Christmas Desserts

Christmas is one of my favourite times of year. I love listening to (and singing) Christmas music, I love driving around and seeing homes lite up with beautiful lights and decorations and of course I LOVE all the Christmas baking I get to do. This year Sweet Occasions is offering some delicious Christmas desserts to help make your Christmas Season a little Sweet-er.

Gift Giving
If you are looking for a gift for a chocolate lover, we have just what you are looking for. Instead of giving an ordinary box of chocolates, give a box our Sweet Obsession Brownies. This is a one pound box of moist, fudgey brownies. Flavours include: Double chocolate fudge, Chocolate walnut, Chocolate Mint, Chocolate Cherry and Chocolate Peanut Butter.

Holiday Entertaining
Whether you are hosting a Christmas party or just want to be prepared for unexpected visits, Sweet Occasions has you covered with a platter of assorted Christmas cookies. All cookies are delivered fresh and can be put in the freezer, or right on your table. Each platter contains 2 1/2 dozen delicious Christmas Cookies. Cookies include: Peanut Butter Munchies, Cranberry Raspberry Pinwheels, Ginger Crinkles, Chocolate Cherry Blossoms, Maple Shortbread sandwich cookies, and Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Bark.

Christmas Morning
Wake up the house with the amazing scent of our Christmas Butterscotch Buns floating through your home. This is a true "You Bake" dessert. These wonderful sticky buns come in a disposable bundt pan. Simply place them in the freezer until the night before you want to serve them. Take them out of the freezer before you turn out the lights and let them sit on the counter overnight. In the morning they will be ready to bake. In 30 minutes you will have fresh, sweet and sticky Christmas Butterscotch buns to pull out of the oven and serve to your loved ones...and boy will they love you for it!

Pricing:
Box of Brownies - $12
Christmas Cookie Platter - $20 for 2 1/2 dozen
Christmas Buttersctoch Buns - $15

Please call Rachel at 905-261-7345 or email to place your order. Orders will be available Dec. 13th and Dec. 19th. Orders can be picked up in Newcastle or can be delivered to you for $5. Orders of $50 or more will recieve free delivery.

MaMi Shoppes Christmas shopping party

You're all invited to a unique Christmas shopping experience! Local mompreneurs are meeting under one roof to provide you with the best in selection for your holiday shopping. There is truly something for everyone on your list. This is one party you don't want to miss!

This party is being held on Nov. 25th, 2008 - 1 month to the big day! There are 2 shopping periods to accomodate everyone: 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm. Participating businesses include:Balaboosta Baby - trendy baby accessories for the modern mommmyCreative Kids Klub - crafty workshops for childrenKosyKids - innovative sleepers for your babyMusiGo - original children's music and movement cds & toysOrnamentea Soaps - soaps in unique shapes and scentsPeridot Designs - sterling silver & semi-precious jewelrySenter Studios Photography & Designs - silver photo jewelry and professional photography servicesSweet Occasions - custom order designer Christmas cakes, goodies & unique edibles available onsite

Also featuring:LEGO at factory direct prices, baby bows, stained glass ornaments, craft & scrapbooking supplies, handmade chocolates, knitted cupcakes, etched glasses and more!

Visit http://mamishoppes.blogspot.com/ for directions to the location as well as links to the artisans websites!

~Refreshments courtesy of Sweet Occasions~~Children's activity table courtesy of Creative Kids Klub

Irish Castle

Here is a cake from a few weeks ago. The bride and groom were married in a Irish castle in August. They had a reception in Peterborough for friends and family who wern't able to attend the wedding. They really wanted to incorporate the Castle where they were married into the cake. We decided on a four tier cake with grey fondant stamped with a stone look and then brushed with black to get the castle look with draping. The brides colours were apple green with accents of fuschia pink. Bright and fun! I was really happy with how it turned out. You can't really tell in the picture that the fondant has the stone look, but it looked cool in real life.

Prego

I had a fun order for a baby shower cake yesterday. My daughter actually told one of her friends mom's that I did cakes...so she called me to do her sisters baby shower cake. She said that her sister is a little more funky and that the colours were brown and green. I found this cake that I loved on http://www.pinkcakebox.com/ and emailed it to her. I thought it how she described her sister. She loved it, but I wasn't sure if I could manage the "prego" figure on top...I love how she looks on the cake, but I tried modeling a belly dancer once, and it just didn't turn out right. I decided to give it one more try, but this time I thought I should enlist some help. I found some amazing online tutorials on modeling figurines from fondant and voila! I am pretty happy with how she turned out. There is always room for improvement, but this is a huge improvement over my first attempt...poor bellydancer :) I am eagar to hear how the shower went. The cake was chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream and chocolate buttercream on the bottom and vanilla cake with pralines n' cream buttercream on top....This picture was taken at night, so it isn't the greatest, but you get the idea.

Autumn Time

I had a cake tasting at King's Court Catering this week. I needed to make up some more sample cakes, so I decided to do a Autumn theme. I didn't want to do the typical leaf thing, so I decided to focus more on colours. I went with chocolate brown and green. I am really happy with how it turned out (even though my son Benjamin kept referring to the vines as "snakes"). I love the green roses. They just pop off the cake.

I also decided to redo the "Halie" cake. I loved that cake, but didn't have a great picture of it. I went with a round version this time, and it looks great!

Thanks once again to amazing photography by Heather from SenterStudios.com

Angelina

I had another small cake order for Parkwood manor on Friday night. Angelina and Chris wanted cupcakes with a ivory and chocolate theme. I love making these cupcakes with the little flowers...they are so cute.

Halie's pattern

This cake was for Halie and Paul (a very fun couple) who were married yesterday and had their reception at the Ajax Convention Centre (gorgeous). Halie really wanted the cake to incorporate part of the design from their wedding invitations. I am so happy with how the pattern turned out. I had to cut and paste it together, but you can hardly tell. This cake was really fun to bake. I love when couples are creative with their flavour choice. They chose a chocolate cake with a layer of dark chocolate ganache and two layers of raspberry buttercream...delicious!!! for the top and bottom tier and a vanilla cake with a layer of merangue and two layers of lemon cream....also delicious with a really nice texture combination. Paul is a trained pastry chef and loved both cakes at the cake tasting, but I am curious to hear what their guests thought.