Sweets for the Sweet

The idea of incorporating cupcakes into our reception meal has evolved throughout our wedding planning process. At first, I decided that we'd have cupcakes from one of the local bakeries that specializes in Red Velvet cake here in Brooklyn. I LOOOOOVEE Red Velvet cake. I'm not even a huge sweets person, but I crave this particular bakery's huge slices of Red Velvet on the regular. 

Then I thought about the fact that not everybody likes Red Velvet. What to do? Luckily, one day I was taking a break from reading wedding blogs (I advise that once in awhile), and  I read about Kumquat Cupcakery again.  I say again because in my Brooklyn/foodie blog reading of the past, I had heard of the founder, Keavy Landreth's wonderful mini-cupcake creations. 

She and/or her cupcakes can usually be found at the Brooklyn Flea, a really great weekend market not to far from my apartment. I decided to stalk the cupcakes one Saturday at my first time at the market, and I was NOT disappointed. I was blown away by her Red Velvet mini-cupcake. What's great about Keavy's cupcakes are that they are bite-size (or I guess two-bite size)  and come in a wide array of flavors. Not only that, she also takes great care with presentation, so the cupcakes not only taste great but look great. 

We had a chance to have a tasting with Keavy this past weekend to taste some of the other flavors that I've intially chosen for the wedding. Here they are:

Let's start with the simple yet tasty vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. Sometimes things are best when they're simple. And yes, the cupcakes are that small. 

Chocolate raspeberry. The mix of the fresh creme, raspberry and chocolate was wonderful. This is one of Keavy's specialty cupcakes.

Banana cake with light cream cheese frosting and carmelized banana.

Strawberry cake with a little piece of strawberry for the top

The ever classic Red Velvet

Orange Poppyseed. I'm not a big fan or orange flavor, but this made me a believer.

We figure that with these variety of flavors, everyone will find something that they can enjoy and perhaps try something new. 

Are you having special flavors for your cake? How did you decide which flavors to choose?

Food..Glorious Food!

Yes, everyone! It's time to talk food. While I have not talked about food very much in my blogging, I am somewhat of a foodie. I keep a running list of restaurants for me and Mr. Swan to try and read about food and chefs for fun. I've also been known to spend too much time looking for the right spice for a new recipe. Needless to say, I was pretty excited for our tasting at Battery Gardens.

We had a perfect early evening in June right on the water in Battery Park.

Here's Mr. Swan looking over our cocktail hour hors d'oeuvres options and cheesing it up for the camera.

Mommy Swan got to come too! I was excited to see her. 

As with most meals we started out with a salad at the beginning.

Below is the frissee salad with blue cheese, poached pears, slivered almonds and orange-lemon vinegarette. My personal favorite. 

I'm sorry that you don't get to see much of the presentation in this and many of the other pictures. I got so excited about eating that I did that first before taking pictures. Oops! :)

Next we have the Lola Rosa Salad, which is basically field greens with madarin oranges (I LOVE manadarin oranges), a slice of brie and honey hazelnut vinaigrette. I missed the boat on a picture of this one. Sorry! 

The arugula salad which had melon, pinenuts, some goatcheese and rhubarb vinaigrette.

We ended up picking the frissee salad. Mr. Swan was favoring the arugula, but my thinkiing is that not everyone likes the bitterness of arugula. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Then we moved on to the main courses. I don't really eat much chicken (although I've started to more since I've started to travel) and eat beef on a rare occasion and usually it's a smidgen of something off of Mr. Swan's plate. Mr. Swan also has something against what he calls "Wedding Chicken." It's from all of his days serving as a teenage DJ for weddings and eating a lot of stuffed chicken (no offense to stuffed chicken breasts). There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not his thing. That being said, I let Mr. Swan take the lead on choosing the meat option. 

Our choices:

Filet mignon with porcini peppercorn sauce, a vegetable melange (which was essentially different kinds of potatos) and grilled asparagus.

(Again I got too happy about the food before taking a pic. Sorry for the pic of half-eaten food!)

I actually liked this as someone who is a non-meat eater, and the asparagus was GREAT! I loves me some grilled asparagus. The filet was juicy and well-seasoned, the asparagus was crisp and the potatos tasted wonderful.

The other beef option we chose to taste was a braised beef with a side of mashed potatos, a warm bean salad which looked more like haricot vert to me and almonds. Mr. Swan raved about this but thought that our guests would prefer the filet mignon.

On to the fish and my domain. I started with the red snapper with a ginger crust, braised Asian vegetables and cardamom rice. Um, the rice was the bomb diggity...it was fragrant, perfectly cooked and was a lovely compliment to the vegetables. I thought the snapper was fine. I am not a huge fan of crusted fish, but this wasn't bad at all. 

Finally for the fish dishes, there was the salmon with a wasabi crust, soba noodles and tofu. While I will eat tofu anytime anywhere I know that it's not really the food of choice for many people. 

BUT..the salmon was soo good that we couldn't pass it up. It was perfectly cooked. We'll be having the salmon with the rice and the vegetables that came with the snapper.

There's also going to be vegetarian option, but we didn't get a chance to taste that. The type A in me is just not going to worry. 

Finally, dessert (the best part ofcourse!)!

Coconut Passion Fruit Mousse

At least it's something you don't get all the time. 

I did think about the chocolate mousse

as an option, but we decided to pass. It was VERY good, and I'm not a major chocoholic. 

Ofcourse we could have gone with the classic and always refreshing sorbet. We loved the presentation!

I was amazed that me, Mr. Swan and Mommy Swan all agreed that we liked the coconut passionfruit mousse. Talk about three different palates in harmony. 

Ofcourse a tasting is much different than mass produced food, but we feel pretty comfortable that we'll be serving our guests a nice meal and they won't be starving. I'll talk about cupcakes in a separate post. 

How was your tasting for the wedding? Was it easy to make the final menu choices? 

With a ---- on Top

As some of you may remember, I was slobbering over this lovely cupcake stand from Martha Stewart. I've actually decided to take a different tact with cupcakes, which I'll blog about at a later time. Either way, I have been thinking about what I could do to add a little sumthin' sumthin' to them. 

I stumbled onto the idea of cupcake flags. This is most definitely something you can DIY, and I am sure there are many of you out there who will be planning on doing so. For those that like to outsource like me, there are some options out there on Ye Olde Etsy that will save you a bit of time. 

Enter Buttercreambee:

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This is just a sample of the designs available, and I love the  jewel for a little bling effect. These can be completely personalized.

If you want to take it to a whole other level, check out Goosegrease. A little mini you for a cupcake or two?

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You also have the option of getting these little ones as wedding cake toppers too, and Miss Stiletto blogged about them a little while ago. They can be custom made (I like the fact that they have little brown ones). 

For those with a more simple chic look, try this other option from Goosegrease.

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Birds anyone?

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They're made of felt (By the Cupcake Girls)

Maybe something that actually looks like a flag.

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From Bonne Nouvelle of Etsy

Are you doing anything special to decorate your cake or cupcakes?