Why should we celebrate Christmas this year? Seems like the whole year was wrong, all the parties that were canceled, all the weddings that were postponed, why we should celebrate?
So many people lost so much, it’s hard to find a reason to celebrate. The worst was not to lose jobs but everyone this year, lost one person or know one person that lost a family member. So many sad stories, of families that could not have a proper way to say goodbye, no hospital visits … we almost lost hope.
We lived in fear and were forced to change our habits to a new norm.
But we are still here, we need to be strong and support one another. We can’t let fear take over and lose hope.
Christmas is not just about giving presents. As Christians today we celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareh, today we should more than ever remember what Jesus did for us. He died so we can be here, we need to continue honoring his sacrifice and everything he stands for. We need to celebrate, we need to have hope, we need to be strong just as he was. If we are still here we have a reason for it. Embrace your mission, find a purpose, be kind, help other, do something… cause this is the moment where anything can make a difference.
I found a new hope, a new reason to celebrate as well.
My goal is to help you to continue celebrating, to build beautiful memories with your family and love ones, in such difficult times. I am very good in what I do, creating beautiful dessert tables and I will be posting this year more than ever instructions and tips to help you to create as well, beautiful parties.
This is my plan. I want to get into as many peoples house as possible and help them to build these memories. I want to build a tribe of people that can help each other to resolve all the party problems. Helping you to learn, to have a decorator vision, to be able to build but your self these amazing memories.
I cant wait to see your questions and help you resolve your party problems. I cant wait to see you sending me back pictures of these amazing moments. See everyone smiling, and celebrating life! Cause sure life is worth celebrating!
I am sure you are all excited and all worried about what to expect in 2021. I am still trying to understand what happened, was it real? Seams so far from reality and here we are learning how to deal with the new normal.
Well, new things are also changing with “our” blog this year. Changing for better, we are going to be implementing here these changes … little by little, so hold on tight and follow me into 2021 with great expectations!
I promise you will be learning so much about the party scene that you will enjoy hosting parties. My goal is to build a community of creative-minded people and to help each other to know how to create good strategies for hosting a party, specially Dessert Tables.
I honestly think that once you understand the process and learn how to have a decorator vision, you will be able to create and DIY your party even dough you don’t think you are creative.
Here is a board that I created to help you pick beautiful items for your 2021 New Year Eve Party.
That’s it this year red Christmas tradition will be on hold. I am dedicating this year’s Christmas color to be pink… beautiful girly lovely pink, a soft color delicate pink that in my eyes will represent all the sweet love that I wish you all
They’re also super easy! Trust me, when it comes to doing anything even mildly artistic, I’m a hot mess. If I managed to make these Christmas tree cupcakes, you can too! Here’s how:
Prepare a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Whisk the room temperature butter until creamy.
Reduce the speed to low and add the powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until well-blended. Increase speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes.
Add the vanilla, cream and food colouring and continue to beat until desired consistency and colour is reached, about 2 minutes.
To assemble:
Purchase or use your favourite recipe to bake the cupcakes that will act as the Christmas tree base. The type and flavour don’t really matter – just make sure you choose a cute liner (I went with metallic silver)! Ensure the cupcakes have cooled before decorating.
Use a spoon or spatula to cover the top of the cupcake with a thin layer of icing.
Use a spoon or spatula to cover an ice cream cone with a thin layer of icing. This initial rough coating will help the icing that you pipe on stick better.
Once frosted, place the cone – point up – in the centre of the cupcake.
To give the appearance of snow on the ground, sprinkle white pearls or sprinkles on the cupcake at the base of the cone.
Using a piping bag and star-shaped tip, pipe dollops onto the surface of the cone to give the appearance of pine needles. Start at the bottom of the cone and work up. If you prefer, you can also pipe the icing as one long swirl, starting at the bottom and working up to the top.
Decorate your tree. I used gold pearl balls, rock candy and pink shimmer gum balls as ornaments!
I don’t know about you, but I personally am fond of macaroons! It is for me a treat that I offer myself to reward myself from time to time 🙂
I am convinced that it is your cute sin too, and it has been for a long time. This delicacy, the taste emblem of France, delights young and old alike. Tourists from all over the world come to France to taste the best macaroons in the Universe;).
If like us, you want to make them at home, Rouge Framboise has found an easy and impossible to miss recipe for you!
