Here Comes The Bride

Ahhh, wedding season. I used to read the engagement and wedding section and see names that I recognized, perhaps an older sibling to one of my children's friends. This summer we turn a corner. One of Nic's friends is engaged to get married next summer, and one of my friends daughters is getting married. What? Didn't I just cater her high school graduation? How can this be possible? It's like dominoes, they all start to go once someone jumps. She is a nice girl, and I read all about her engagement on their wedding page and my heart swelled with happiness that young love is alive and well. I also got married right out of college, and the naysayers be damned. We are celebrating 25 years this fall.

I made cookies for the hotel baskets, and we decided on wedding cakes. I have a few different wedding cake cutters, but I really wanted a particular one. Perfect time to buy! I ordered it from ecrandal and let me tell you, the cutter is gorgeous, the service was top notch and when she sent me an email that her husband was "making the cutters today" I almost fell out of my chair. Put that on my list of dream jobs. This is the ultimate family run business, if your cookie crazy like me, I guess. Even the packaging was perfect. So here is a sampling of the cookies, and the lighting is terrible at the end, I blew a bulb in my brand new light box. Seriously? This photography thing is wearing me out!






The wedding colors are celery green and a bright purple/pink. So I decided to do the cookies mostly white, lots of sparkle and a few accents of pale green. I found the perfect ribbon color to accent the bags. Once I started with the piping bag, I just couldn't stop. I have to admit, these are my favorite. I love the piping and the sparkle. Thankfully she didn't ask for all 60 the same...at least not that I recall! I loved doing different things to them! So have a blessed wedding Miss Megan, and many years of happiness!

Not Goodbye, But See Ya Later!

So tonight is the going away party for a friend I made back when my daughter transferred in the 4th grade. We were instant friends. For many reasons. First off, everyone thinks we're sisters, which we think is hilarious. It's because we both have very dark brown eyes and amazingly fine hair, and I don't mean fine, like really great, I mean fine, like feathers. She is also one of the most brutally honest people I know, shoot from the hip comedienne and would do anything you needed. We became friends through volleyball. Her daughter is tall, like her, and plays front row, mine is short, like me, and plays back row. We have traveled to many a venue, ragged on about terrible coaching, and stayed up late having many cocktails. This is us in the French Quarter after a day of watching volleyball. Our beautiful daughters will cringe at this 5th grade shot! Trust me when I say they outgrew the awkward stage nicely. This is the girls at graduation on either end of the group!One of our craziest memories is the White Trash party we and a few other couples (all having had a temporary brain lapse) put in an auction. The bidding went WAAAY up and we threw a party at my house no one is likely to forget. We didn't miss a detail from our clothes to the decor to the food. Trust me when I say you never want to host this party. People fall into character and forget where they are. And let's just say this party alone will keep me out of any political race. PC is wasn't.

She is moving to Nashville next week. (Yes, we are also moving to Nashville, please do not ask me when.) She has more urgency than I to get settled. She has one headed off to college, but she has another who will be a sophomore in a new high school. And her husband has been working full weeks in Nashville for a few months now. I have no sense of urgency. I want to relax this summer and enjoy my kids last summer together. When they head off to school in August, I'll put the sign out. It'll be a lot easier to keep clean. When I got the evite for the partyI knew I would have to whip up some cookie goodness. I have brought her rejects over the years, and tonight she gets her very own! I bought the guitar cookie cutter thinking of my son the musician, but decided what a perfect cutter for a family moving to Nashville, home of country music. (Yes, I know a guitar has 6 strings and these look like a ukelele, but I could not fit 6 strings...) I searched the web and found some cute ideas, I liked the "Nashville or Bust" idea, and I saw a lot that said "We'll miss you". But I won't miss her, since we are moving to Nashville sometime soon. So between house hunting and actually getting there, I won't have time to miss her. We will pick up where we left off here in Germantown. And how lucky we both are to move to a new city with old friends!

