Bella's First Cookie! and Wedding #2

This past weekend, I had the utmost privilege to cater Karen and Vinny's wedding! Prep started right off of my plane from Taiwan, so you can imagine how huge and dark the bags under my eyes got! Oh man I slept so much last night.

The wedding arrangements were crazily last minute, so the goal was a simple and intimate event. I tried creating a menu that reflected that, but I wanted to keep a little flair to the desserts since it was still a wedding after all.

The menu:
- Cocoa nib + caramel cookies
- Hazelnut biscotti dipped in chocolate
- (homemade) Thin mints
- Oatmeal cherry cookies
- Matcha green tea cupcakes w/ white chocolate cream cheese icing
- "le kit cat" -- crunchy chocolate peanut butter bottom w/ chocolate mousse layer on top
- Tiramisu cake
- Fruit tarts (vanilla pastry cream, pate sablee crust)
- Chevre panna cotta cubes w/ strawberries and basil lime syrup

What didn't make the menu:
- Blood orange bars + lavender crust: like lemon bars... I used the same recipe... but they just didn't turn out well, so I left it at home!
- Cocoa creme fraiche cupcakes w/ raspberry icing: I didn't have enough time

Bella, the couple's daughter, isn't allowed to eat sweets. BUT yesterday Karen let her since it was obviously a special day... so she had her very first cookie! And it was mine! What an honor. =) I don't know which one she had though, but still. That makes me feel so special =)

I don't have Julia's pictures yet (she did the wedding photos), but here are my crappy ones... after the jump!

I remembered to take pictures of prep this time. My sister's wedding was too stressful so I wasn't able to capture the madness that it was, so this time I made it a point to do that even though I didn't document everything.

One out of the 20 blood oranges that went to waste, thin mints sausage style!, matcha batter ready to bake

Panna cotta grid, the super cute labels Rhonda made!, chocolate mess = the day of the wedding, I hand-dipped the thin mints one by one and froze them so there was (still is) chocolate all over the kitchen and my face/glasses

Mary brought the rice krispies and brownies


I really need to work on my piping skills (or get some, rather)


The plate saved for the bride & groom


The happy family!