Art Deco Petit Fours

Finally, my first post this summer. I definitely have a lot of posts in mind (and on the back burner, some even from last summer :O), just trying hard to find the time to put them together. At least I'm back home for the summer, which means I have 24/7 access to an oven :).

A few weeks ago, I kicked off the summer with a 1920s cocktail party. I had just seen The Great Gatsby in theaters a few days before the party, so I was pretty inspired to make a lavish, yet delicate dessert. There's this one scene where Gatsby, Daisy, and Nick have tea at Nick's little cottage. Gatsby has all these lovely flowers and desserts (macarons and tiered cakes) brought into to fill up the house. At first I was going to bake macarons, but that seemed too obvious of a choice. And I didn't want to make a full cake since it was a cocktail party with appetizer-type foods. Finally, I settled on petit fours.

While searching for the perfect petit fours recipe, I came to the conclusion that they are difficult to make.... which pretty much sealed the deal, since you all know I love a good baking challenge. Since petit fours tend to be little square cakes, I decided that it would be fitting to decorate them in an Art Deco style (popular in the 1920s), with geometric shapes and clean lines. I searched high and low for the perfect cake and poured fondant recipes to use, to make sure this would be a success.

I knew a variety of different cakes could be used for petit fours, but I ended up with a sturdy genoise since I wanted a cake that wouldn't fall apart when I dipped them in fondant. Also, I found the perfect poured fondant recipe. I wanted a fondant that was opaque and good for dipping, so this fit the bill. And yes, though it's called "poured" fondant, I decided to dip the cakes in fondant rather than pour them since pouring fondant seemed to be the biggest hassle for bloggers making petit fours. So in the end, this turned out rather well, not really a challenge after all. Lovely little cakes, perfect for a party.

Hunger Games Cupcakes

I watched The Hunger Games movie the weekend right after it came out. Overall, it was pretty good (I'd watch it again), but like most movie adaptations, not as good as the book, which I absolutely adore.

There were many things I enjoyed about the movie. The casting was great, especially the actors cast for Cinna, Effie, Caesar Flickerman, and Rue (hoping for an equally good cast for Catching Fire: Finnick!!!). Non-spoiler things I enjoyed in the movie: Seneca Crane's beard, the fire dress (exactly how I imagined it), and awkward Gale scenes. Anyway, if you haven't read the books, I highly recommend that you read them! In particular, read Catching Fire, my favorite :).

I've been meaning to bake something Hunger Games themed for a while. Finally, I decided to make cupcakes based on different Hunger Games characters. Since Katniss is the protagonist, I had to make a cupcake based on her. These were inspired by the costume she wore to represent District 12 (the black one that lit on fire) and her archery.

Peeta is my second favorite character, after Finnick, so he got cupcake as well (sorry Gale, Peeta's the nice, artistic boy who paints and bakes). In the arena, he uses his awesome cake icing skills to imitate nature in order to camouflage himself, so I topped off his cakes with pretty, "natural" frosting leaves. And because he is the "boy with the bread", I finished each cupcake with a chocolate bread slice.

I loved Effie's "look" in the movie, so I thought to take an element from her appearance and adapt it to a cupcake. I ended up representing her hair with curly pink swirls of frosting and adorned the frosting hair with big purple flowers.

Of course the villain of the story needs to be represented as well, so President Snow got a cupcake as well. His signature items are the genetically modified white roses always pinned to his lapel, which he uses to mask his bloody breath. Thus, my cupcakes based on him are iced in black and topped with white blood-stained roses.