Ingredients
Whether they are vanilla, caramel, chocolate, raspberry, lemon or pistachio, your macaroons will have nothing to envy those of Pierre Hermé or Ladurée.
To do this, simply follow the recipe below carefully:
At Rouge framboise, we are going to fall for scented macaroons filled with raspberry (logical, you will say: D)!
For 12 people, you will need:
100 g of almond powder
100 g icing sugar
100g caster sugar
2 x 35g of egg white (about 3 egg whites)
25 g of water
natural powdered raspberry food coloring
raspberry jam
Preparation of the recipe
To start preparing your dough, we recommend that you start by mixing the almond powder and icing sugar in a food processor or with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes. Sift the resulting mixture into a container so that the macaroons are very smooth. Add the egg whites then mix until you get a thick almond paste.
The second step is to prepare your syrup. To do this, first heat some water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat without stirring. In the meantime, beat the 35 grams of egg whites until stiff. Once the syrup is cooked, pour it over the whipped egg whites, stirring gently. As soon as the mixture is well incorporated, beat it at full speed for 5 to 10 minutes then add a little natural food coloring.
Incorporate this preparation into the mixture of almond powder, icing sugar and egg whites. Mix until everything is perfectly homogeneous.
All you have to do is put the macaroon machine in a pastry bag and make small dough pucks about 2 cm in diameter on baking paper. Let the macaroons sit for 25 minutes until they are no longer sticky to the touch. Bake them at 150 ° C for 12 to 14 minutes.
Assembly of macaroons
Once the macaroons are cooked through, let them cool for 10 minutes, then try to peel them from the parchment paper.
Place jam on one shell and compress with another shell to make everything adhere well.
Conservation
For the conservation of your macaroons, it is absolutely necessary to put them in an airtight box. This protects the macaroons from heat, humidity, dryness and surrounding odors. Thus, you can keep them in their box in the refrigerator for a week. You can also freeze them for several months at -18 ° C.
Now you just have to savor this grainy and chewy cupcake. Good tasting !
*You’ll need to buy half-sphere cake molds and small peanut butter cup candy molds for this recipe.
Instructions
Cake Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Place the cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, water, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl. On medium low speed, continue to blend for 2-3 minutes more. The batter will be very thick and should look well combined. Pour into silicone mold, filling each cavity 3/4 of the way with cake batter. Place into oven and bake for 20 min and then check by sticking a toothpick in each one. If it comes out clean, it is done and you can remove and let cool. If it is still wet, return to oven for another 3 min at a time.
Once removed from oven, allow to cool for 5 min and then flip over quickly (onto smooth surface or parchment paper) to allow them to cool completely.
Frosting Instructions:
Add softened butter and vanilla to the mixing bowl and mix until completely combined. Add Powdered Sugar and beat on low until it is incorporated. Then move mixer up to medium-high speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When completely mixed the frosting may appear dry. Add milk a little bit at a time until frosting is the proper consistency. Add food coloring of color that is desired. Keep thick. Frost the cake half-spheres once cooled. (I like to make the frosting and the top of the ornament (below) while cake is baking in the oven.) *Tip: Freeze cakes for 1-2 hours before frosting, to avoid crumbs from being spread all over.* Then, immediately sprinkle with sparkly white sugar.
Top of ornament instructions:
Melt half a bag of white candy melts by following instructions on the bag of contents. Pour into small peanut butter cup candy molds and let harden for about 20-30 min. I prefer doing this while the cake is baking.
Roll out a small bit of the fondant in your hand until it’s skinny and long. Cut 1 1/2″ to 2″ sections (whichever you prefer) and fold over, pinching ends together. Set and let dry for at least 30 min. Attach with a small dab of melted candy melts onto white mini cups and hold for a minute. Now, place the candy cup and marzipan loop that you’ve made for the top of the ornament cake and place it on the ornament cake (as shown) with some more of the melted candy. Instead of holding it there for a few minutes, I just took pieces of tooth pics and stuck them into the cake with the ornament top resting against it until it dried/hardened.
Ornament decoration:
You can either use a mini cookie cutter of a snowflake or other shape to cut out fondant for a decoration on the top of the cake. OR You can buy small candies that are used to decorate cakes. They have snowflakes and other things also.
Confession: I started eating a low-carb diet recently and cut out sugars so while I made the regular cake recipe for my family, I then made the most amazing Keto low-carb chocolate cake (shown above in molds) that I’m going to share it also on the blog this next week. It is really fabulous too!
