Cakelets

With a tasting and a wedding last week, plus many upcoming projects on the horizon it's been a busy wedding season so far for Morgan Phillips Cakes! I am so excited today to share a preview of the cakes I did for my sister's wedding last weekend. The professional photos are forthcoming, but for now I can't resist posting a few of the behind the scenes action.

The general consensus was cakelets > cupcakes. Stay tuned for many more details and pictures of how it all came together. Make sure to click back and check out the planning of this wedding to see these pretty little cakelets came to be.

Mini Cakes

My sister is getting married! And I simply cannot wait any longer to post about her cake. I'm so excited for it that the planning process has moved ahead very rapidly and very detailed (which is good considering I'm splitting the day of duties of MOH and cake decorator...) and I just have to share some of the exciting things we've been working on. My sister Cortney and her fiance Jack are quite the nerdy pair- in all of the best ways possible of course. In fact, she's reflecting their nerd love by having "bookish" elements sprinkled throughout the wedding that you can read about over on her blog. I was definitely on board for a scrabble cake, but we decided to go a slightly different route...

Another cool thing about my sister's wedding is that she is DIY-ing the heck out of it. She has a lot of projects in the works that aren't mine to spoil, but I will say that her wedding will be full of pretty fabrics, vintage finds and lots of personal touches. The cake will be no exception:

We know a few things for sure: 'the' cake will actually be many cakes, they will be mini, and they will be naked (yep, still talking about cake here). They're getting married June 2014 in Louisa, Va at Prospect Hill Plantation Inn which has gorgeous floral backdrops all on its own. We're not planning on adding many flowers, but the cake will probably be studded with a daisies and billy balls to bring out her wedding colors of yellow, gray and blue. I'm also hoping to incorporate some of her wedding ideas by using the fabric scraps to make a bunting decoration, and scouring antique stores to find the perfect step ladder to transform into a cake stand. You may remember that I recently became obsessed with the idea of using ladders to display desserts when I happened to cross this beauty. I'm planning on creating an entire dessert table of antique plates and platters with the step ladder being the center of attention. You can follow and see more of our ideas on the Pinterest board I made for them too.

It's been so fun really diving into this one and pulling out all of the stops. Because this cake is for my sister I can really go over the top and try some new things out. We're working hard and planning far ahead so it can all pay off when her day comes. Check back here to see how the progress is going!

Petite Fours

Petite Fours means 'little oven' in French, and they are bite-sized desserts traditionally served with your check after dining in a restaurant as a thank you from the chef. Much like petite gateaux, petite fours come in all shapes and flavors, look spectacular on a dessert bar, and taste delicious. There are five main categories of petite fours: Sec (dry), Frais (fresh), Deguise (disguised), Glace (glazed) and Prestige (prestigious). What I love about petite fours is that there aren't many other rules besides size. They can be anything from cookies to fondant glazed cake layers - just as long as they're pretty and bite-sized!

A few traditional types of petite fours that you can see in this picture are bi-colored macaroons that we filled with mango milk chocolate ganache, canneles (little cakes with a crispy crust but custard-y inside), coconut macarons, financiers, florentines and mondiants (chocolate drops with dried fruit and nuts). Among other things in my Individual Production Pastry class where we made all of these goodies, I learned that it is literally impossible for me to pronounce anything in "french" without an over the top Pepe le Pew accent. Oui Chef.

I'm especially a huge fan of homemade marshmallows. To give you an idea of the difference between a homemade marshmallow and a store bought jet-puffed one...I will only touch the store bought ones if they are toasted, in-between two grahams and smothered in chocolate. Homemade marshmallows, on the other hand, I want to cuddle up with and take a soft, pillow-y delicious nap on (what's even better about making marshmallows homemade, is that alcohol doesn't affect the structure formation of gelatin so you can have boozy 'mallows too ;-). They make great wedding favors, centerpiece fillers, or s'mores bar additions.

Petite Fours are a fancy little way to impress your guests and make them feel immediately special for being invited, without having to break the bank or go over the top.

Petite Gateaux

Petite gateaux, meaning 'little cake' in French is an individual serving of a layered cake, usually built in a mold and then glazed to finish. They are complexly flavored and extremely delicious. From the textures to the garnishes, these little gems were my favorite dessert that I made so far in my Individual Production Pastries class, and I think they would be perfect to sit center stage in a dessert bar at a wedding. 

This guy stands about 3" high and 2" wide. From the bottom up, the layers are hazelnut sponge cake, praline feuilletine (hazelnut crunchy goodness), creme brulee (oh yes, you heard me right), and milk chocolate mousse. We froze it and then used a spray gun (meant for paint, oops) to cover it in milk chocolate spray and create the velvety dot texture you see on the top. It's garnished with a caramelized hazelnut and two chocolate decor pieces. 

 At the end of every class, we create a display of all the desserts everyone made. The top row is my team's, and the others are all my classmates.

Just to give you a taste of the possible flavor combinations, we had raspberry and pistachio, mango and coconut, black forest, and chocolate caramel peanut butter (um...yeah). 

These little cakes are a beautiful way to fancy up your event and add a lot of color and flavor to a dessert display. I've had mini cakes on the brain lately in preparation for my sister's wedding next June, where we're plotting something similar for her big day. I'm still in the planning stage, but check out my Pinterest board to see her cake progress and check back here for all the delicious details! 

The Dessert Bar

The class I'm currently taking in pastry school is called Individual Production Pastries (IPP). We make fancy, little desserts- a LOT of fancy little desserts. And as much as I love a gigantic tiered wedding cake, working on a smaller canvas in this class has been inspiring and it totally renewed my affection for dessert bars. Dessert bars offer a wide variety for guests at a wedding to choose from plus the set-up looks really elegant with the right selection of cake plates and platters. It's the easiest and most cost effective way to please everyone and still have a major wow factor. To give you an example of what I'm talking about, here's a beauty of a dessert bar featured by Southern Wedding Magazine:

A dessert bar can be any number of sweets and treats like homemade marshmallows, mini cakes and pies, donuts, cookies, bars, tarts or cupcakes. The idea is that a guest can walk up to the table, pick up a dessert and eat it off a small plate or in their hand. Smaller desserts work best, but depending on the type of event you could really make anything work. What we made in IPP is definitely more suitable for an upscale affair. In class we worked on one dessert item as a team of four, and then combined it with  four other teams' desserts to create a display at the end of every class. These desserts are from the collective effort of my whole group:

These are layered classical cakes clockwise from left: apricot pistachio opera, milk chocolate hazelnut ganache, pistachio and strawberry frasier, chocolate praline roulade and the traditional opera.

Most of these items are made from a dough called pate a choux (what you make cream puffs out of). From the top down, here's a lot of frecnch: macaron, Paris brest, St. Honore cake, banan, religiuse, solambo, macronade biscuit and eclair.

Mille fuille (Napoleon), chibouste and plum tart, yuzu lemon curd tart, chocolate apple tart and citrus tart:

These are called verrines, and they're just layered desserts you eat with a spoon (super fancy pudding cups?). From the top down: Cherry compote and panna cotta, creamscicle, chocolate peanut butter, rum spice with peaches, and tiramisu.

 I'll be going into more detail about some of my favorites coming up. Stay tuned for more dessert bar ideas!