We've been blogged! - Twice!

I got two delightful emails yesterday saying that we'd been blogged! The first was from Memory Journalists (they are SO GOOD to me!). They did a little profile "run down" interview. Thanks gang... we love you too!

The next was from the always fabulous Beth Baugher of True Love Photo. Yes, she was MY wedding photographer, and yes, it was upon her urging that we officially started Sugar and Spice Specialty Desserts. So, of course we love her! This was an amazing home wedding that Lora Ward, with A Day To Remember coordinated. Ahhh, such beauty and SO MANY amazing details. I've already shared this cake with you, but Bethy got some lovely up close and personal shots too, plus I HAD to share a picture of this darling couple!

Real Weddings Magazine - Featured Wedding

We just LOVE it when our couples are featured in the local wedding magazines! Real Weddings is such an amazing and unique magazine because they really do focus on REAL couples... not just gorgeous models or photo shoots with no budget (which are fun, but not always an accurate reflection of real wedding budgets.) If you read the article in Our Weddings magazine about Your Wedding, Your Menu, Laura and Gary were the couple who were honeymooning in Hawaii and had the chocolate cake with macadamia nuts and coconut pastry cream (and the unmentioned coconut buttercream). Laura and Gary were a great couple to work with and I couldn't be happier to see their wedding featured!

A special thanks goes out to The Memory Journalists for taking amazing pictures and for doing all the work to track down the article and do the post.

I know, I've been a total slacker!

But really Mom, I have a great excuse! Not only has it been wedding season, but I'm working on a photo shoot with Tinywater Photography, launching a new logo and everything that goes with that (new chef coats, business cards, stickers), and working on advertising (print and web).

So, without further ado... I have an announcement!

We've been asked to join Style Me Pretty!!!!

If you haven't seen this drool worthy website you HAVE TO CHECK IT OUT!!! I'm already coordinating with photographers from weddings already completed this season and for weddings coming up so we can submit a bunch to SMP. Featured Wedding = Good Publicity! I'm still working on uploading pictures and setting up my profile, but there is a little there!

Here is our new logo. A very special thanks goes out to Stephanie J Designs for creating it, I'm totally in love! (You should see what we have planned for phase two of the logo!)

OK, now comes the really fun part! Pictures of what I've been working on! I still have some outstanding pictures from some weddings, but this will at least get you going!

This was a dessert table that we did for a 30th birthday party. Boy, I wish I had friends like this when I was turning 30! (I was in cooking school, so it all turned out just fine!) Thank you Jen, of The Memory Journalists, for the pictures. As always, I'm in your debt!

This purple and black wonder was for a high school graduation party. The school colors were burgundy and gold, but the graduate gal's favorite colors are purple and black, so we went with that! The kids and adults all went ape, it was VERY FUN! For once I got to be a guest and a vendor. Thank you Brandy, of Brandy Sommer Photography, for the pictures and congratulations on getting your first born graduated!

This next pictures is one where I FINALLY got the professional photo from a wedding back in November. Thanks to Amber of Shoops Shutter for the picture.

This next one has already been published! Woo Hoo! The cake was inspired by the invitation (too funny, second cake inspired by the same invitation!). Thanks to Amber with Platinum Planning for orchestrating such a lovely wedding and Jeff of Unique Photography for the picture.

This picture was taken by a friend of the bride... God love her, she did an amazing job. This is my new gold standard to illustrate two points: 1) Buttercream is beautiful. That nice crisp edge is exactly what I aim for with every cake. 2) Anytime there are dots on a cake they should look like little pearls, not little Hershey's Kisses!


I just got these photos from Ely Roberts, of Ely Roberts Photography, and I'm over the moon! I just love how this illustrates the beauty of sugar flowers and how we can get pretty dang close to the wedding colors when we do the matching.

LAST MINUTE ADDITION!!!

Thanks to the LOVELY Beth Baugher of True Love Photo I have a picture from Saturday's Wedding!!! Sweet Mama!


My darling husband just emailed me this picture that I took with his iPhone. MUCH better pictures will be coming from Carmen Salazar, but this will tide me over until then. This was an American croquembouche. The cake on the bottom has the wedding rings quilting pattern on it and the croquembouche (traditional French wedding dessert... vanilla cream puffs coated in hard caramel and stacked to create a tower) on top. And, yes, that is spun sugar all around. I absolutely can't wait to see pictures of the couple trying to break into this bad boy! :)

Dynamite Weddings Bridal Mixer

I have been so enjoying this down time (December and part of January) that I've gotten complacent about writing the blog. Back to work SLACKER!

