Delicious Desserts - Macarons

If you read my previous post, you'll have seen that I was not 100% on the cake train. Although, if there were an actual train of cake, I could probably get on-board with that. Anyway, when we were still deciding whether or not to do cake, we decided to bring in another dessert option.

To preface this, I had the opportunity during college to live in Paris not once, but twice, during two different May Terms. The last time I was there, in 2009, I lived right off of La Place de la Madeleine. Big, beautiful Neo-Classical church, on a site line down La Rue Royale towards La Place de la Concorde. I know all of that might mean nothing to you, but the salient point here is that in the Place Madeleine is a pretty little shop called Ladurée, of macaron fame. It isn't their biggest shop, but that didn't make it any less tempting. I did manage to avoid eating macarons every single day, but definitely managed to make a few visits every week.

Left to Right: Raspberry, Coffee, Pumpkin Spice, Pistachio (2), Lavender White Chocolate

What all of that means for the wedding, really, is that I wanted macarons. And, luckily for me, there's a wonderful little French cafe in Des Moines called La Mie. My mom goes there quite a bit, uses it for informal meetings for work, and she raves about their macarons.

So, on Monday, BM S, Brother E, his girlfriend A, Mr. C and I met at La Mie to taste some macarons. As BM S is expecting a little bee in July, she abstained from any of the creme filled (aka raw egg) macarons, but she did get to help me taste my favorite, raspberry. We decided we're going to order 300 macarons (for 150 guests), in each flavor except the Lavendar White Chocolate. It didn't do a lot for me. The coffee didn't either, but Mr. C loves coffee so I figured I'd give him that one.

Mmm.....macarons

Now, two questions remain. First, we have to pick up the macarons the day before the wedding as the cafe is closed on Sundays, and find enough refrigerator storage to keep them all cold. This may mean spreading them out between bridesmaids, their parents, and some local family friends with the hope that they all get to the venue in time. I'm also going to try talking to our caterers to see if they have storage space for them in a big fridge somewhere.

The other question is, how do we want to display them? I'll come back to that, I promise. For now, I'm going to leave you hanging :)

Delicious Desserts - Cake

I will be perfectly honest, Mr. C and I are not huge cake people. I mean, if somebody sets a piece of cake in front of me, I will eat it, although that may be more of a statement of my willpower than my cake preference. Mr. C is pretty much in the same boat. Ice cream, pie, tortes, cookies, crepes, custards, you name them, we eat them. But cake definitely isn't our go to.

However, when we mentioned our thought of ditching cake altogether to our respective parents, they suggested that even if the tow of us didn't want cake, most people come to a wedding expecting cake. And, as much as we are okay with changing things up, we figured this was not the hill to die on.

So, on Thursday we found ourselves at the local grocery store, tasting cake. And, I will admit, as there were pieces of cake (mostly in cupcake form) set in front of me, I ate them and they were yummy. Because I'm a bad blogger, I didn't take any pictures. We tried four flavors; vanilla, chocolate, champagne, and red velvet. The vanilla and chocolate tasted pretty average. Not bad, but hey if we were going to have cake it may as well be delicious. And look pretty.

Imagine this, except two tiers and without the flowers on the side - via The Knot

Going in, I knew that we wanted to do a couple of smaller tiers, then the rest in sheet cakes. We chose two flavors; champagne and red velvet. In the tasting, the champagne cake was violent, neon pink. The baker said they actually tint it, and for our cake she'd have them tone it down to a pale blush. Perfect, non? So, we're doing that on the top layer, and the red velvet on the bottom. Then we'll do two sheets, one of each. Also, for no charge, they're going to add our monogram to the top of each of the cut sheet pieces.

For not having been thrilled about the idea of cake, I'm actually pretty happy with how it is going. Our initial plan is to have the florist drop off a ribbon for the baker to use, but after thinking about it for awhile, I want to see if they can do something that is edible. If not, ribbon is fine, but a little painted gold band would be lovely. We got a beautiful serving set as a gift from family friends of Mr. C, which was totally unexpected but that I am very happy to have. Now, the only thing is to find a cake stand!

It's not heaven...

It is our new cutting board!

Mr. C's mom is awesome, and gave it to me in an awesome cutting board in the shape of my beloved home state. Mr C. and I both decided that we'd prefer to keep it looking pretty, so he hung it up over our sink in a place of honor.

Awesome, right?

This is both a chance to show off my awesome gift, and also a lead-in to what Id id over my Christmas vacation. We started off in CT at Mr. C's family family for "Fakemas" and too much junk food, then headed back to my homeland from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day. It was awesome, and we also got SO much wedding planning done! Over the next few days, I'll break down the various appointments/tastings/trials that we had to catch you up, but for now, here's an overview:

Thursday
- Dinner at Rehearsal Dinner Option #1

Friday
- Cake Tasting
- Wedding Catering Tasting
- Venue Visit

Saturday
- Linen Rental Visit
- Bridesmaid Dresses Ordered

Sunday
- Engagement Photos
- Mom's Dress Ordered

Monday
- Hair and Makeup Trial
- Macaron Tasting
- Florist Meeting

Tuesday
- Lunch at Rehearsal Dinner Option #2

In addition to all of that, I also got my likely wedding shoes (yay!), got most of the work done on the wedding website, and have a design for our Save the Date magnets that is now awaiting a final proof of an engagement photo before heading off to the printers.