strawberry footballs with white chocolate laces

For Melodie's preschool Chinese New Year's party this year, the only thing left on the sign up sheet was "strawberries". So I signed up for that. But of course, I couldn't just bring plain 'ol strawberries, so I decided to dress them up with a bit of melted white chocolate. I melted some white chocolate chips on the stove in a double boiler, then let it cool slightly before pouring the chocolate into a ziplock bag with a corner snipped off (I was too lazy to deal with piping bags and tips - it was midnight by the time I got around to making these!), and then piped a bit onto each strawberry.

The next day, when my son Matthew saw me bring the strawberries to Melodie's preschool, and he whined, "Awww, but I won't get to have any!" I assured him that I had another package of strawberries at home, and that I would make some for him as well.

And that's when I thought to myself, wouldn't it be cute to pipe football laces on the strawberries, especially since it was going to be Superbowl weekend?

So I washed and dried my strawberries, and again used a ziplock bag to pipe my melted white chocolate. (Although I think next time I'll use a piping bag - the ziplock method is pretty convenient, but I can't stand how messy it looks!)

Matthew saw me piping them and said, "Hey, they look like footballs!" Awesome! I was starting to think they looked kind of silly!

Turns out I wasn't the first one to think of this though! There are a ton of strawberry footballs out there on the internet, and most of them are even fancier because they are dipped in milk chocolate first, and then decorated with white chocolate laces. Oh well, great minds think alike ;)

my first wedding dessert table!

I'm so excited to finally reveal (in full) the wedding dessert table that I worked so hard on a couple of months ago!  Cherish, the bride, was such a joy to work with, and is seriously one of the sweetest and thoughtful people I have ever met!  She had envisioned a classic rustic wedding, and handmade many of the wedding details, down to the paper doily flower chandelier that hung above the dessert table.  Her wedding color scheme was greens and blues, so when I arrived the dessert table was laid out with a bright blue tablecloth, ready for me to decorate with goodies!

First up were my Hello Kitty macarons.  I decided to display these in gallon-sized giant glass jars so that we could see all the cute Hello Kitty faces peeking out, and also so that they would also stay fresh in the contained jars.

Next up were the potted plant chocolate puddings.  I had decided to display them on either side of the dessert table - one one side of the table they would be stacked on a two-tiered ruffled cake stand, and on the other side of the table I used a single tier white milk glass cake stand.

Next came football-shaped and tooth-shaped cookies, which I displayed on four long white rectangular platters, side by side.

And finally the mini s'mores cupcakes, which I served on a white square three-tiered pedestal cake stand, right in the center of the table.

To sum it all up, here is my initial sketch of what the dessert table setup would look like:

And this is how the dessert table ended up!

This was seriously one of the funnest and coolest things that I have ever taken part in, and I'm so glad that Cherish asked me to do it!  Thank you, Cherish!

And now, a few images from Cherish's classic rustic dream wedding!

Congratulations, Cherish and Steven!

football cookies and tooth cookies

Along with the Hello Kitty macarons and potted plant chocolate puddings that I made for Cherish's wedding dessert table, I also made sugar cookies decorated with royal icing.  Since her groom loves football, she asked for football shaped cookies.  And she also asked for tooth shaped cookies, since she is a dental student!  She even sent football-shaped and tooth-shaped cookie cutters for me to use!  This bride thinks of everything!

Since I was making 75+ cookies total (I always make extra to allow for mess-ups!), I ended up making 3 batches of cookie dough, and 2 batches of royal icing.

After the cookies were baked and cooled, I started on the decorating.  For the football cookies, I first outlined my football by piping with brown stiff icing, and then filled it in with brown runny icing.  I let that dry for a few hours, and then used white royal icing to pipe the football laces on.

For the tooth cookies it was a similar process - I first piped an outline with white stiff icing, and then filled it in with white runny icing.

Once that was dry, I piped an additional white outline to finish it off.

And on the dessert table, I displayed the cookies on long white rectangular platters side by side.

Stay tuned for the next post on the last of the dessert table goodies!