Wedding Invitations

Alright, so last week I talked about our save the dates, which we sent a year in advance. We decided to send out the formal invitations at the six month mark.

Keeping with the dessert theme, I knew I wanted to do another piece based on photography. Something bright and cheery and related to the wedding venue a bit. And what's a French restaurant without macarons? We picked these ones up from Butter Avenue and started the project when we returned home.

I took out some of my favourite props: a cake stand, a cocotte, ramekins, a beautiful teal plate, and our marble lazy Susan. I laid them out on a sheet of parchment paper on the floor and played around the the arrangement.

Then, positioned the macarons on the edge and filled the containers with sprinkles. I left our two heart sprinkles on the plate thinking that it would be super cute to go along with the text.

Time to take shots from above. The bird-eye view works really well and I was able to try different heights by standing on the floor and the chair. The one above is pulled back so you can see behind-the-scenes.

A close up worked best because it gave me more room to include all the information on that small plate and the rest of the cake stand and marble platter wouldn't look too sparse.

There you have it! After fiddling with PicMonkey again to test out the text placement, we had our final invitation. I had about five versions of it until Howard and I both agreed on this one.

Again, we sent these out electronically instead of having them printed and mailed. We used the free wedding website that The Knot offers to create ours and e-mailed it to all the guests. It was a great way to share all of the information in once place!

Payard Patisserie and Bistro

Payard Patisserie and Bistro

Caesars Palace Hotel

3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

(702) 731-7849

Even though we've been to many Payard locations, we couldn't help taking a look at what the display cases offered.

Each piece of dessert looks like a work of art!

Let's just say we made plenty of visit to Payard during our stay in Vegas.

Hot days call for mango and raspberry gelato. And smoothies.

And my favourite one of all, the macaron ice cream sandwich!

Isn't the box cute?

The coconut mango was so good and refreshing. The macaron shells were the perfect texture and held the frozen treat nicely. I was worried the macaron might be too soggy or too crisp and crumb away, but it wasn't. This is a treat I'll crave every summer, luckily they serve it in New York as well!

Dominique Ansel Bakery

Dominique Ansel Bakery
189 Spring Street
New York City, NY 10012
(212) 219-2773

Dominique Ansel Bakery must be the most talked about bakery this year, so we couldn't visit New York and skip it! But, we did decide that waking up to line up at 5:00 am for a cronut simply wouldn't fit into our holiday schedule.

So instead, we went late in the afternoon and hoped that there wouldn't be a large crowd. Okay, there wasn't a large crowd, but we still had to line up for awhile. Some of the shelves looked empty, so whatever was there might have been sold out.

At least there were still macarons so that we could try them for our macaron tour.

These pastries were disappearing fast while we were in line. By the time we could order, a few more rows of treats were no longer available.

That's okay, we came here to try the frozen s'more, which made it's début two months after the famous cronut. The torched marshmallow envelopes a vanilla ice cream centre that has been covered in chocolate feuilletine. An apple-wood-smoked stick in place ties in the smell of being by a campfire. This was such a nice treat, probably the favourite thing we tried at the bakery.

Next up is the magic soufflé, which is a Grand Marnier chocolate soufflé encased inside an orange blossom brioche.

It arrives in a cute little box (reminiscent of theatre popcorn) with instructions if you're not eating it immediately.

We were instructed to break open the top.

There's the Grand Marnier chocolate soufflé. We felt that the flavours weren't strong enough, especially the orange blossom brioche which barely had a hint! We would recommend the frozen s'more over this one if you wanted to try one.

Lastly, we picked a honey grapefruit macaron for our tour and was surprisingly disappointed. There was barely any grapefruit flavour and the shell was extremely soft and fragile. Again, making us wonder if it wasn't fresh or properly stored.

Mille-feuille Bakery Cafe

Mille-feuille Bakery Cafe

552 LaGuardia Place

New York City, NY 10012

(212) 533-4698

Do you spot the "French Donut" sign beside their door? Looks like another donut that's caused quite the stir in the news this year! ;)

Mille-feuille Bakery Cafe is a tiny little bakery, mainly for grab-and-go, but there's some seating inside and out.

We came for the . . . macarons!

There are the usual flavours that we've seen in other shops, so no signature flavour combination here.

They do have a pastry selection and of course the mille-feuille, which they're named after.

In the end, we tried the Espresso and Vanilla macaron. The most disappointing was the Vanilla one which felt very soft and soggy and would break as you held it. This lead us to think that it wasn't fresh or it wasn't properly made.

Bosie Tea Parlor

Bosie Tea Parlor

10 Morton Street

New York City, NY 10014

(212) 352-9900

There are so many great little places in this neighbourhood! Not far from bisous ciao and Sugar and Plumm is Bosie Tea Parlor. An actual sit down place where you can enjoy some savoury dishes and have your dessert too.

We headed straight for the display counter (we were pretty full from lunch still, plus we didn't have reservations and all the tables were taken) to pick our macarons.

