… or Wizard of Oz themed party like I had- the rainbow backdrop set the scene for an Emerald City dessert display. The backdrop was made from crepe paper adhered to a wooden dowel with metallic tinsel sprinkled (cut from a metallic curtain.) This was inspired by a wedding backdrop I found here- her blog also has a great tutorial for assembling the streamers.

I have made a fringy-crepe backdrop before for a Christmas party and it took a few hours to assemble- this time around I used double-sided tape and hung the dowel before attaching the crepe which saved me a ton of time.

For those of you who don’t know what an Irish Car Bomb is- it’s a horrible St. Patty’s Day drink where you drop a shot of Baileys into a glass of Guinness and try to chug the whole thing in one gulp before the Bailey’s curdles into disgusting chunks. I am not the type to chug my drinks so I always end up with curdled Bailey’s. Sick.

The Guiness bottle tops made the perfect finishing touch. I found the recipe for the cupcakes here - the Bailey’s ganache in the center was delicious but for some reason after being left out for a few hours it turned into the consistency of a truffle so I’d suggest leaving that part out if you do not plan to serve right away.

Today was my niece’s first birthday party- my sister asked for butterfly cupcakes so after poking around Etsy for inspiration I stumbled upon edible butterflies. Here are the ones I wanted- unfortunately their shop owner didn’t respond to my rush order question in time so I had to order from a different shop.

The idea was for the cupcakes to look like a rose with a little butterfly perched on top. My buttercream rose making skills aren’t what they should be and according to my mother (who spent two years of her young adult life frosting cakes) the frosting just wasn’t fit for roses so off comes the petal tip on comes the star-ish shaped tip.

The wrappers were designed in photoshop-printed and cut. If I were to make these again I would go with brown baking wrappers instead of silver so the leaves stand out more.

I found the raspberry buttercream recipe here. I loved how simple it was- three ingredients! I will definitely use this recipe to experiment with different jelly flavors (I’m thinking blueberry next.)

One thing I should mention- the icing was SUPER sweet, it overpowered the subtle flavor of the chocolate cake.  Next time I plan to pair the frosting with a super dark chocolate cake to balance the flavors out.

Mom asked for the party to be “whimsical”- which to me means glitter and vintage colors.

Each invite came in a black envelope lined with sheet music which came from a music book I bought at Goodwill a few months back for just the occasion; a well-spent $.99! To line the envelopes, I traced the opened envelope and trimmed to fit inside the envelopes, then used a glue pen to secure.

The save-the-dates came paired with a gold painted and glittered clothes pin magnet to make posting to the fridge or kitchen calendar a breeze.

The glittered clothespins were so easy to make- I used vintage gold paint, elmers glue, glitter, and trimmed magnet with adhesive backing,

I liked them so much I made a set for my fridge at home!

This is my first candy buffet I’ve done on my own- it was so fun! Especially shopping for the candy- there’s this great website called Candy Warehouse that sells bulk candy all separated out by color. They even have a video tutorial to help me visualize the volumes of the different candies.

Next time I’ll definitely use a different color for the ribbon so the labels stand out.

The sign was created in Powerpoint- I used this background download from HWTM with some white shapes drawn over it. So easy! Not to mention, the scroll labels were also created in Powerpoint by placing Word Art over a jpg I found online and twisting it.

My favorite part was the backdrop- good thing because it took me about four hours, two movies, and two glasses of wine to finish! Thanks so much to Oh Happy Day for the tutorial- for mine I used crepe paper streamers instead of crepe folds. Limited color selection but much cheaper and it’s already cut into strips.  I also added in strands of silver cut from a metallic curtain- the remaining silver was strewn on the buffet table to ground the jars.

I used a boxed spice cake with vanilla frosting and…thanks to the power of suggestion… everyone who tried one said “Mmmm pumpkin cake?” Love it.

First I made cake pops the regular old way with orange candy melts, quickly pressing two m&m’s into the top for the ears.

Next, I dipped the tops into black candy melts, and used a toothpick to draw the faces with the black candy melts.

All packed up and ready to ship out to coworkers in LA!

Happy Halloween.

Brave Horse Tavern has figured out a way to make pretzels hip by adding quirky dips like peanut butter bacon and clams with lager. It was love at first bite.

Growing up, my mother used to buy us giant boxes of frozen pretzels from Costco- 5 minutes in the microwave, a sprinkle of pre-packaged pretzel salt and BOOM! Pretzelpalooza. I found a recipe on Martha Stewart for beer boiled pretzels- I fiddled a bit and made a pretty addicting dip- both recipes below.