January has been shaping up to be surprisingly busy. I usually have one to two days of tasting appointments per month, January I had to add a third! YEA!

As some of you know I am a member of Dynamite Weddings. It's a great resource for brides, or soon to be brides. This past week we had our inaugural Bridal Mixer at the Citizen Hotel. I do love that place! So dramatic!

Here are a few pictures that Jennifer of Memory Journalists took... yes, that's me in the chef coat (boy do I need to get a tailored coat for these events!). I stuck with the general color and feel of the Dynamite Wedding website... just like I do with weddings.

Guest Blogging... n' Misc. Other Stuff!

I've been a bit absent lately, but I'm still here. I was asked by Real Weddings magazine to do some guest blogging and in addition the the Holidays I've had to put my own blog on the back burner.

Check out my guest blog entries:

Mini Indulgences

Invitation Inspiration

Hey There Cupcake!

In addition to that Nicole Jackson, formerly of Dynamite Weddings (check out the DW post on Couture Dessert Bars and The Memory Journalists, was kind enough to help me out at the Best of Sacramento party last month. Seriously, I don't think I could have done it without her! Not to mention, she took this ROCKIN' picture of the table! Brandy Capik was also a DOLL and came over the night before and decorated all the trays. It is one of the details that really pops in the picture. The signs were also made by Stephanie J Designs (read about her blog post on the tags!). It was her idea to use the glass with the sugar, and thankfully I had just received a shipment that included 8#s of hot pink sugar sprinkles! Talk about timing!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. I'm hopelessly behind schedule at home, so I'll be hitting the stores in the next couple of days to catch up!

Rehearsal Dinner - Dessert Bar

It was another busy weekend. Thursday rehearsal dinner dessert bar at the Citizen Hotel downtown, sculpted shoe cake on Friday, and INSANE detail wedding cake at the Sutter Club.

Yesterday was also family picture day... Mom and Dad with the boys, Mike and I, and our goddaughter's three month pictures. Those pictures will come soon, but you'll just have to wait!

For now I only have pictures from Thursday, but I promise more to come from the other events!

Let me begin by saying that I like to think I play well with others, well, a girl has to draw a line SOMEWHERE... I do not EVER again want to share my dessert table with the coffee station. It looks, well, not to put too fine of a point on it... LIKE CRAP! Of course the desserts were still tasty and my couple did like them, it just wasn't the look I was going for. Dang.

Special thanks go out to Brandy Sommer Photography for coming at a moments notice to take pictures! I'll also be getting pictures from Allison Stahl Photography, but we'll have to be patient on those.

The close ups are so much more picturesque!

Chocolate Eclairs... with the cutsie white chocolate hearts!

Ubiquitous vanilla bean creme brulee... how can you argue when it's so good and sooo popular!??

Fresh fruit tart... all berries this time... Aren't those golden raspberries to DIE for???

If you haven't figured it out by this point, I ADORE gold... leaf, dust, flecks... all of it. I'm a glitter girl, I can't help it. Everything in my nature screams MORE, MORE, MORE! I have to intentionally put my instincts in check some times!

Last but not least are these yummy triffles. This one is similar to the ones I did last weekend for the bridal shower, except that they have raspberries inside! White Chocolate Mousse, Passionfruit Curd, Red Raspberries and White Chocolate shavings all layered together with vanilla bean butter cake. So many textures and flavors, and so so yummy!

L & D: It's all in the {French} details

Elegant events are about the details, and this wedding had them in spades! The colors were sapphire blue and white, but there were fleur de lis details dotted throughout the wedding and reception.

As soon as the bride heard that there was a dessert bar option she got very excited. She was all about the chocolate.

The wedding cake was a clean lined and elegant chocolate cake with layers of vanilla bean buttercream and fresh strawberries. These beautiful tags were made by Stephanie J Designs... THIS is what I was saying about the details. So nice, elegant, and really appreciated.

I absolutely adored these chocolates. This is another example of the little details really shining! This is also a great example of how the extremely popular salted caramel tartlet was transformed into a salted caramel truffle.

Even the fruit tarts got special attention. The groom specifically chose the fruits to be used. I heard several comments from guests about how pretty these little guys were. All of the serving pieces were lined with cream paper that had gold fleur de lis' on them. So pretty.