They offer some great flavour combinations that we hadn't seen in the other stores. I think with so much competition in the city, they have to create something unique or different from the many dessert spots. Don't think I didn't notice the pastry in the bottom row. I saw the Ispahan (rose macaron, rose buttercream, lychee, and fresh raspberry) and skipped for joy. However, it's not something I would takeout as we were still sightseeing after picking up the macarons. But knowing that I could one day return and try it made me very, very happy. Also on their pastry menu is an Earl Grey Mille Crêpes that sounds worthy of a repeat visit.

As we mentioned, you can have a meal here. They offer tea services, lunch, weekend brunch, and dinner.

From the top going counter clockwise: Bacon and Maple Syrup, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Raspberry Yuzu macarons. The shells are decorated with edible glitter and they sometimes blend two colours to help differentiate the flavours. How was the Bacon and Maple Syrup? It was fun, you already know what to expect with bacon, and it created an interesting mix of savoury and sweet.

Sugar and Plumm

Sugar and Plumm

257 Bleecker Street

New York City, NY 10014

(212) 388-5757

Sugar and Plumm was an unexpected surprise as we made our way from one macaron shop to another. The cute purple awning and the spinning pinwheels in the window, all I had to do was point there and Howard understood. Let's take a look inside:

There are shelves full of candy and packaged gift items.

Baked goods for those grabbing breakfast, lunch, or snacks. It turns out they have a flagship bistro location in the upper west side where you can go sit down for a meal.

Beautiful chocolates lining the entire section of a display case. They just looks like delicious puzzle pieces here.

And what piqued my interest in the first place, macarons!

Some of their unique flavours were licorice and strawberry poppy, but I wasn't feeling brave enough to try either one of those (not a licorice fan at all).

In the end, Howard picked Passion Fruit, it's starting to become a staple in our macaron tour, and I went with Rosewater Lychee.

Similarly to Francois Payard Bakery, the Passion Fruit was paired with chocolate, which does hide the fruit flavour. The Rosewater Lychee could have also used more of a flavour punch, I wish it was just Lychee as it's one of my favourite fruits. The shells here are smooth and they don't shy away from colours.

bisous ciao

bisous ciao

235 Bleecker Street

New York City, NY 10014

(212) 675-6366

We're back on track for our macaron tour. It's been a tough job so far, with so many locations and so many flavours, it's not easy trying them all. But, as I told my manager and friends before we left Toronto, someone's got to do it!

bisous ciao specializes in macarons and offers a whole assortment of flavours. They do gift boxes, macaron towers, and events. The shop is modern and minimalistic in decor, the display case takes center stage!

When we went, the macaron display went from neutral to bright colours.

They have a great selection of flavours too, it made just picking one impossible. So we went with three!

Above, from left to right:
Romeo + Juliet: Guava jam with a creamy soft cheese ganache center
Roasted Banana: A roasted banana milk chocolate ganache
Jasmine + Green Tea: A white chocolate infused ganache with a hint of jasmine flowers

For the Romeo + Juliet one, don't worry, the cheese flavour isn't overpowering or strong, you get more of the guava taste in this one. The roasted banana was also pretty subtle since chocolate can easily mask other flavours. I love tea flavours, but the the hint of jasmine didn't stand out, it was more matcha (which I'm fine with since it's one of my favourites) for this pairing. The macaron shells were well constructed and I'm intrigued by how they decorated the Romeo + Juliet shell with the white circle in the middle . . . something to try the next time I make macarons!

Todd English Food Hall

Todd English Food Hall

The Plaza Hotel

1 West 59th Street

New York, NY 10019

If you're in New York City and near West 59th Street (chances are you will at one point be because there's a bunch of goodies there you'd be visiting, from Central Park to the shops and restaurants), stop by the Todd English Food Hall for a snack or quick meal.

Under the Plaza Hotel, as the name implies, there's a wonderful collection of food vendors and plenty of seating in around the hall. If you're into dessert like me, you'll really like this one-stop location for so many great treats!

So we continued my macaron tour by stopping at La Maison du Chocolat for a chocolate macaron.

These were by far the most we've paid for a macaron, but we're guessing because they are larger in size and they're using quality chocolate.

Chocolate lovers rejoice because this macaron is probably one of the richest and creamiest one there is. I would recommend sharing it, because it is a huge portion of chocolate. Texture wise, the shell was a bit too soft for my liking, it felt too delicate and on the verge of breaking.

Our next reason for stopping by the Food Hall is Lady M, makers of fabulous and delicious cakes. Howard and I made a very dire mistake here.

See if you can guess what we did wrong. Look at the photo above and then the one below.

That's right. We only ordered one slice of green tea mille crêpes cake. Sharing is not a good idea here. We should have ordered the green tea, chocolate, chocolate banana, and original in my opinion. What? Four slices shared among two people is normal! Normal! It was embarrassing at how fast we consumed that slice of cake. Each of us with our fork and fighting for the next piece . . .

FP Patisserie is nearby, having already visited a different location, we didn't stop for macarons here.

Cupcakes? Yes! From Billy’s Bakery no less.

Mmm bread!

No bread? Maybe pies are more your thing.

It's worth a visit, especially if you need to pick up items for a Central Park picnic!