I frosted the cakes on parchment paper and then added the sparkly sugar. Frost it as smoothly as you can but imperfections are fine and will be covered by the sparkly sugar.
While the recipe calls for you to melt the melting candy chips and pour into the smaller molds, I just happened to have Rolos from Beckham’s leftover Halloween candy (haha) that I wanted to get rid of. So I froze them first and then poured the white candy melts over them and let them harden. I took a knife and quickly shaved off a few sections to make it look more the shape it should.
While there are several little parts to this individual ornament cakes recipe, I promise that it goes quickly and is really quite simple.
As mentioned in the recipe instructions, I rested the top of the ornament (candy) against the toothpick on top of the cake until it hardened in place.
Once the frosting hardens, you can use a cake server to remove each individual ornament cake from the parchment paper and onto a pretty cake stand or plate.
When you serve these individual ornament cakes, make sure to also serve a cup of milk because, like brownies, they go perfectly together. Yummy!!
5 Amazing Cake Ideas for your Perfect Pink Christmas
This year Thanksgiving has to be extra extra special, being away from family for so many months due to Social Distancing, so many parties canceled throughout the year… the biggest holiday in the USA and we are still here, with distance or not WE MUST CELEBRATE!!! For me its a very emotional time, and this month I will make the best of it… count on me if you need helping you create your party.
I also created a video on my youtube(still need major work) but I would like to share. In the video, I visited Hobbylobby and I put together a mini apple picking party ideas with some props from their shelves, just to show you that is possible to create something cute on a budget
In this tutorial, I will feature two alternative ways to create this pop. The first will feature the use of cake pop dough. The second (my preference) will feature the “faked” cake pop, baked in a pan. So let’s get to it!
Apple Pie Cake Pops – What You’ll Need:
cake mix – I used vanilla
eggs
milk
oil
apple pie filling
melting chocolate
cake pop sticks
any decorations you want
optional: cake pop pan/mold
optional: apple corer
Apple Pie Cake Pops – Version One – Cake Pop Dough:
Step One: Prepare and bake the cake as per the box instruction. Crumble and add frosting until you reach a playdough-like consistency.
RAMBLE: Now, I am not the authority on cake pop dough! I am still working on perfecting my cake pop dough recipe to share (i.e., with actual measurements). Annoyingly, like our grandmothers of old, I must confess that when I prepare my cake pop dough, I work more with the feel of the dough (to know when it’s ready) rather than knowing the actual quantity of icing used. I don’t like my dough too mushy so I try to work with the cake as soon as it’s cooled and do not use any of the brown pieces to make sure my dough is extra fluffy. BUT… I know this is a tutorial so generally if you use one box of cake mix (520g) and have one container of ready-made frosting (455g), I would add ¼ spoons of frosting at a time until you get a smooth consistency. You should not need more than ½ of the container of frosting or your cake balls will be too sticky and not hold to the treat stick.
Step Two: Section and roll the cake pop dough into a palm-shaped ball and flatten. Mince your apple pie filling into small chunks and portion a small amount into the middle of your flatten dough. You’ll be tempted to add a lot of filling but avoid this as it will lead to seeping and a mushier pop that won’t hold.
Step Three: Take the flatten dough and close your hands around the apple pie centre, sealing and securing the filling within the cake pop dough. I’ve never made one, but I assume this is similar to how you would make a meat or veggie potsticker.
Step Four: Roll the cake pop dough (with the apple pie centre) into smooth balls and place into the fridge to set. You can prepare several of these prior to dipping, just make sure that your cake ball and melted chocolate are of similar temperatures before dipping or your cake pop will crack.
Step Five: As with usual cake pop making, dip your cake pop stick into melted chocolate and then insert the dipped stick into your cake ball. Let the stick and naked cake pop set/dry. Once set, dip your whole cake pop into the melted chocolate and decorate, as desired.
Apple Pie Cake Pops – Version One – Pan Baked Cake Pop:
Step One: Prepare the cake mix as per box instructions and pour the batter into your cake pop pans/molds. Bake as instructed – depending on your pan or mold, instructions will vary. Let the cake balls cool.
Step Two: Once the cake balls have cooled, you may need to do some trimming. Some pans leave your cake ball with a Saturn-like ring around it. To ensure your pop is smooth, take a paring knife and smooth off the excess rings. Next, take your apple corer and push it into the top of the cake ball – about ¾ of a way into the ball. Removed the cored section and cut it leaving a ¼ of the top section that you will use later.