Mustard is always a great staple for pretzels- I also made a really yummy Onion Rosemary Confiturre (or jam as normal people call it). I served the pretzels with a great pumpkin beer from Trader Joe’s (Trader Joe’s?! I know, right?)

A pizza cutter made the perfect tool for cutting the dough.

My dad didn’t have any lager-style beer on hand so we improvised with Hefeweizen- it foamed a ton which was annoying but it was a good indicator when the liquid was getting too hot.

I threw together a Cheddar Habanero dip- so good! The dip had a rich flavor from the cheddar followed by a flash of heat from the pepper.

Pretzel Recipe, from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

• Warm water
• 2 (1/4-ounce) packages rapid-rise yeast
• 3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 6 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
• 4 tablespoons coarse salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces, plus more for serving
• Nonstick cooking spray
• 1/2 cup baking soda
• 1/2 cup pale ale-style beer
• Pretzel salt
• Mustard, for serving

Put it together

1. In a medium bowl, mix together 2 cups warm water, yeast, and 1/2 cup brown sugar; let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together flour and coarse salt using your hands. Add butter and continue to mix with your hands until mixture is crumbly. Add yeast mixture and, using your hands, mix until a shaggy dough is formed and water is absorbed.
3. Using the dough hook attachment, mix dough on medium speed until dough is tight, elastic, and smooth, 6 to 8 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and transfer to refrigerator; let chill at least 8 hours and up to overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
5. Roll dough out into a 14-by-12-inch rectangle. Cut dough into one dozen 12-inch-long strips, each about 1-inch wide. Transfer to a large baking sheet and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Transfer to refrigerator and let chill for 15 minutes.
6. Working with one piece of dough at a time, roll out each piece into a 30- to 33-inch-long rope (about 3/4-inch thick), starting from the center and working toward the ends. Make a “U” shape with the rope and cross the ends over, pinching at the bottom of the “U” to form a pretzel. Return to baking sheet and repeat process with remaining dough.
7. Spray a large baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. In a large saucepan, combine 8 cups water, baking soda, beer, and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar; bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Simmer pretzels, one at a time, until pretzel floats, about 30 seconds; transfer to prepared baking sheet using a perforated spatula. Repeat process with remaining pretzels.
8. Sprinkle pretzels with pretzel salt; transfer to oven and bake for 5 minutes. Rotate baking sheet and continue baking until pretzels turn a chestnut-brown color, 4 to 6 minutes more. Remove from baking sheet and transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly.

Cheddar Habanero Dip

Ingredients

• 1/2 Habanero pepper, seeded and diced
• 1/2 c cream cheese, softened
• 1 c sharp cheddar, thinly grated

Put it together

• Combine ingredients, microwave for 60 seconds, stir, and cool. Serve and Enjoy!

wood vs. steel

organic vs. forged

warm vs. cold

Here are some pieces I found so you can re-create the look in your space for a fraction of the price.

1. Cellar Wine Rack (3 shown)- $39.95 at CB2
2. Felix Walnut Side Chair- $89.95 at Crate & Barrel
3. Wood Slice Coasters- $11.99 on Amazon
4. Cru Wine Rack- $157.50 from Umbra
5. Pulley Pendant Lamp- $199 on CB2
6. TORSBY Dining Table- $139 at Ikea

Plates from Goodwill- $2 each, Chalkboard paint- $6

Great alternative to place cards

… or write a special message! Customize for holidays, weddings, whatever. My plates were plastic which was not the ideal surface for the chalkboard paint- I’d suggest using glass chargers.

Photo from Food in Mouth

So I made Maple Bacon Cake Pops- I tried a few different combinations….

Maple in the cake, maple in the coating, peanut butter coating…

Luckily I have roommates to help out in my “test kitchen”…

… and the winner is maple and bacon on the inside, vanilla candy melts on the outside. Now you can enjoy all the flavors of breakfast in one bite! Recipe below.

Maple Bacon Cake Pops

Ingredients

• 1 box yellow butter cake, prepared and cooled
• 3/4 can vanilla frosting
• 1 package bacon, prepared and coarsely chopped
• 1 tbs maple extract
• 1 package white candy melts

Put it together

1. Grind up cake into a large bowl, mix with frosting, bacon (reserving 2 tbs for garnish) and maple extract.
2. Roll cake into quarter-sized balls and place onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper
3. Place sheet in the freezer for 15 minutes to set
4. Heat candy melts in a small, deep glass bowl in the microwave- stirring at 30 second intervals until melted, one to two minutes
5. Dip the tip of a lollipop stick into the candy melts and stick into cake balls
6. Dip cake balls into candy and dry by sticking vertically into florist’s foam, garnish with reserved bacon bits