to roll out in cargo pants and an under armor tee. Cool. Break dancing and flannel are still abundant here too, giving a fun rebellious streak to the city. One of the trendy spots we visited was the Dahlia Lounge. They have locally famous doughnuts that come paired with fresh huckleberry jam and a whipped marscarpone-vanilla creme.
Dahlia Lounge Doughnuts (apparently doughnuts are a thing in Seattle?!)
We grabbed a great breakfast at the Portage Bay Cafe. This cafe is organic, locally grow, and yummy, living up to their slogan "Eat Like You Mean It". However, when the weather is nice in Seattle it is important to take advantage of the vitamin D boost. So we headed north to the vineyards. (Did I just pin that decision on weather?! Yeah, weather.)
The most picturesque, Chateau Ste. Michelle, was the perfect place for a mellow afternoon picnic of wine and cheese.
Irene insisted that we make one more high-caloric stop at Molly Moos Homemade Ice Cream. (Serious arm-twisting ensued.) This neighborhood joint scoops up flavors like lavender honey, green tea, salted caramel, and Ba'rocky road. Being from DC I tried to distill a greater political platform in the chunks of fudge and, homemade marshmallow. But I couldn't come up with anything. Maybe I should have stayed for another bowl to ponder it some more...
The landfill friendly non-plastic spoon and paper bowl did not escape my eye. The really do care about the environment. It was a discernible leap from the "maybe we will recycle that one glass bottle we sell" attitude of east coast establishments. Plastic spoon or not, this ice cream was indulgent. Yet another reason to move to the left coast.
After getting hyper and sugared up, we thought we should go somewhere quiet, with lots of breakable stuff, where we could be inconspicuous. Luckily the Museum of Glass is across the street. The giant aqua columns on the bridge kinda reminded me of rock candy. Guess that sugar-buzz was still in effect.
We ended the day by enjoying local salmon with huckleberry puree at a great resyuraunt near the water (CJ Shenanigans). Since we were celebrating double birthdays (Mel and Laura) the waitress brought us a rack of cake shots. Yup, cake shots.
Someone brilliant found a way to serve EIGHT types of cake at once. Ours included (left to right- to the best of my memory...) banana bread pudding, chocolate mouse cake, oreo parfait, something coconut (?), strawberry shortcake, something else choclate, mudpie, and tiramisu. Happy birthday indeed.
The wine & cheese cupcakes were definitely a hit and we had several repeat samplers and a lot of word of mouth buzz. I ran out of the samples and ended up using my remaining goat cheese frosting on plain chocolate cupcakes, and then handing it out plain as frosting shots because people wanted to grab a taste. Jay even offered to pipe some directly into a guest's mouth-- and for a minute, I thought they were going to say yes! Flattering, but ewwwww!! All in all, those are definitely going into the cupcake rotation. Sometimes its good to have a wildcard challenge that gets the creativity in motion.
All I know is that I COULD NOT have gotten this done without a lot of help from "the Hive".
Amy for the "architure" of the tablescape
Andrea for allowing me to commandeer the kitchen and ice about a bazillion tiny cupcakes
Erin for putting a rush on getting the website up
Jay for braving the craft store to buy supplies
Suzanne for preparing the signage and color theme
And to everyone who came out to the contest with friends and co-workers.
I am so thankful to each of you for your support and friendship!
Lemon shortbread apples provided all of the "temptation" of Twilight's cover. This batch is sweetened up with rolled buttercream icing and red shimmer dust. Because it MUST dazzle in the sunlight. A few bites and I feel a lot better about being human.
Jamaican Rum Cake