Step Three: Mince your apple pie filling into small chunks and fill the cake ball cavity with apple goodness, leaving enough room to cork it with the ¼ cored cake piece from Step Two. Often to secure the cork – and this is something I’m still trying to figure out – I will smooth some melted chocolate around the edges of the ¼ cored cake piece to make sure it holds to the filled cake ball. Once the cored cake piece and the filled cake ball are secured to one another, you can move onto Step Five above to dip and decorate as you like.
TIP: One way to get around any difficulty with the cake pop stick is to omit the stick altogether and just turn this treat into a cake ball. Simply dip your filled cake ball in chocolate and decorate.
2. Apple decorated Cupcake
by lifeloveliz.com
APPLE DECORATED CUPCAKES
INGREDIENTS Cake:
1 box White Cake Mix + box ingredients
Red Cupcake Liners Frosting:
1 cup softened Butter
3 cup Powdered Sugar
3 tbsp Milk
1 tsp Vanilla
Red Food Coloring
Red Sparkling Sugar
12 Tootsie Roll Midgees
Green Fruit Roll ups or Green M&Ms
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven and line muffin tins with paper liners.
Prepare batter according to box directions.
Fill liners 2/3 full and bake according to box directions for cupcakes.
Allow to cool completely.
Whip butter and vanilla for until fluffy.
Gradually add powdered sugar.
Add milk until you reach desired consistency.
Add food coloring to achieve pink/red color.
Frost each cupcake.
Sprinkle with red sparkling sugar.
Insert Tootsie Roll in middle to make stem.
If using Roll-ups, cut 2 leaves for each cupcake and put in place,
If using M&Ms, place 2 M&Ms to represent leaves.
3. DIY Candy Apples
by intimateweddings.com
DIY Candy Apples Recipe
Ingredients
12-15 small apples
2 cups white sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups water
Red food coloring (I used 16 drops. To create a rich ‘candy apple’ red (the type you see at fairs), you would have to add several more drops. I used regular food coloring, but I would have used natural food coloring if my local grocery store carried it.)
a few drops apple or cinnamon flavor oil (optional…. I used apple because I had some on hand.)
12-15 sticks (I gathered poplar tree branches from my back yard.)
A candy thermometer is necessary for this recipe.
Cut your sticks to desired length and whittle one end of each stick into a point. This will make it easier to insert into the apple.
Wash and dry apples. Remove stems. Insert stick approximately two inches into the core of each apple. Set aside.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside. In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine sugar, corn syrup and water.
Heat to 300 to 310 degrees F (149 to 154 degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms hard, brittle threads. This took about 30 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in food coloring and flavor oil. Holding apples by the stick, dip in syrup and swirl until evenly coated. You have to work quickly; the syrup does not take long to seize.
Place candy apples on parchment paper to harden.
Add thank-you tag if giving as favors. Enjoy!
Yum!
It’s impossible not to have a Halloween tradition every October. Last year I did a cute little monster party, cause my baby girl was almost a year old. So I wanted something cute and not scary. She is still a baby, maybe toddler now lol, definitely in her “terrible twos”. OMG, not easy, lots of meditation lol.
So for this year’s Halloween tradition, we should maybe we should create a “MAD SCIENTIST PARTY” in honor of the nightmare of a year 2020 covid-19. Maybe that would inspire some children to be future scientists and change the world? We never know!!!
You can actually make rice krispie treats any color you want. When you’re stirring together your rice krispie cereal into melted marshmallow and butter, add in several drops of whatever color food coloring you desire. Neon food coloring should give you the bright colors!
To make the molecule balls, wait until the mixture is cool enough to touch (but not completely cool) and grab a small handful. Roll it into a ball and store it in a Tupperware container until you’re ready to put them on display. *Warning: you’re going to get sticky!* You can attach them together like the folks did in our inspiration photo, but make sure you use sticks sturdy enough. Toothpicks don’t work very well.
MAD SCIENTIST TREATS
by blog.etsy.com
Mad scientists of all ages will love concocting their own creepy treats in petri dishes — especially around Halloween season. You’ll need just a few ingredients for this project: fruit juice, unflavored powdered gelatin, and a variety of hard candies (protective goggles and lab coats optional!).
