A graduation dessert table

Last week, my husband graduated with his PhD. Finally. After the ceremony, we had a lovely backyard barbecue, with requisite dessert table.

I made cookies n' cream cupcakes (his favorite, my own recipe), brown butter rice krispy treats (recipe from Smitten Kitchen), double-chocolate cookies with sea salt, cake pops, and champagne lollipops. Yum, yum. I was going to make chocolate French macarons as well, but luckily, I had a reality check. And a short time frame.

I was reading someone's blog post about dessert tables a couple of weeks ago (not a great story because I can't remember what blog), but the main point of this post was that "this awesome dessert table was done for only $40!" I thought, hmm. My tables never cost that much! Thinking about it, and looking at these photos, I think it's because I never buy anything new for my tables. The stands the cookies are on- I've had those since I was a professional cupcaker-ist. They are little glass ice cream dishes epoxy-d to glass plates. All from the thrift store. (Except for that silver one, that's inherited from a grandma.) The platter holding the rice krispy treats is one of my everyday white platters, and the cake pop one is from the dollar store. Cupcake tree- I have like 4, and they were all gifts. When you make a lot of cupcakes, most of your birthday and Christmas gifts involve cupcakes. Go figure. The owl lives on my credenza normally- he just got a quick cardstock and yarn graduation hat, along with those gold spray-painted sticks. And the fabric is just a large piece of white satiny stuff from my craft room. So really, for me, dessert tables come down to little details. And a color scheme! I make my own labels with just cardstock and sometimes ribbon, using this method to fake calligraphy. The rice krispy treats have little sticks in them (cheap on Etsy) with ribbon flags at the top. The background cost like $.50 in streamers from the dollar store. But overall, the effect is terrific. Right? And cheap!

Closer view of the sticks with ribbon flags. There in the corner are the lollipops. I love making them for my dessert tables, although they don't often get eaten. They are ridiculously easy. Sugar + water + corn syrup + flavoring, poured in little pools on a greased cookie sheet. Insert stick, add sprinkles, package in small plastic bag. Done. 

Another successful dessert table. Love doing these. Especially now that I have my credenza! Most favorite piece of furniture ever.

A Slightly Nautical Easter Brunch

Yes, Easter happened awhile ago. Right after Easter, I went to the Midwest to visit my family, and got stuck there for longer than planned because of a massive ice- and snow-storm. Literally every item outside was coated in a thick layer of ice. I didn't know that individual blades of grass could look like that. It was shockingly unpleasant. When I got back to the glorious place that is California, I couldn't make myself sit down and blog at the computer when there was outside stuff to do. Like plant tomatoes and sunbathe and grill and really just enjoy the perfect sunshine, beautiful and crazily abundant flowers, and sheer happiness that is living here. As my (cancelled, delayed, cancelled again, more delays) flight was finally landing in California, I thought I was going to cry of happiness when I saw all of the green. That, or sheer exhaustion. Maybe both.

 
So anyway. Here's my Easter brunch. This year I went with a slightly nautical theme, because I'm pretty sure that I am meant to live in New England. I love all things nautical- always have. I seriously get asked if I'm going sailing at least twice a month. Usually by the same old man who works in my building, but still. I stuck with a navy, white, and pink color palette, so I guess it should really be "nautical preppy," or "Ralph Lauren." My decorations were super simple, and made of things I already had on hand. I love it when I can do a whole party with stuff I already have in my craft room. Makes me feel thrifty.

We had 16 or so people for brunch, so we moved our picnic and beer pong tables into the house and stuck them end-to-end. I have several white sheets I use for tablecloths. Some day I mean to buy actual tablecloths, but sheets are so easy. The low-thread-count ones from Walmart are cheap, come in lots of colors, and when people inevitably spill on them, you just chuck them in the washer. So I used the white sheets, and for a table runner (which I must always have on a long table like this, or I get twitchy) I used a satiny navy scarf I had in my dresser. I really wanted to do a centerpiece of pink peonies, but my florist didn't have them in yet. Instead I bought a pink, white, and green bouquet from the grocery store and took it apart. I cut everything way down, like you must do with the crazy long stems of grocery store bouquets, and I added in some pink roses and greenery from my yard. The vase cover was incredibly simple. I measured a piece of tagboard to the height and width of my vase, then hot-glued it into a cylinder. Then I took some navy and white yarn and glued it on in stripes. Easy.

For napkin rings, I cut strips of navy-and-white striped fabric, cut a "V" into the ends, rolled my oatmeal-colored linen napkins, and tied a strip of fabric around each one.

I've developed some sort of pathological need to have a dessert table at every event ever, even if dessert would be kind of inappropriate, or if there will only be a few people there. Can't help it. My credenza is perfect for dessert tables, and they call to me. For this one, I made three cakes- carrot, white with raspberry filling, and coconut. The carrot I baked in a heart-shaped pan, and the other two, a 6" round. The coconut cake was especially fun to make. Inspired by this tutorial, I made pink ombre sugar dots to cover the cake. They were so easy to make, and fun, too. They're pretty much just sugar cubes, like the ones for coffee. For the white cake, I made a simple little bunting with scrabooking paper, string, and two skewers. I have quite a few clear cake stands from when I was a professional cupcakerist that are perfect for dessert tables, so I put the cakes on those. I have an apothecary jar that is usually full of wine corks, so I just replaced them with pink peeps to keep with the color scheme. I always like to decorate the wall behind the dessert bar, so I made a simple bunting with navy and white cardstock and pink ribbon.

Everything bagels are one of my favorite foods, but I have yet to have a good bagel in California. So in true over-doing-it fashion, I made bagels. From scratch. It took forever. They were delicious, but ohmygosh were my arms sore from kneading the dough. My husband decided that if I was making bagels we'd need some smoked salmon to go with it, and our smoker is new enough that he's still enamored with it, so he smoked a few salmon pieces to go with the bagels.

And of course we had a Bloody Mary bar. What's brunch without it?

Haunted Mansion Dessert Table

I'm all for a big Halloween blowout with lots of dancing and a keg, but this year, all I wanted was a smaller, classy, fancy-food-and-drinks cocktail party. The piece de resistance was my haunted mansion dessert table, resplendent with dripping blood candles, ravens, and a big skull. I went entirely overboard with, well, everything, like I do. I started cooking literally a month before the party because I was so excited. My awesome friend Sean (SeaFog Photo) took these amazing pictures after a moderate amount of dessert devastation had already taken place.

I made those silhouettes several years ago and just get them out every year. Easy, effective decor that totally goes with the haunted mansion theme. The bones in the jar on the right I made 2 years ago when Martha Stewart's Halloween theme was something like "Cabinet of Curiosities". They're made of that plaster stuff doctors use for casts. The sticks are from my yarn, the skull is from Walmart, and I made the table runners for a wedding several years ago.

I've made lollipops before, but they always looked like a 5-year-old made them because I had no mold. Now I have a mold, and my lollipops rock. Next time I'll make non-"bloody" ones so that people acually eat them.

My cake pops improved dramtically after I bought a meatballer maker to make nice little balls. Seeing a theme here? Proper equipment makes nicer baked goods. Wish I knew this years ago.

These, though... without thinking, I put the hot candy-coated apples down onto wax paper. So each apple had a wax paper bottom. Oops.

Made these skulls with a mold I got for my awesome and un-blogged Zombie birthday party. I think it was an ice-cube tray originally.

First time making French macarons. They're tricky.

And of course, cupcakes. It's a compulsion by this point.

Overall, great success. But really, dessert tables are a TON of work. I'm really happy with how this one turned out- I think it's my best yet. Maybe another one for New Year's? Could be fun!