SS2012 launch

Photograph by Lu Chau, Photagonist.ca

This week sweet&splendid got to be part of the Dr. Martens launch of their spring and summer 2012 collection of footwear! Growing up, the classic black shoes with yellow stitching were a staple of my teenage wardrobe. These days, they've got an array of colours, styles and patterns to choose from but the classic fit and durability are still a hallmark. To commemorate their iconic brand I provided confections for the party guests.

Dozens and dozens of chocolate cupcakes were each covered with a big dollop of vanilla buttercream and topped with an edible logo. 

Photograph by Lu Chau, Photagonist.ca

Also provided were decorated sugar cookes: classic rolled sugar cookies were iced with royal icing to emulate the iconic Dr. Martens shoes and boots. 

Photograph by Lu Chau, Photagonist.ca

It's not everyday sweet&splendid gets to be a part of a high-profile event (guests included TV and media personalities, fashion writers and amateur cupcake connoisseurs)  and I can't wait to see what we get involved with next.

Photograph by Lu Chau, Photagonist.ca

-Danielle

celebrations

I've fallen a bit behind on the baking updates, so here is a brief catch up of what I've been up to lately!

1) The Human Genome (Cookie) Project 
Several years ago scientists completed a once seemingly impossible task: mapping the entire human genome, down to the last nucleotide base pair. This year I accomplished a seemingly ridiculous task: applying it to cookies.

My friend works for a research hospital and extracts a whole lot of DNA for her job. So naturally, DNA themed cookies were the most appropriate present for her. And what better excuse to combine baking and science?!

Sugar cookies were baked and topped with fondant and icing to create DNA birthday cookies. Above are an example of what might be obtained from a southern blot assay. Or combining sugar, butter, eggs and flour. Same thing, really. Also included in the gift pack were puzzle-y base pair cookies that matched up (A-T, C-G). University biology classes have come in handy in ways I never expected.

2) A sweet&splendid 16
This cake was created for a young lady celebrating a birthday milestone. Vanilla and chocolate cake was filled with caramel buttercream, covered in pink fondant and piped royal icing. This girl is glamorous and wanted a cake to match; so I added a gumpaste flower with Swarovski crystals in the centre. It was the sparkliest accessory I've ever created!

3) Crani-yums, round 2
This next cake was for a young woman's celebration of something very significant: remission from brain cancer. Chocolate cake was carved down and covered in rolled fondant to create a delicious brain that she and her friends and family (and not cancer) would get to enjoy. 

To learn more or to volunteer or donate to a worthy cause, visit http://www.conquercancer.ca.


There's always something to celebrate, what's your occasion?


-Danielle

the season of giving

I might be infected with the Christmas spirit. Or I really like an excuse to be in the kitchen.

This year I put together little cookie and treat bags to give as holiday party favours. I couldn't decide (besides gingerbread) what the best holiday flavour was, so I put together a few of them. I definitely wanted to include peppermint and butterscotch, and of course shortbread.

Shortbread stars, gingerbread men, peppermint meringue kisses, chocolate bark and honey florentines were packaged together in little cello baggies. The honey florentines are the easiest cookie I've ever made and they're absolutely delicious. They're somewhere between a candy and a cookie, which makes the packages exactly half candies and half cookies.

And still over 2 weeks until Christmas! Plenty more time for holiday treats.

-Danielle 

gingerbread everything

Now that we've entered the official countdown to the holidays it's time to start some festive baking projects. This week I took the opportunity to use my favourite holiday flavour in many different recipes: gingerbread.

Even though I used half of the recipe that I usually use, I still ended up with almost 200 of these little gingerbread men. The next thought was to use the extras as cupcake toppers which gave me the excuse to make some gingerbread cupcakes. 

Cupcakes were baked with molasses, ground ginger, allspice and cinnamon - just like the cookies - and covered with a generous swirl of cinnamon buttercream. I think the smiles on the gingerbread men cookies just got bigger.

The last baking endeavour involved my favourite confections: macarons. I simply added the ground spices (ginger, cinnamon and allspice) to the dry ingredients before folding. Once cooled they were filled with a fragrant ginger-orange buttercream. 

As much as I enjoy the Christmas season for all it represents: time spent with family and good friends, gift-giving, a much-needed break from studying/research, I'm pretty certain the best aspect is the food. Let the holiday baking begin!

-Danielle

c[upcake]ookies

Combining two of my favourite things (delicious food + delicious food) has never been so fun. 

