Wedding Tablescapes

We live in a city with some great farmer's markets and florists. So I was very torn about going the do-it-yourself route or simply buying gorgeous and beautiful flowers to fill our tables. In the end, it came down to budget. After doing some research and seeing some sample quotes online, I knew were weren't going to get a sprawling table of flowers. I didn't even bother contacting florists for quotes in fear of offending them!

My initial vision was to keep things rustic to go with the restaurant's atmosphere. We were in what used to be a woodcutters' cottages after all. I was thinking mason jars and beautiful pink dahlias or flowers from my parent's garden. At one point I even thought I could make beautiful crepe paper flowers instead. I collected mason jars from family and friends (and ate a lot of pasta sauce myself), cleaned them, and painted the inside with white acrylic paint. I wanted the look of milk glass - without paying for the hefty price. A Pinterest idea gone wrong! Acrylic is supposed to be waterproof, but after letting the jars dry for weeks, I tested them a week before the wedding. No! The paint simply peeled off and bubbled. Water had somehow gotten between the paint and the glass - despite two to three coats of paint. It did NOT look pretty. Think mad-scientist lab with organs in a jar.

So that week, we frantically tried to come up with an alternative. Our best bet was going to Ikea for their versatile Ensidig vases. We bought six of the large ones (diameter: 15 cm, height: 16 cm) and 10 of the smaller ones that resemble milk bottles (diameter: 7.7 cm, height: 18 cm). We dropped the six larges one off at the florist where I ordered the bouquets and boutonnieres and asked them to fill it with green hydrangeas.

I had made the table numbers that would be combined with the main centerpiece. Had to insert a bit of my love for baking here. I took some wooden cake dowels, bought cookie cutters in the shape of numbers, and used a hot glue gun to stick them together.

There you have it! A visible table number - with a nod to baking - rising above a fluffy bouquet of hydrangeas.

For the milk-bottle vases, Howard and I went to our grocery store and bought green chrysanthemum buttons the day before the wedding. We trimmed them at home and had them ready to go. The venue provided candles and candle holders so they did the set up, placing as many candles that would look nice and lighted them before the dinner. They also arranged each place setting with folded napkins, menus, cutlery, and glassware. We loved how they did a little extra for our head table, using different candle holders and including some of their own greenery.

We decided on assigned seating for each table, so we got a pack of ivory tent cards with an embossed frame along the border. Here's the crazy part - I hand lettered all of the names. Yes, we could have ran it through a printer . . . but where's the personality in that? I don't even have calligraphy pens or special nibs, I did these with a regular black pen and coloured in the areas I wanted thickened. Yes, hand cramps and lots of breaks were involved.

Wedding Photography: Ikonica | Venue: Auberge du Pommier | Candles and Candle Holders: Auberge du Pommier | Florist: Ruby Florist and Loblaws | Vases: ENSIDIG from Ikea | Place Card Hand Lettering: Sylvia Chan | Table Numbers: Sylvia Chan | Cookie Cutters: Fox Run Craftsmen | Wooden Cake Dowels: Michaels

Julia, Child

Two years ago, there were some changes at work. Among those changes came a manuscript titled Julia, Child. After reading it, I knew that we would be crazy if our company didn't publish it. The text was filled with whimsy and the story was clever, funny, flavourful, and left a marvelous aftertaste.

Well, our company did publish this manuscript and I had the joy of assisting our editorial director, Kyo Maclear, and Julie Morstad on this book. Julie was the perfect illustrator for this book, just look at the endpapers above and the spreads below!

This beautiful book is a tale of friendship, the joy of eating, the importance of never completely growing up, and mastering the art of having a good time - something we can all get behind!

Don't forget the cupcakes! Have you spotted the cupcakes with chocolate frosting and purple flowers? And the cake stands? (Yes, I need a pink cake stand to match the illustrations!)

Chocolate Cupcakes
(Makes about 18 cupcakes)

1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups of granulated sugar
3/8 cup of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of canola oil
1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt
1 1/4 cups of water
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 egg

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 350°F). Place cupcake liners in your tray.
2. Whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and soda until uniform. Add in the oil, yogurt, water, vinegar, vanilla, and egg. Whisk until combined and smooth.
3. Evenly distribute the batter and fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool before frosting.

