Della's Birthday and Some Chocolate Cake


Apology for the rather long break on posting, I was out of town for the past two weekends. I had a chance to go to Napa two weeks ago with a few girls, it was a beautiful day, a bit chilly still but quite warm under the sun. It was nice to get away from everything, from work, from chores at home, from baking, from everything and just enjoying the view. Fortunately, we are all foodies, so it was only natural that food was one of the highlights of the day, lunch, dessert, ice cream, dinner, wine, it was all good.

Jewelry Party Dessert Table


San Jose is cold, wet, and windy at the moment. Definitely the least favorite weather of mine, it makes me want to curl up in bed and not doing anything. The fact that I still have to get up in the morning and go to work is really not exciting. I am longing for the warm weather even more than ever maybe.


Remember when I said I made a few dessert table in the midst of all the chaos that's been happening? This one was made about three weeks after the previous one. It was a smaller dessert table with about 80 desserts total for a jewelry party, four different types for yet another event by Le Amour Events. The theme color for the party involves white, green, and brown, so I tried to come up with a menu that showcases these color scheme.

Dessert Table Menu:
  1. Tropical fruit cheesecakepops
  2. Tiramisu verrines
  3. Salted caramel macarons
  4. Green tea eclair with chocolate glaze


It seems like each dessert had its own challenges, I didn't know what happen, it just did. I've never made cheesecakepop before and let me tell you, it is so much harder to shape up compared to regular cakepops. It was expected really as the texture of cheesecake is soft, it helped a little after a quick trip to the freezer, but it was still difficult. I might go crazy if I was making hundreds of them.


I was also having trouble with the macarons, completely not expected. You see, I always make a schedule, detail plan as to when I need to make certain component, when to decorate, when to buy ingredients, etc. This is very important because my free time is very limited and so everything needs to be planned well, especially in this currently impossible schedule, and I really didn't account for failure at all!. It was raining non-stop here for days or maybe even weeks, I really forgot when was the last time we had sunshine (a bit exaggeration here). To my surprise and disappointment, the first batch of the macaron failed, all of them. The macarons on the first tray looked like an exploded volcano, the others had uneven feet, and all of them weren't as crispy as the ones I made in the past. I would blame it on the humidity from the rain.

I was shocked, alright. Didn't quite believe what had happened, it also happened in the morning before I went to work, which then left me thinking for the whole day what could have gone wrong and how I can find the time to make another batch. Somehow I managed to bake another batch, and the same thing happened! Although this time was slightly better, but I still couldn't help but thinking what have I done wrong. I only needed at least 18 pairs, or 36 individual shells and fortunately I did. I wasn't completely satisfied with the texture and all but I was so glad when I heard that everything turned out great, what a relief!


I made tiramisu hundreds of time before, I know the steps, the measurements and everything by heart so the chance of I messed it up is pretty small. What I didn't know is that I could be so tired that I miscounted the glasses. I needed 18 but I only had 16! I don't know what I was thinking but long story short, I had to make another batch to account for the other 2.


I definitely learned some lessons from this dessert table, one of them is that always take into account some failure in your schedule, very important, so note to self, don't do everything at the very last minute.


All in all, everything was done on time and that I did manage to take a few pictures, not that great but better than nothing. And what makes it all worth it is that everyone is pleased with it :)

I feel like this post has a lot of complaining, please don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the process of it, I guess I was just making a note to myself of what's not to do in the future :D. Ugghh... and I really hope this weather can change soon and then comes Spring, cannot wait!

Onto the giveaway winner now. The winner is ...... (drum roll please) Hengky in San Jose, according to random.org. Congratulations and enjoy! I will send you the detail of the gift card shortly.
Thank you to all who participated.