YUM, right? I had a great time working with all of these treats as we photographed the different kinds of candies for the Sugar Cube’s new website. Enjoy!
Category Archives: food
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Daring Bakers - Opéra Cake!
May 28, 2008 – 6:06 am
This month’s challenge was equally as intense as last month’s. This time Lauren came over to help out and I’m so glad she did - I DEFINITELY would not have been successful with this challenge without her help! Not only did she catch me about to melt two whole sticks of butter when I was supposed to melt only 3 tablespoons (hah!) but she had so many tricks up her sleeve that made this challenge a ton more easy than it could’ve been.
Alright, so the traditional Opéra Cake is a large, square cake with multiple layers - instead, we went with the “Daring” part of Daring Bakers and attempted cupcakes. Here is Lauren’s hard work, cutting out parchment for the cupcake mold:
Here’s a sliced cupcake. Normally you don’t cut the cake in thirds like this, but we needed to do this for our little creations:
In between the layers was buttercream, flavored with some orange zest, as well as some syrup flavored with limoncello:
Yum, huh?
After they were refrigerated for a while with the buttercream, we added a glaze to the top and sides:
Let me tell you, although they look messy, they were delicious. And SWEET. The final product:
Not too shabby, huh? Check out that neat layering. Thanks, Lauren, for all your help. And thanks, Daring Bakers, for posting your frustrations and messiness and surprises and successes so we can all learn from them! I can’t wait for next month!
Daring Bakers April Challenge - Cheesecake Pops!
April 27, 2008 – 11:00 am
I decided to join the Daring Bakers because I don’t know a ton about baking and thought this could be a really cool way to contribute to the food-making in our house. Brad, well, he does all of it. :) I’m a VERY lucky woman - but I want to do my part, too! So this month I participated in the Cheesecake Pops challenge along with the help of Jamie (who you may know as the second-shooter for your wedding!) and it was a success!
We donned “foix” hawks in honor of Top Chef, and our first DB challenge. Brad thought it was hilarious:
Check out the amount of cream cheese we needed:
Sneaking a taste:
Look at how beautiful it is:
Nice, another angle of my foix hawk:
Making a heart:
Yum.
We had to create our own double-boiler:
Check out how beautiful it came out. We let it sit in the freezer overnight:
Next day, normal cute hair:
We got so messy!
Mo wanted to be part of the action!
Our stuffed freezer - we haven’t made ice cubes in I don’t know how long:
The carnage:
The chocolate:
That’s me mastering the dip:
And, yum.
We added spices to the chocolate for some of the pops, and they came out deliciously. Here’s what we used:
So all in all, a success. I don’t like cheesecake but my coworkers do, so they totally lucked out. Jamie and Brad also gave their stamp of approval. I can’t wait until next month!
P.S. A post today means a post break tomorrow :) See you Tuesday!
“What do you use to edit your photos?”
April 16, 2008 – 7:36 am
This is a funny question with a loooong answer. It’s not as simple as just saying “Photoshop”. :) Below is a list with descriptions of the hardware and software I use in post production from a wedding; all are things that I highly recommend.
From camera to computer: I own a Mac with Leopard, and use Image Capture to grab all of the images off of the camera and onto my computer. I don’t use the camera’s USB cord; instead, I use a Sony Multi-Card Reader/Writer which goes so fast and has ports for different types of cards. This definitely comes in handy if a friend of mine comes over with an SD card and wants to offload the photos.
Back that thang up: I have a Porsche-designed LaCie 160G USB/Firewire external hard drive for backing up all of the images from the wedding immediately. I make additional backups as I edit the photos. I also burn the unedited images to DVD as secondary backups.
Second shooters: I use FireFTP (with Firefox) to get and send images from second shooters. I’ve created separate FTP logins on a separate hosting site so the file management doesn’t get confusing. I also use FireFTP to upload any client documentation, retouched images, etc.
Picking and choosing: The more I reflect on the Party of Five workshop that [b]ecker hosted, the more I realize I’ve benefitted from it. He recommended Photo Mechanic for going through all the photos after the wedding and a slick technique for choosing which ones to keep and retouch. It has saved me, literally, hundreds of hours.
Editing: Adobe Photoshop. I learned in PS school and work with it as a professional; I don’t recommend the full version if you’re not planning on doing heavy editing or not taking a course. Photoshop Elements is just as good for editing, with all of the features you could ever need for regular photo editing.
Slideshowing: Another DC photographer, Sarah Hodzic, highly recommended ShowIt Pro and I decided I’d try it out. I fell in love. The options are endless and it’s totally customizable; the custom timing definitely adds something to the show and I love the option to purchase it on DVD.
Proofing: This is the one tool that might be changing. I currently use Instaproofs, which has many benefits - easy ordering, favoriting, hiding of images. It’s been great, but I might start looking for something with a little more “oomph”.
Posting: Huzzah for Wordpress! I’m a geek and wanted full control over the installation of my blog (and website, for that matter… until this most recent Flash one I’d always built my portfolio myself, from scratch) and Wordpress allowed me to do that.
Dataing: Google Analytics is an excellent, free resource for website metrics that’s relatively simple to install. Understanding the data and getting every piece of knowledge that you want is another matter, but this is really a great and informative tool. I prefer it to Sitemeter definitely. I work with GA every day and am still learning new things about it, and here’s hoping they continue to make it more robust.
The Sugar Cube
February 29, 2008 – 8:52 am
To round out this Jamie-filled week of posts, I thought I’d write about this cool little shop we stopped in while waiting for a portrait session. The Sugar Cube is located on 210 North Lee Street in Alexandria, and you can find them online here: http://www.sugarcubesweets.com/
What struck me most about this candy store was the array of candies that I could immediately envision at weddings. Since they’re local, it’d be a great way to incorporate local foods and favors into your wedding. Plus, they take custom requests, so if you’ve been looking for a certain kind of candy or chocolate for a while, you may want to inquire!
I’m totally into color-coordination for weddings (as you’ve seen with the amount of care I put into picking out each element of each CD and DVD packaging), and The Sugar Cube was filled with possibilities.
In the center of the room were rows of what looked like M&Ms, but without the branding - in all different colors. I was blown away! I mean, I’ve seen a lot of couples buy M&Ms in their colors in bulk, but had they considered going to a local store and getting the same candy but without having to pay for the M&M branding?!
Plus, they sell Jordan almonds and JellyBelly jellybeans in a huge spectrum of colors. I bought a bunch of jellybeans for myself (plum, pomegranate, and margarita flavored) as well as some dark-chocolate-covered espresso beans for Brad (they’re his favorite!).
I spoke with the woman at the counter briefly about what else they offer for weddings, and she told me that they’re actually developing a wedding section of the store! They already also sell “pearlescent” almonds as well as chocolate rocks and shells that would coordinate well with a beach wedding… I mean, the possibilities are really endless.
I’d highly recommend you stop by just to check it out and see what they have in stock - I was amazed at the variety of what they had on the shelves. Plus it was a cute, warm store… exactly the kind of break we needed on that cold day!
(Photos by Jamie Michaels)