Chocolate Ganache Buttercream
Recipe can be found here.

Roll out some purple fondant and cut out little flowers to decorate! Remember, Julia Child once said that "a party without cake is just a meeting.” So true.

Oh, and if you're looking to win a copy of the book (plus others), click here!

One Million

Hello friends! Something special happened this weekend . . . our all time history count tells us that we've reached over one million views! It's a little unbelievable, but hopefully the stat isn't tricking us, because we we want to thank you.

Thank you for visiting our blog. Thank you for commenting on our posts. Thank you for following us on facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and all of the other neat platforms. Thanks for sticking around and reading about our food adventures and kitchen stories. We wish we could give each and every one of you a bouquet of cupcakes. Since no one has invented a cupcake-teleportation device, we hope that you'll accept this for now:

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes
(Makes about 22 cupcakes)

2 large eggs
3/4 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup of warm water
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
3/4 cup of cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon of baking powder
3/4 teaspoon of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F) and line your tray with cupcake liners.
2. In your bowl, mix the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, warm water, and vegetable oil together.
3. Sift in the cocoa powder, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the mixture. Mix until incorporated (don't over mix).
4. Using an ice cream scoop, evenly distribute the batter into the cupcake liners.
5. Bake for about 20-22 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cook before frosting.

You can use your favourite buttercream or frosting recipe. Make sure the consistency is firm enough to hold the shape of the flowers.

Vanilla Buttercream

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups of icing sugar
1/4 cup of milk
2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
Gel colour dyes

1. Using a stand mixer, put the butter into the bowl and cream until smooth. Add in the icing sugar in three batches. Slowly start the mixer as you don't want the icing sugar to fly out! When it is all incorporated, add the vanilla extract.
2. You will need to use your own judgement here, add the milk a tablespoon at a time and check the consistency of the buttercream. It should not be so stiff that your spatula can stand upright if you stuck it in the middle of the ball of buttercream. It shouldn't be so soft that it won't hold it's shape after piping.
3. Add the gel colour you prefer and scoop the buttercream into your piping bag. Fit it with a large petal decorating tip (we used Wilton 127).

Holding both the cupcake and your piping bag, with the wider end of the tip on the bottom, rotate the cupcake as you pipe a small volcano. There should be a small opening on the top and a wide base at the bottom.

Then, pipe three petals around the middle, notice that these are not full petals. They don't go all the way around. Try surrounding the middle tip in three overlapping parts.

Continue and slightly angle your piping tip so that the petals eventually lay flat on the edge of the cupcake.

Even if the buttercream ruffles, tips over, or doesn't fold exactly where you want it to, it'll still look beautiful!

Try a different colour! It is almost spring!

We can't say it enough. Thank you!

Now let's eat cake!

Birdy Baby Shower

Here's something to tweet about, we made cupcakes for my colleague's baby shower this week! The tricky part was to not do anything that screamed baby shower. We were looking for something subtle, but pretty, and one of the shower organizers suggested making little birds.

Okay, let me run with that. I decided that flowers and leaves would accompany the little birds really well. A spring theme in the middle (or are we in the beginning) of winter. If you want to get all meaningful, spring is for new beginnings. I'd say having a baby qualifies!

I wish I had my camera at work, one of the publicity managers made a diaper cake! Not a cake that looked like a diaper - she tied up a bunch of diapers and made two tiers with them.

These leaf cupcakes were actually inspired by Sugar Baking. She has this great photos of leaf cupcakes for a wedding that I love. It's so simple and clean.

For mine, I didn't do a fondant covering over the cupcakes, but used a dollop of buttercream. These cupcakes were actually topped with lime buttercream for the don't-want-it-too-sweet crowd in my office. If you look closely, you can see some of the lime zest in the frosting.

All the cupcakes topped with a swirl were vanilla buttercream. One of my managers actually said to me that she had a hard time choosing a cupcake. Did she go for the lime cupcakes for a different flavour, or pick the vanilla to get a birdy?