You can find unflavored powdered gelatin in the baking aisle near the flavored gelatins and boxes of instant pudding; disposable petri dishes are available for purchase online. Some of my favorite sweets to use in this recipe include nonpareils, gummy laces, and candy buttons, which conveniently resemble clusters of growing bacteria.
Fruit juices served in test tubes and beakers make cute accompaniments to these colorful jellies, and all together are perfect for a mad scientist–themed Halloween party.
12 disposable petri dishes (I used the 100 mm x 15 mm size)
Step 1: Pour fruit juice into a large, microwave-safe measuring cup. If the fruit juice is pale in color (such as white grape juice), stir in food color until a vibrant hue is achieved. Quickly whisk in the gelatin. Heat in the microwave for 1 minute at 100% power; stir well. Heat for an additional 30 seconds, or until the mixture is steaming. (Stir well after each heating interval.) You may also heat this mixture in a saucepan on the stovetop if you don’t own a microwave oven.
Step 2: Let the mixture stand until it stops steaming, about 5 minutes. Place the petri dishes on a large baking sheet, then fill each one 3/4 full with the gelatin mixture. If using gummy candies, add them to the dishes now, partially or completely submerging them in the liquid gelatin.
Tip: As long as you have enough petri dishes, you can make several colors of gelatin mixture at once; 2 cups will fill about 12 petri dishes.
Step 3: Refrigerate until the mixture has set, about 2 hours. The consistency of the set gelatin will be denser than regular gelatin (think Jell-O Jiggler consistency). This density helps ensure that candy add-ons won’t melt away over time.
Step 4: Decorate the petri dishes with the leftover candies — or allow your young scientists to add their own ‘bacteria’ candy to the dishes.
Step 5: Place lids on the petri dishes and stack them high for a colorful display, or arrange them on a large serving tray with mini spoons.
ROCK CANDY DIY
by www.growingajeweledrose.com
ROCK CANDY EXPERIMENT FOR KIDS
Materials (per rock candy color)
2-3 cups of sugar
1 cup of water
Skewers
A jar or glass
A large saucepan
Clothespins
Optional additions:
Food coloring
Candy flavoring
Note: You can easily double and triple the above recipe. We wanted to make a rainbow of rock candy colors, so we ended up using 10 cups of water and close to 30 cups of sugar. As long as the sugar to water ratio is close to 3:1 the rock candy will grow.
Method
Combine equal parts of sugar and water in a saucepan and heat until all of the sugar is dissolved.
Then, slowly add more sugar and mix, slowly adding more sugar and mixing until the sugar will no longer dissolve in the water.
The water should start to look a little cloudy. That is when you know that no more sugar is dissolving and the perfect sugar-saturation has been reached.
The short version is that you are creating a saturated sugar solution, or a solution in which no more sugar can dissolve at a particular temperature.
The amount of sugar verses water used should be roughly 3:1. You can easily double & triple the recipe as long as you mantain a 3:1 ratio.
Add candy flavoring if desired, and then continue to heat the water until it comes to a simmer.
Remove the sugar-water from the heat and allow it to cool.
Preparing the Candy Sticks
Cut the skewers to a desirable size for the jar(s) that you are using. Then, dip the sticks in water and roll them in sugar.
Set the sugar-coated sticks aside and allow them to dry.
Prepping the Jars
Once your sugar-water is cool enough pour it into jars, using one jar for each color of rock candy that you wish to make.
Once the sticks are dry carefully place them into the jar(s).
You want to make sure that the sugar-coated sticks are completely dry before placing them in the jars.
The rock candy needs the sugar on the sticks to grow, and if the sugar isn’t dry it will dissolve in the water.
It is also important to make sure that the sticks are not touching the bottom or sides of the jar.
The Experiment
It is now time to sit back and observe the jars! Rosie and Jewel loved checking on their jars each day. This is what our rock candy looked like after just one day.
After day three we could really see growth!
By day 5 my girls were dying to actually eat rock candy, haha. But, this was a great lesson in patience.
After a week our rock candy was almost ready! Just look at those beautiful jars!
Enjoying Your Rock candy
After a week your rock candy can be removed from the jars and enjoyed.
You can extend the fun and grow your rock candy longer if desired.
Once you and the kids are ready remove the candy sticks from the jar(s), and then place them on a clean surface to dry.
use a bunch of them tied next to the dessert table on one side opposite to the garland 
