Ok I am finally getting around to writing about those desserts I made last week! Let me start with telling you why I decided to make them.
Last year (around this time actually) it was my grandpa’s 70th birthday. To celebrate we decided to have all the family come together for a fun-filled weekend. Now this is a big deal for this side of my family. We are not like most families where we get together for the occasional reunion. To put it in perspective, my great aunt flew in and my mom had not seen her in over 20 years. I was ‘reintroduced’ to a cousin my age that I haven’t seen or heard of since I was 8. Yup that kind of family. So let me reiterate, this get-together was a BIG DEAL. Which means my grandpa needed a ‘big deal’ kind of cake. I volunteered to make one.
Now I dabbled in amateur cake making here and there before but I always just used a box cake mix. Of course, I wanted to step it up and make delicious homemade cakes for the party. I had tried once before to make a cake from scratch and it was horrible. It was sour and dry and extremely embarrassing to serve. I was not going to make the same mistake so I baked cakes the whole month before the party to try different recipes. And I got some really tasty flavors! But my poor mother claims she gained 10 pounds that month from all the cake we had to sample.
And just because I know you are curious, here is the cake…
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{Bottom tier: Red velvet cake with a cream cheese frosting made to look like a suitcase with stickers of some places he's traveled. Second tier: Vanilla cake with a vanilla buttercream frosting with all the faces of each grandkid. Third tier: Deep Dark Mocha Torte with a Mascarpone cheese filling and a chocolate ganche glaze with a little man fishing on top. Top tier: Pumpkin spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. And a Rice Krispy chicken on top :) The eggs were made with vanilla and pumpkin spice cupcakes topped with molded white chocolate} |
Personal Image
Now fast forward 8 months. Mr. Dizzy and I are now engaged and making plans for our wedding. When it came to cake, we decided to jump on the cupcake bandwagon after seeing pictures like this:
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| {Mmmmm Red Velvet} Image via Wedding Wire |
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| {I love the rustic feel!} Image via Wedding Wire |
Adorable and way less of a hassle when it comes to serving time. But time passed and I saw people serving pies at their weddings.
Image via The Wedding Cottage
And then it hit me…wow, I am a horrible person. Mr. Dizzy is pretty indifferent about cake, but he LOVES pie. Why the heck are we not doing pie at this wedding?!? So then I saw weddings that had a little of everything! (Amazing what you notice when you are actually looking for something!)
Image via Wedding Planner
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| {In gray and yellow no less!} Image via Hostess with the Mostess |
Perfect! So it was decided…we are going to have a dessert bar with cupcakes AND pies and other little tasties.
Nothing more was discussed on the subject until about 2 weeks ago. It was my mom’s turn to host a Bunco party which meant she had to also supply dinner, drinks, and dessert. So she asked me if I would make dessert. Of course I agreed and I asked what she wanted. And that’s when she dropped it:
“I know you are planning on this dessert bar for the wedding which is a great idea but I really think you need to try your recipes now so I am not eating every dessert imaginable the month before the wedding. That is not a good time to gain weight. But if you make some desserts now, we can feed them to the Bunco ladies instead. Plus you might want to put a couple in the refrigerator and freezer to see how they hold up. You don’t want to be making desserts the day before your wedding.”
Isn’t she smart? Yes I think so too (hence the nickname ‘good idea mommy’ that she’s had since as long as I can remember).
So thanks to Pinterest (and a shout-out to my amazing MOH for introducing it to me) I found some amazing recipes that I just had to try. Now, giving you a heads up, I had every intention of taking awesome pictures of all my desserts. Unfortunately, the camera did not work that night for who knows what reason (Murphy ’s Law perhaps?). So I didn’t get pictures of all the nice looking desserts. Instead I had to take mediocre pictures the next day of ‘the uglies’ (the ones that tasted fine but I messed up on aesthetically hence not being served the night before). So I apologize for that. But I at least got proof that I made them.