She picked the lime cupcake in the end. ;)

Liz and Andrew, congratulations on your little bundle of joy!

By the way, Howard took all the post-production photos with our new camera this time. What do you think? Did he do a good job? ;)

Kurt and Diana

Our friends got married this past weekend. And let us tell you, we have been waiting for this ever since they graduated, found great jobs, bought a house, and became engaged. To us, it felt like they were already husband and wife, but it's still fun to throw a party!

We were asked to help out with the cupcakes and cake topper for their wedding. You can tell we're good friends because Diana wanted a cupcake tower instead of the traditional tiered wedding cakes. Not only that, but Kurt was pretty adamant that we could blog (see? good friends know we would love to blog) about this because it would be our first big cupcake project. So we planned for this months in advance. We looked at designs, we discussed colour co-ordinations, and ordered materials online.

We all agreed that something simple showing off the colours of the wedding - red, black, and white - would be best. Howard and I made the monogrammed fondant hearts that would top the cupcakes. We had a rolling pin, a Silpat, a heart-shaped cookie cutter, and alphabet stamps. We churned these out pretty quick on a Sunday and left them out to dry. We had icing sugar dusted on top of parchment paper for the hearts to lay on. We didn't want them to stick together and we wanted them to be stiff enough to stand upright on the buttercream.

If you're also going the D.I.Y. route, we recommend having your fondant decorations made at least 1-2 weeks in advance (just in case some need a re-do, you'll have time). They don't go bad as long as you store them in a cool, dry area. Don't seal them in airtight containers if you want them to harden.

Diana, bless her, baked all the chocolate cupcakes. Comparing ovens, their's was much bigger than ours and would be able to do larger batches at once. On the day before their wedding rehearsal, Diana had all 200 cupcakes cooled and ready for us.

They would still have to be made in small batches since a home oven can only fit so much, but another way to save time is to use cake mix. We loved that Diana and Kurt were all about D.I.Y., and sometimes, you just have to pick the easier route!

Here we are at almost half point! Howard was in charge of dusting the extra icing sugar off the fondant hearts. I was in charge of making batches of vanilla buttercream and swirling.

Oy how my arm ached after all that piping!

We love how they look all aligned!

Wedding cupcake army!

To transport the cupcakes, Kurt and Diana bought bakery boxes. They each have inserts to hold 24 cupcakes. This made them easy to carry and place in the car.

In order to have a cake cutting photo, we also made a 7 x 7 inch cake to go on the top of the cupcake tower. This was a baked from scratch cake (small indulgences are nice), vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream (groom's favourite flavours).

We covered it in fondant and the decorations are also made from fondant. We kept the colours to the theme of the wedding and used yellow stamens for an extra pop.

I think transporting the cake was the toughest thing we did. The cake board was the same size as the cake, so there was no leeway at all. If the cake slid to the side of the carrier, we were done for! Luckily, the cake was quite heavy (circulation in my legs were nearly cut off during the car ride to the banquet hall) and didn't move a bit.

Here we are! Kurt, Diana, and some members of the wedding party did a great job setting up the night before.

Now, this was our turf. Diana's father made the cupcake stand from scratch! Pretty amazing right? It was a wooden stand, painted white, and Diana bought red ribbon to wrap each tier with.

Sigh! We really liked how there was a spotlight on the cakes in front of the head table. Gave it a really nice glow!

Pretty no? The colours worked really well together to feature red, black, and white. Black cupcake liners, chocolate cake, vanilla buttercream, and red fondant hearts.

KD! KD! KD!

The question that comes to mind now is... would we do this again? Granted, we had tremendous help from the bride and groom this time. On our own, with our tinier oven and smaller space, it could have been very frustrating. Let's just say, we're very grateful for this experience. Thank you KD for giving us the opportunity!

The next question that comes to mind... would we do this for our own wedding (if or when Howard does propose)? I don't know! I love the idea of baking for our guests, so I'm leaning towards yes. But it does take a lot of time and a lot of energy. Howard and I were tired when we finished the cupcakes and the cake. So maybe we wouldn't make as many as 200 cupcakes! This experience made us truly appreciate the skills of bakers who make large beautiful wedding cakes on a daily basis!

