First Wedding Order!

When I was asked to make desserts for a wedding reception, I was pretty hesitant as it would probably be the biggest order I've ever taken. And weddings are no pushovers - everything has to be prim and proper as for some reason, people always seem to remember the stuff that goes wrong at a wedding!

Anyway, I took the order as it seemed pretty manageable and it would be quite an experience to cater for an event like this. By a stroke of good fortune, I didn't even have to take days off work as I - thankfully - already had a week off for the Christmas and New Year holidays! After weeks of giving samples of the stuff that were ordered and waiting for comments and tweaking the recipes accordingly, the time had come to get down to it for real.

D-day was Christmas itself, and I had the television tuned to Home Alone to keep me company as I set about working on the Red Velvet cupcakes...it was good that I had a tried and tested recipe so I was done quite quickly. The frosting went on only the night before the reception as I didn't want to risk the cream cheese frosting tasting stale in the guests' mouths!

My Mum had so graciously volunteered to make 40 Almond London cookies so that was a huge load off my mind and hands! Thanks a million Mum!! She was already done with those by Christmas morning..all that was left was to dip them in chocolate and finish them off!

Boxing Day was set aside for the macarons and I had my fingers and toes crossed for a good consistent batch. As luck would have it, the weather turned for the worst a couple of hours in, and the humidity began to skyrocket, resulting in macarons that just wouldn't dry. Somehow, they turned out alright after extended periods of drying and the unfilled shells went into a jar for filling and maturation on the next day!

The eve was a hectic day indeed. With a failed Lapis (which is really no fun at all), the whole schedule I had planned went straight out of the window. I was just thankful that I had a good looking Lapis cake and 30 Choux buns at the end of the day! But I wasn't done yet...up ahead lay the filling of 20 Lemon macarons and another 20 Pistachio ones...not to mention frosting the cupcakes!! To cut things short, I hit the pillow at 1 in the morning...

On the day itself, all that was left to do was fill the Choux buns with custard and complete the packing for everything else and I was all but done at long last!

What an experience!