Class Sugar Cookies
(yields 20 cookies)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

2.5 cups flour

pinch of salt

Directions:
Heat oven to 400F. Combine butter and sugar and mix until incorporated; add eggs one at a time. Continue mixing, add vanilla. Slowly add flour and salt until dough forms. Put in freezer until no longer soft and dough becomes easy to roll (about 30 mins). 

Lightly flour the work surface and rolling pin. Remove dough from freezer and carefully roll until 1/4" thick. Cut out desired shapes (in this case I used a Wilton cupcake cutter) and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put baking sheet in freezer for about 10 minutes - this will help the cookies retain their shape in the oven. Slide baking sheet into oven and cook for 8-10 minutes or until bottom begins to darken. Allow to cool, then decorate with piped royal icing and modelling chocolate. 

- Danielle

carberry soap co.

The Carberry Soap Co. had their official grand opening this weekend and asked me to provide them with treats for their customers. So, I prepared 100 cupcakes and 100 cookies for their big event!

Vanilla sugar cookies were topped with an edible logo and packaged individually in cello baggies. 

...and this is what 100 of them look like.

Vanilla and chocolate mini cupcakes were topped with pastel coloured vanilla buttercream to match the soaps, and finished with a fondant topper with Carberry's logo.

With a little help from some gorgeous flower arrangements, the set up turned out very well. Congratulations to Carberry Soap Co. owners Margo and Martha on your beautiful (and aromatic) new store!

And thanks for the soap :)

-Danielle

titika store opening

For the first time, I was asked to provide desserts for a corporate event! Titika clothing makes stylish, high performance athletic wear for women, and this past weekend they opened a new location! In addition to hosting a fashion show, the client wanted to serve a whole range of goodies to their new customers. The only request was that the logo be incorporated into the design.

I made miniature cupcakes with fondant toppers, onto which I applied Titika's logo printed on edible paper (I also made the cupcake stand).  

I also made vanilla sugar cookies with icing and edible logos. Because I forgot to take a picture of them set up at the venue, this is a photo taken while they were drying on my kitchen table. Oops!

Lastly, I provided a vanilla sheet cake in the shape of a shopping box featuring the logo and the company name prominently displayed. 

As a little something extra, I included a scaled-down version of the company's customer shopping bag! I made it out of crisped rice treats in order to achieve a perfectly shaped (and structurally stable) form. 

 Here's a close-up of the little bag. To polish off the cake, I cut out some blossoms and printed the company's motto on a fondant ribbon ("inspired by life"). 

I had such a great time preparing all the treats, which served about 200 people. The grand opening was a huge success! Congratulations on your new store, Titika!


If you are interested in having sweet&splendid bakeshop provide confections for your corporate event, please contact danielle@sweetandsplendid.com.

-Danielle

welcome baby

It's a boy!

 This weekend I was asked to provide cookies and cupcakes for a baby shower. The mother-to-be is having a little boy, so blue and white dominated this colour scheme. For half of the cookies, I made vanilla sugar cookies in the shape of baby onesies and decorated them in different shades of blue:

For the other half I made cookies in the shape of baby bottles.

 

After the icing had set, I packed them individually into cellophane baggies and attached a special greeting to each one. 

 

As for the cupcakes, I baked half vanilla and half chocolate all topped with vanilla buttercream and attached fondant cupcake toppers in different shades of blue with different baby-themed decorations. Here, we have baby footprints, bottles, pacifiers, bibs, teddies, and way off on the blurry right side of the image are individual blocks that spell "L-I-A-M". 

I had a ton of fun with these, even if my hands were left somewhat blue afterwards. Congratulations to the mommy-to-be :)

-Danielle

dessert for 30

Tonight I am hosting a get-together/party and I got the opportunity to create my first desert table. My favourite colour palette of the moment is brown and green; so simple, yet so elegant, so I decided to prepare a bunch of different treats all adhering to this theme. I also got to mix and match some of my favourite flavours too! 

These are some simple sugar cookies (with whole wheat flour) decorated with lime green royal icing and finished with a milk chocolate wafer centre. 

Margarita cake: margarita lime cake filled with tequila-lime buttercream, covered in brown fondant and finished with macaron shells and a gum paste anemone. This cake was so much fun to make, but I found myself eating more of the leftovers than I should have...

Brownie cupcakes with lime green vanilla buttercream. I especially love how the colour palette turned out on these!

Although my kitchen is a disaster and every cake pan/spatula/utensil is waiting patiently in the sink to be cleaned, I am really pleased with how everything turned out. Hopefully my guests agree! 

-Danielle

new! edible image treats

Edible images - your favourite picture or photo on a yummy treat. Here I tried out my new edible printer/paper apparatus with some sugar cookies: above are paintings of different fruits, below are photos of some beautiful butterflies!