Here are our tips for those who are thinking of doing this:

1. PLAN ahead. Look for sales on cake and frosting ingredients.
2. Pick a simple design if you're doing large quantities.
3. Make things in advance if possible (fondant decorations and even certain cakes can be stored in freezers).
4. If possible, make extras - you never know what might happen! It's good to have extra backups on hand.
5. Ask friends and families to help - it's not a problem and most people are happy to!

Oh, and guess what they got for their guests? Towels wrapped up to look like a cupcake for the wedding favour! Cute right?

Congratulations to Kurt and Diana, to many more years of good food and chocolate! Cheers!

Osmanthus Cookies

My dad was baking on the weekend and I couldn't tell from the aroma what was in the oven. He told me that he was using Osmanthus flowers to make cookies. Apparently, he saw this on YouTube and wanted to give it a try. It's in Mandarin, so if you understand it (I don't), have a look.

Well, the reasons I am posting these cookies are, first they tasted pretty good (crunchy) and second, I am so proud of my dad for knowing how to use YouTube (where does he find these things?)! I have underestimated his computer skills...

Osmanthus flowers are more commonly used for Chinese tea, but apparently have lots of health benefits as well. My dad bought some during his trip to Vietnam and Hong Kong last month. Osmanthus flowers aren't easy to come by (in Toronto at least), so my dad was pretty proud of his find. Here's the translated recipe, if you spot an error, please let me know!

Osmanthus Cookies
(Makes about a dozen)

15 grams of dried Osmanthus flowers (you can also use fresh ones, like in the video)
70 grams of sugar
150 grams of all-purpose flour
100 grams of unsalted butter
10 grams of egg whites
10 grams of almond flour

1. Preheat your oven for 180°C (350°F). Have all your ingredients at room temperature and ready. Use a cookie sheet or tray lined with parchment paper.
   
2. Sift the all-purpose flour and almond flour together and then add in your unsalted butter.
3. Gently mix with your hands to keep the batter light and fluffy. Watch the video for her technique.
4. Add in the sugar, egg whites, and Osmanthus flowers. Use a spatula to mix until well combined.
5. Gather the cookie dough together. Using your hands, create little dough balls of about 1.5-2 inches wide. Place it on your tray and gently and evenly press the dough balls down a bit.
6. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool.
   

Guest Baker: Thanks!

We had a special guest baker with us today. =)

She just got back from teaching English in China for a year.
She spent 11 days in Tibet.
Her Mandarin is much better than mine.
The day before, she was walking around downtown Toronto in a bridal gown (to promote a wedding contest).
She sends me postcards from her travel.
She sent in these lovely lyrics before.

It's Julia!

Our friend was in town (and in the country) and had been craving cupcakes for a year now. So we had her over to bake. We taught Julia some simple fondant work and gave ourselves a mini contest.

The Three Blind Mice Contest

• Using the extra pink fondant, make a little mouse.
• No extra details are required, only the body, tail, and ears.

So Howard, Julia, and I each made our simple mouse. We would love if you could judge them. I've labeled them L, M, and S (Large, Medium, and Small) here so you can keep track of the different camera angles:

The top view.

The front view.

The back view.

So who made the best mouse? Please let us know in the comments below which one you liked (L, M, and S). We'll reveal who made which later on! ;)

Check out the beautiful cupcakes of "Thanks" Julia made for her friend Carolyn!

Wordless Wednesday: June 9, 2010

Pink Princess Birthday Cupcakes

Do we remember Brian's little red car birthday cake? Today is his cousin's birthday! Ashley's favourite colour is pink and she likes princesses. Her favourite princess story is Cinderella, so we made a castle, some crowns, a magic wand, and the famous slipper from fondant.

We heart chocolate cupcakes!


Castle, magic wand, "glass" - fondant slipper, and flowers!


Crowns fit for a prince and princess! Check out the sprinkle "jewels" embedded into the crowns.


Plaques made from fondant.


Happy 6th Birthday Ashley!

As always, there are more photos posted on our facebook page and flickr account!