Monday, May 10, 2010

Mother's Day Weekend, and I've been BUSY!

 A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  ~Tenneva Jordan


So, it was Mother's Day weekend- and I was BUSY!

1st of all my last blog was about vanilla "Teapot" sugar cookies. Oh My! They took forever but were well worth it! They were for a Ladies High Tea party/ Mother's Day celebration. I made over 150 cookies, all decorated by hand. In all honesty, they were long to make (it took 2 full days of work) but was such a highlight of the Tea party!

Here's some progress in pictures:  

DAY 1 :     

       
         (Teapots with just glaze)                 

DAY 2 :


In the end, I was extremely happy with the sugar cookie taste as well as the taste of the 
Meringue Powder Buttercream, (that I used for glaze) however because of the 1/2 cup of shortening in it, the glaze alone took over two days to harden. I then decorated them the day before the event, and because I needed them to be dry asap I used Royal icing, which dried in a matter of minutes- but isn't super tasty! 




 




So, that was my sugar cookie Teapots- but I didn't stop there... I also made delicious Linzer cookies! It was my first time making them. They are one of the most fragrant, flavorful, and dainty cookies I have ever seen and tasted. The batch only makes about 30 cookies which isn't a lot... but they are show stoppers! Here are some pictures at my 1st attempt at Linzer Cookies!
            
              
                                            
I got the idea for my mother-in-laws gift from my mom. She had told me earlier in the week she was going to make her mother-in-law a homemade edible arrangements bouquet. It sounded like a lot of fun and everyone loves fresh fruit!

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest  level of difficulty, I found making a homemade fresh fruit bouquet about a 4! It was quite easy and not too time consuming either.

Here's my final result:

                                              
It took just about an hour to put this together, having prepared the cut out fruit ahead of time.

If you would like to make your own fresh fruit bouquet to bring to a  get together (these would be great to bring to friends hosting bbq's this summer! ) or for next Mother's Day, this is what you'll need :

2- Packs of pointed 12" dowels
1- Brick of floral foam
1- Flower pot
2- Bundles of "greenery"
Handful of Raffia
----------------------------------------
3- Cartons of medium sized Strawberries
1- Pineapple
1- Cantaloup
1- Small pkg of Grapes

And putting it together is self explanatory! 

Here's my progress in pictures :


  (Thanks to my husband for all his help!!)

Phewwwwww! After that I was pooped!
But then I took on my final project of the weekend! The one I am the MOST proud of, a Cupcake Bouquet!

I got the idea from this youtube video :





I thought it was such a great twist on giving the traditional gift of flowers or a cake to your mom on Mother's Day! I also thought it would be a great idea since my mom's a cake decorator, she would get a kick out of it! 


Here's what I came up with :

 These are my Rose Cupcakes- I was really happy with the way they turned out!













Here's another picture, this picture shows more of the watering cans I 'Planted' the cupcakes into!


















So, all in all- it was a very busy Mother's Day! 

A VERY Happy Mother's Day goes out to MY amazing mom for all her help baking, icing and ideas this week! 

Sometime this week i'll post a blog on how to make the (above) flower cupcakes, the do's and don'ts (that I learnt the hard way) but for now, I'm going to take a much need, much deserved- rest!!!

Until next time, make this week the week you try something new and yummy!!!





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