Frosting For The Cause

Lori and I on Lake Arrowhead
This post is for Darlene, Mary and Lori. Breast cancer has struck each of them. Darlene is my mother-in-law and she has been cancer free for 17 years. Hooray! Mary is married to my brother EJ, she has been cancer free for about 10 years. Hooray! And then Lori. My big sister, business partner, friend and nemesis. My mom was afraid we would never be friends. She is just 6 years older, so I was never old enough to be included in any of her cool plans. I always wanted to be her. She had long brown hair, I had scraggly blonde, she had boyfriends and I had Barbies. She got her license and I got a 10 speed. I was always 6 years behind her. Somewhere around my senior year of high school when she was out of college, we became friends. Inseparable friends. Now, she lives in L.A. and I live in Memphis. She has cancer, and I don't. So I am making cookies in honor of Lori and all women who are fighting. This is a guest post for Frosting For the Cause and I hope you will check it frequently. A baker/blogger like me posts there daily to tell about courageous women and make donations for the cause!

When Lori finally decided to share her diagnosis with the family, her email subject was "Water skiing saved my life." She is an amazing water skier and you will see her and her hubby Scott zipping all over Lake Arrowhead in the wee hours of the morning before the amateurs take to the water. She had a massive wipe out and called me to tell me how bruised up she was. I assured her that she would be fine, but she went to the doctor anyway. Whew! Her doctor told her to keep an eye on the bruising and tenderness and come back if it didn't heal in a timely manner. The bruises disappeared, but the tenderness in one breast did not. She went back and had an ultrasound. The tumor they found would never had been found on a mammogram. She was very lucky. So after surgery and treatment we wait for the follow ups and the magic words of cancer free. When I was deciding what to bake to honor her, I had a dilemma. I am all about sugar cookies, but the new Cancer Lifestyle that Lori has adopted excludes white sugar. So I whipped up some kooky water ski cookies at home and shot a few photos. But I knew these delicate cookies couldn't make the trip to California.

When I went to California for her surgery, I made "no white sugar" cupcakes specifically for the Frosting for The Cause. They are adapted from a recipe from Mäni's Bakery cookbook called Sweet and Natural Baking. The recipe shows a gorgeous cake, but cupcakes are more fun. These cupcakes really need to be stored in the fridge, and I wasn't sure where I could take sweets when I was in California, so these were for Lori to enjoy. I decided when I returned home I would make up a batch of ribbon awareness cookies to give to a local breast clinic. I have a friend who works at the clinic and I thought maybe I would make the cookies for the women who work there and support women in the fight every day.

Chocolate Raspberry Fortress Cupcakes

makes 24
CAKE
2¼ cups unbleached flour
¾ cup cocoa powder, natural, not dutch (there is a difference, here it is)
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1¼ cups Fruit Sweet (a fruit juice concentrate found at the healthy store)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1 cup boiling water
3 large eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake pan with liners. Sift flour, cocoa and salt into a bowl. In a large bowl, mix with a hand mixer butter, fruit juice concentrate and vanilla. When well combined, gradually add flour mixture. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and alternate adding eggs and water to the batter mixing well after each addition. Spoon into cupcake cups to ¾ full. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Be careful not to overbake. Cool completely on rack before frosting.

MOUSSE FROSTING
3 Tablespoons Fruit Sweet
2 Tablespoons honey
¼ cup grain sweetened chocolate chips (he calls for malt sweetened, but we like these!)
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2⅓ cups heavy cream (yes, I know, a lot of whipping cream...)
¼ cup natural cocoa

Fresh Raspberries
Chocolate Drops

In a small saucepan, heat the Fruit Sweet and honey until warm. Do not boil. Remove from heat, add the chocolate chips and let stand until they melt. Stir and add vanilla and whisk until smooth. Cool for about 20 minutes.
Place the whipping cream in a large bowl and whisk in cocoa and whip until soft peaks form. Add the cooled chocolate and beat until stiff. Do not overbeat. Frost the cupcakes and garnish with raspberries and chocolate drops. They are delicious. The whipped cream frosting is so light and tasty. They could use more raspberries, maybe a layer of raspberry jam before the mousse frosting. Any way you make them...just get in there and bake!