Whoopie Pie Wedding 05/15/2011

I've seen them before...

I've collected recipes for them...

I've wanted to make them...
and now I finally have!

My buddy Brittany got married on the 15th and she wanted Whoopie Pies on all the tables as centerpieces.

She requested two different flavors:

Vanilla/Orange Creamsicle with Cream Cheese Filling

and

Chocolate with Banana Buttercream Filling

She wanted all the pies drizzled with chocolate as well.

And...she wanted two special Bride & Groom whoopie pies for their table.

Brittany is one of those dream customers...who provides you with a Whoopie Pie recipe book and cookie cutters...and a Baby Gift :)

Whoopie pies are a yummy treat somewhere in between a cookie and a cake sandwich.

Not hard and chewy but also not too soft and crumbly...right in the middle.

The recipes are very similar to those of cakes, except with less wet ingredients which allow you to roll the batter into balls and bake them like cookies. At least that's how I did it, I am sure there are other recipes that call for different techniques.

Then I baked....and baked....and baked.

The order called for 175 whoopie pies and it took some time.

Once all the pies were baked and cooled, it was time to add the whoopie!

I layed the pies on trays, piped the fillings and sandwiched them together before placing them in their boxes.

Once all the whoopie had been added, it was time for chocolate.

I used white melting chocolate on all the pies but colored half of the batch yellow to match the banana filling in the Chocolate pies. I was able to drizzle all the pies while they were in the boxes, saving me time on having to move them and rebox them.

Then came the Bride & Groom whoopie pies.

These guys were much larger compared to the ones for the guest's tables.

The Bride got an ivory sweetheart strapless wedding gown with a double strand pearl necklace and a bird cage veil.

The Groom got an ivory shirt, tie and vest underneath a black tuxedo with a ivory cowboy hat.

Each table had two platters with 7 Whoopie Pies each, 12 tables total.

Each pie had a white lace doilie to protect the guests from any messiness in case the chocolate drizzles got too soft...plus it looked pretty :)

Congratulations Brittany & Greg....may your life be full of WHOOPIE! ; )

Our Baby Shower

Saturday we had our Baby Shower!

We decided on a very casual joint shower...with lots of friends and family. I am the 6th of 7 children in my family so my family is rather large. I have 2 siblings who live in Utah and a sister who lives in Washington with her family, every one of them made the trip for our Shower...because my family is amazing.

The shower had a Blue and Yellow color scheme with a Yellow Rubber Ducky theme.

My bestie, Amy made beautiful flower arrangements for the tables.


My brother, made the best fruit kabobs known to man.


Practically all of my friends and family brought some kind of food, snack or dessert. It was amazing to see everyone come together and work so hard out of so much love to make this day extra special for us.

Of course, I had to bake something sweet for the event...even though it was my own Shower.

I wanted to revisit a recipe I used about a year ago which seemed to be a hit. I made some black bottom cupcakes for a First Communion party and they were delicious.

But, I wanted to do these ones a bit differently.
I decided on two different versions... Vanilla Strawberry Cheesecake and Chocolate Caramel Brownie Cheesecake!

YUMMY!

So...First, I baked up a small batch of brownies and then cut them into small squares once they had cooled.


I set those aside and had my sister, Amiable step back into her assistant shoes for the night and chop up some strawberries really small with a spoon full of glaze.

Once I had the cake batters and the cheesecake batter ready to go, it went a little something like this:

Spoon full of cake batter and a few brownie bits


Spoon full of cheesecake batter


Spoon full of cake batter

I did this same process with the Vanilla Strawberry cupcakes, except without the brownies.

Once the cupcakes were cooled and ready to be topped and frosted, it went a little something like this:

A bit of frosting to serve as a wall between the topping and the cupcake


A ring of frosting and a yummy filling (These ones got strawberries and glaze, the others got a spoon full of caramel sauce, sorry I forgot to snap a picture of that)

Then more frosting and some pretty sprinkles!

I had painted my round cupcake tower the day before and wrapped the edges with yellow ribbon.


The morning of the Shower, my niece helped me top each cupcake with a little yellow ducky.


Here they are...ready to be devoured...and they were =)


I didn't even get to eat one!
It's okay...I'm supposed to be staying away from sweets anyways!


It was a wonderful day.