A nice top down shot, that shows off the symmetry and the crème brûlée!

Thanks to Memory Journalists for the pictures and A Day to Remember for referring me. I really do like doing dessert bars, they are fun and challenging and really let me flex my creative muscles!

Briday Shower Saturday!

Saturday was a super busy day... three events, two with dessert bars, two were weddings. YIKES! More pictures will follow, but in the mean time, here is something to ruin your lunch!Thanks to my darling intern, Cearra, for all her help, I couldn't have done it without her help! (I'd love to clone myself on days like this!)

Below are pictures of some of the desserts that Brandy of Brandy Sommer Photography took. Make sure you eat a little something before you look though these!

White Chocolate and Passion Fruit Trifle

The bride's favorite dessert is red velvet cake... so we made some lollipops. How fun!

More details of these will come from the pictures that Memory Journalists took because I made these truffles for two events (Can't wait for those pictures!). Salted Caramel Truffles... YUM! (This is a good example of how I can take our VERY popular salted caramel tartlet and translate it into a truffle... easy peasy!

Next up, and I think based on dirty dishes, the most popular, Lemon Raspberry Creme Brulee... the raspberry was a thick layer of tart coulis at the bottom with the lemon custard on top... so good and refreshing after a big lunch.

Last, but not least, we've got milk chocolate mousse. Anytime mousse is served with breakfast or lunch I like to lighten it up with layers of whipped cream, otherwise it's just too rich for most guests.

Sharing the LOVE...

I swear, we're not in cahoots, we are just two of the founding members of our own mutual admiration society!

Memory Journalists did a wonderful blog post about us today. This was such a fun little project, cakes for little ones are always a hoot and when I actually get to see their little faces it's even better!

The flavors of this care are rapidly becoming one of our most popular... Chocolate Cake, Peanut Butter Buttercream and Fresh Raspberries. (Good for all ages!)

The Spotlight Is On... US!!!

Dynamite Weddings did the nicest vendor profile on us on Wednesday. They are always great when it comes to gushing about us, all I can say is thank you and I have a suspicion I'm going to have to make you some more treats! (For a bunch of toothpick gals, they sure do like their sweets... goal for 2009, make them each gain 10 pounds!)

Here is a link to the entire expert spotlight. Thanks go out to the always fabulous Allison Stahl of Alison Stahl Photography and Memory Journalists for all the outstanding photographs of my work (PS: I LOVE the one at the bottom with my darling bride holding out the shot glass!).

Bragging Rights...

Since I sat down with Sean and Ashley and Sean described what he wanted for his Groom's Cake I've been bragging to everyone. What a character! What a sense of HUMOR!

Carrot Cake... in the shape of a CARROT! I took it a little further by adding the wheat grass. At first I was hoping the ribbon would cover the roots, but the more I thought about it, the more I LOVED the look. It just makes me giggle to think about it and I couldn't be more THRILLED at how it turned out!I found this in my In Box when I got home... do I have the BEST clients or what?!?!?!

HUGE thank you goes out to NJ with Memory Journalists for schlepping out to Fat's Restaurant in Roseville on a Friday night to take these pictures! What an amazing turn around time! LOVE YOU!!!! (Jen... she's definitely a keeper!)

Picture Day!

I'm anxiously waiting for pics from NJ with Memory Journalists and Jordan of Jordan's Portraits of the Groom's Cake delivery on Friday night and the outstanding (and butt kicking) wedding on Saturday. I also shamlessly begged Brandy Capik of Brandy Sommers Photography to take some close up pictures. I'm really really anxious to see those. More to come later in the week!

When I met up with NJ Friday night to get pictures of the Groom's Cake and she brought me my vendor disc with lots and lots of pictures. Thank you everyone over at Memory Journalists!

We've been blogged!

Thank you Real Weddings magazine! Wendy asked me about this trend a couple of weeks ago and I was happy to give her some ideas and quotes.

Enjoy the read!

http://realweddingsmag.blogspot.com/2009/07/cool-trend-dessert-bars.html

New Baby Pictures

I know, I'm such a nag! Thank you Jen for bumping up your release of the sneak peek of Madison's first pictures... I thought I was going to burst with anticipation! (I just love those Memory Journalists gals!) I can't wait to see all of them... but these will certainly hold me over for a bit!