Thursday, June 28, 2012

Chocolate Chips and Friends

Two delectable desserts we love! 

We had a little extra time on our hands, and due to our obsession with FRIENDS the series, this entry and the two goodness coming your way is dedicated to Joey Tribbiani. Hehehe.

Introducing, yummy buttery chocolate chip cake with a layer of Oreo's and topped with dark chocolate brownies. Comes in plain or covered in chocolate ganache. 


And its counterpart, the Double Chocolate chip Cookie Dough Cake; two layers of moist chocolate cake sandwiching a thick dollop of chocolate chip cookie dough and French buttercream. 
How you doin'?

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Aris' 1st Mickey Mouse Birthday Party

It was a fun, sunshiny kinda happy day to celebrate Aris' 1st birthday and what better way to do it than with a smiling Mickey Mouse to make it even more joyous. 

We made the two-tier cake to resemble a 3D Mickey, a candy and dessert table featuring cupcakes, love letters, marshmallow biscuits, gum drops, honey stars and the rest of the gang, all in the Mickey theme for  handsome baby Aris.

The cute lil' party packs, consisting of personalised bubbles, noisy blower, Mickey party hat, and candies and chocs were for the excited guests to take home and relive the special day.

We also booked a face-painter for Aris, by our vendor, Achik who had a trifle with painting all sorts of characters for the kids and adults!

  










Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Unicorn Finding 2 | Nikole Herriott and Herriot Grace

Stumbling upon a blog that has all sorts of beautiful things can make you anti-social, spending more than half a day clicking away. One such blog was none other than Nikole Herriott's, whose story is just, well, inspiringly (for lack of a better word) CUTE. 

We'll let it speak for itself: 


HERRIOTT GRACE is a venture of father and daughter, and this is their story.
Lance and Nikole Herriott live 3400 kilometers apart: his workshop is in Victoria, British Columbia, and her studio is in Toronto, Ontario. When she first made her home more than halfway across the country, they started to send packages back and forth.
In some of those packages, Lance began to include his own hand carved spoons. He had been collecting wood since the early seventies, and used his best pieces for these gifts. Nikole loved them; their balance and shape, the pieces were made with unmistakable care. She knew they were something special.
One day it dawned on her that others might appreciate her father’s talent as she did, so Nikole asked if he would ever want to share his work. Lance took a few days to think about it. And, after some convincing, he agreed to her plan, but only with people that understood and cared about the time and effort spent on each piece.
She told him, “Leave it to me, I know just the sort.”
And with that, Herriott Grace was born.
In the three years since, their small shop has grown to selling an array of hand carved and hand turned wooden objects, including spoons, bowls, pedestals, candy dishes, serving boards, rolling pins, plates and mortar and pestle sets. All are one of a kind and made entirely of salvaged, chemical-free wood, ranging in type, age, and origin. None are exactly the same, and thus none are perfect. But the slight imperfections are an affect of the handmade quality. They’ve also introduced a select line of exclusive porcelain dishware. The ceramic pieces are cast in small runs, and boast the rustic, tactile beauty for which their brand is known.
They also make, by hand, kitchen linens, cake flags, birthday candles, beeswax salve and cookie cutters.
Lance still lives in Victoria, and still sends packages to Nikole in Toronto. Now, she styles and photographs those pieces he sends, and together they are Herriott Grace.
Let's say it together now: awwwwww... 

The blog is filled with awesome pictures of the sort of handmade items that makes Herriot Grace, and a recipe or two that'll just make you stock up on flour and eggs alike.

Here are just some of the enticingly attractive photos you'd find there: 





Oh, and for you socially active peeps out there, add her on FBtwitter and instagram.

You'll see what we mean.




Friday, June 1, 2012

Lace and Pearl

Inspired by these two beautiful creations, we made a 3-tier wedding cake for this weekend. 


And here is the masterpiece. Isn't it adorable?



Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Unicorn Findings 1 | Photisserie

We've decided, just to make this blog just that much more interesting, and this may put you pinterest addicts out there in a right rut, that, we would do what we'd like to call our "Unicorn Finding" for rivetingly awesome blogs and websites for food and food design lovers out there.

And what better way to kick off with a blog by a food photographer enthusiast from Germany, Kathreinerle Koschitzki. Now, Kathrin, as she would fondly be called, makes everyday food items look incredibly magical.

And her recipes, my God, her recipes! Let's just say, if you aren't married, you'd want to be, just so you could make these delectable palate orgasms for your loved one.

You can find her blog here and her Facebook page here.

Now we know the blog's mostly in German, but food and photography is a universal language, and she  puts many of the recipes up twice, once in German, and again, translated into English. Isn't that lovely of her?

And here are some of the photos you'd find there:




Now, go make some European scrumpties (that's scrumtious yummies- yea we just made that up, but we're feeling a tad proud at the moment, so let us just have it, won't you? ;-)

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Unicorn Couplets Cake Toppers

We have exciting news for you art lovers out there!

It is with great honour, we introduce to you, "The Unicorn Couplets" cake toppers, exclusively handmade by D.U.R.A., inspired by her infamous "Fashion-na-nimal Darlings" Collection.

Aren't they just awesome?

Order your wedding cake with one of these exquisite toppers for a unique artsy-fartsy day. Woohoo!

Please inquire at unicorns.and.vanilla@gmail.com or call 012 901 5784 for a customised designed cake and topper compatibility. 

Support local artists. 

This message is not endorsed by any official body or organisation. 

No animals were harmed during the production of these toppers.
 







Thursday, May 3, 2012

Mini Cakes

Here are photos of the peach (inside and out!) mini cakes we made for our bride and groom's VIP table doorgift. They wanted it customised to suit their wedding colours and we added some edible pearls to the design to add elegance to the cakes. Inside, are peach cakes with vanilla French buttercream with fresh peach bits. Aren't they lovely?