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| {Horrible picture I know} Personal Photo |
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| {A bird's eye shot of the lemon tart, brownie, and part of the cream puff and raspberry pie pop (along with the filling expolsion)} Personal Photo |
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| {Cookies are so cute and tasty!} Personal Photo |
A list of the yumminess produced:
Pie Pops (apple and raspberry)
Salted Fudge Brownies
Sugar Cookies
Lemon Tarts
Tiramisu Truffles (not pictured)
Cream Puffs
Red Velvet Cake Pops (not pictured)
Pie Pops
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| {I used their apple pie filling recipe} Image via Our Best Bites |
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| {I punched out a heart for the raspberry pops} Image via At Humble Abode |
Pros: They were adorable and got a lot of complements. They are bite-sized and easy to eat. They were very tasty with just the right amount of filling. They were pretty easy to make and would be a breeze if I had an extra set of hands.
Cons: I did not seal them tightly the first round so the top crust separated from the bottom. On the raspberry pops where I cut out a heart, the filling overflowed on some.
Grade: Visual: B (if I seal properly and figure out filling spillage, it will get an A+!)
Taste: A
Prep: B
Verdict: Absolutely making these. Might try a Huckleberry filling though…
Salted Fudge Brownies
Pros: Surprisingly easy to make with simple ingredients. Lots of complements (salt and chocolate seems to be the rage right now). A “fancy” version of a staple dessert…perfect for a wedding.
Cons: Make sure you let people know there is salt on them. Delicious when you are expecting it, weird tasting when you are not.
Grade: Visual: A (I don’t know how you can mess up how a brownie looks!
Taste: A
Taste: A
Prep: A
Verdict: Expect these on July 2nd! They were a hit!
Sugar Cookies
Image via Bee in our Bonnet
Pros: Very fun to make. Prep should not be hard in an assembly line fashion. Very cute and can be customizable. Everyone likes a sugar cookie. Easy to store (the frosting dries firm so you can stack them).
Cons: Frosting can take time.
Grade: Visual: A+
Taste: A
Prep: C
Verdict: These will be there as well!! They are just too much fun to make!
Lemon Tarts
Image via Kelly Neil
Pros: A fruity option for the dessert bar. Got many complements on the real lemon taste.
Cons: The crust was a bit sticky. It was hard to eat.
Grade: Visual: C
Taste: A-
Prep: B+
Verdict: We probably won’t make these. Even though they tasted amazing, the crust was soggy so we might have to tweak the recipe.
Tiramisu Truffles
Pros: Bite-sized. A way to include our favorite dessert without having a full tiramisu cake that needs to be cut and served.
Cons: Used alcohol that was not cooked. Weird texture (would have been better if we coated it in a hard chocolate shell).
Grade: Visual: A-
Taste: B- (Liqueur was very strong)
Prep: B
Verdict: Too much time to create something people we not very impressed with. I suppose there is no substitute for real tiramisu!
Cream Puffs
Pros: Everyone wanted to try one. They looked professionally made. Extremely easy prep and cheap ingredients. Delicious.
Cons: Honestly…none.
Grade: Visual: A+
Taste: A+
Prep: A
Verdict: No shocker here. We want these to be there. The only question is, can we freeze them?
Cake Pops
Pros: Very cute. Bite sized.
Cons: Could not finish because had difficulty with the chocolate (not liquid enough which lead to me burning the chocolate).
Grade: Visual: N/A
Taste: B
Prep: D
Verdict: Not sure if these will be making an appearance. Since we are having cupcakes we may just skip them.
And if you skipped through all that info about the individual desserts (which I probably would have, not gonna lie) here is the general idea. The pie pops, salted fudge brownie, cream puffs, and sugar cookies were a unanimous hit. Everyone loved them. The others…not so much.
I can’t wait to eat all them again when we pull them out of the freezer! Hopefully they hold up!
What desserts have you seen at wedding dessert bars? Did anyone else use a party as an excuse to use people as taste testers?
I am pretty sure cream puffs can be frozen because i know my mom bought some at costco once and stored them in the freezer. I think you then just let them defrost and add the topping : )
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