Tag: Deru

I’ll always remember the cold November day that we flew to an island in the Pacific Northwest for a site visit with our clients to examine the property where their weekend wedding would be held. Outwardly I was calm, collected and positive… internally I was overwhelmed. The property was beautiful, the cliffs overlooking the water were breathtaking… but essentially what we faced was an un-level, vast open field with no running water to tap into and no electricity to pull from. Add on top of that the concern that the island where the wedding would be hosted did not have enough lodging to accommodate all of the guests for the long weekend. If that wasn’t enough to process and work through, the clients then asked us to create a wedding that combined their love of aviation, adventure, literature, the out doors, Lord of the Rings and Narnia. They wanted an “other-worldy” ethereal experience that was classy and elegant and not cheesy.

Needless to say there was a lot to take in and a lot to figure out… and only nine and a half months remaining before the wedding.

We rose to the challenge and created a wedding that I would define as one of the highlights of my career. We problem solved the lodging shortage by building out and hosting an entire village of yurts. I completely re-designed and flipped the original concept of the reception design just a week before the wedding when a rental company did not have the additional chairs to accommodate the unexpected increased guest count. We folded five thousand paper cranes when the ones I ordered arrived the week of the wedding completely unusable. Every single detail was intentionally curated with purpose and then thoughtfully meticulously executed.

While this was one of the most challenging weddings I’ve ever produced in my entire career, the challenges made me feel so creatively alive in a way that I hadn’t felt in a long time. The project was such an honor and joy to be a part of, and I’ll remember this celebration for the rest of my life.

The most special part of this entire wedding was who we created it for. The bride and groom are two of the most kind, generous, gracious, thoughtful and trusting humans I have ever met and have had the gift of working together with. Their belief in our ability, their willingness to listen to us and let us guide them, their trust in our process and the design vision I presented, and the freedom they gave me to just create was the true magic in this process and what yielded the results that follow.

And, although I’ve already written too much… I would be very remiss not to mention my incredible team and the all- star cast of vendors, without whom none of this would have been possible. In addition to producing three incredible events throughout the weekend, we essentially produced and ran a hotel on property. I asked a lot out of my team and vendors that week and they completely delivered at the highest level, working around the clock to make magic. I’m eternally grateful.

If you want to see all the behind the scenes of how this wedding came together, be sure to watch all of the highlights from Instagram! 

 

To see the video highlights of the day, created by Kindly, you can click here.

Photography: Kristen Marie Parker

Planning, Design and Flowers: Sinclair and Moore 

Catering: Deru Market

Cake: Midori Bakery

Yurts: Under Canvas

Marquis and rentals: Cort Party Rentals

Lighting: LightSmiths

Specialty Rentals: Urban Parlour

Place Settings: Casa De Perrin 

Linens: La Tavola 

Stationery: Grey and Cake

Welcome Boxes: Marigold and Grey

 

 

 

 

Many of my favorite childhood memories are centered around the cakes and desserts my mom would make for our family to enjoy. Chocolate cake with peanut butter icing was one of those special treats we always looked forward to. I can still smell the cake baking in the oven and remember anxiously waiting for a spoonful of that delicious peanut butter icing.

When Grey turned one, it was a no-brainer that we would have a chocolate peanut butter cake at his party. We had planned to do all of the baking ourselves for his party, but we moved into our new home just a week before his celebration, and I knew we needed to take some things off of our plate.

Our friends that own Deru Market jumped right in to help. Deru is famous for their choclate cake iced in salted peanut butter frosting. It’s amazing. We ordered one of those cakes in addition to 4 other flavors for our friends and family to enjoy. If you are ever in the Seattle are you have to stop by their place for amazing food and a slice of their heavenly cake!

The recipe I’m sharing today is not Deru’s recipe- that is kept under lock and key. The recipe below is for a classic chocolate cake that I based off of Hershey’s timeless recipe, but made some modification and updates to. The frosting recipe is light and airy and easily whips right up! I’ve also provided a few tips below to help with your success!

I hope you’ll enjoy this recipe and that it becomes a signature cake for some of your special celebrations!

* Remember to always use fresh ingredients when baking. Avoid using supplies that have been sitting in your pantry for too long as it can affect the outcome and taste of your cake! Fresh ingredients will yield a fresh cake!

* The nicer the cocoa powder you use the finer your cake will taste. Splurge on good chocolate if you are making a chocolate cake.

* The espresso powder will not make your cake taste like coffee! I promise! The espresso powder will enhance the flavor of your chocolate and add depth.

* You don’t have to use chocolate milk, but it can be a fun addition to your cake to add a bit of richness and to get a little extra chocolate flavor into your baking.

* Grease and flouring a pan is an important step or your cake will not flip out of the pan once it has baked! Lightly coat the entire inside of your pan with vegetable shortening using a paper towel or pastry brush. Once the surface is thoroughly covered add a few tablespoons of flour and shift the pan around in your hands to make sure the flour coats all of the vegetable shortening. Tap the pan on the countertop to collect all of the excess flour, and then turn the pan on the side to dump the excess flour  out of the pan. Taking your time to grease and flour you pan properly is a foundational step to a successful cake.

* Be careful not to over mix your cake batter. Follow the mixing time on the recipe. Over mixing your cake batter will lead to a dry cake.

* This cake batter is very thin, and you may think you added too much water to the batter. Don’t worry! Part of what makes this cake batter so moist is that it baked from a thin, liquidy batter.

* Fill your pans 2/3 full. This will allow your cakes to bake higher so you can have nice tall layers. Once you have filled your pans, tap them lightly on the countertop several times to release the air bubbles and bring them to the surface.

* You’ll know that your cake is baked long enough when you insert a toothpick or cake tester into the middle of the baking cake, and it comes out clean.

* I always try to set an alarm for 8 minutes after the cakes come out of the oven so I can flip them out of their pan before the cake cools too much and sticks to the pan. Once the cakes are flipped out, make sure to let them cool completely before attempting to ice the cake. If the cake is not completely cool your icing will melt.

* There are many ways to ice a cake. I prefer to use pastry bags fitted with a round tip for quickly filling the middle of each tier and then a cake icer tip for icing the sides.

* Once your cakes are filled and stacked, take a small amount of your icing and a spatula and lightly frost the sides of the naked cake. This is called your “crumb coat” and helps to seal in all of your crumbs so that they do not make an appearance in the outer layer of icing.

* Let your crumb coat sit for a minute to crust over before using your large cake icer tip to get strips of icing onto the side of the cake.

* After you pipe all of the icing onto the sides of the cake, have fun with a spatula and make waves in the icing until you achieve the level fluffy texture you are looking for. Your cake is complete and ready to be served!

photos: Matthew Land Studios 

recipe calligraphy and design: La Happy 

Download and print our recipe for Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting.

In a couple months Grey will be turning two, and I couldn’t let myself start planning his 2nd birthday party until I finally posted the images from his first birthday party. I’m sure people will think we are the crazy parents who were completely out of control with this party. I’m ok with that. We wanted an epic party for our son, and I make no apologies for that. We are party planners; entertaining and throwing an awesome party is one of the ways we show love to our friends and family.

Jamie came up with the idea to have a cardboard party. We often jokingly refer to our son as “Prince Greyson” and so we thought it would be fun to narrow the theme a bit more and have a cardboard castle party. We used cardboard to make shields, crowns and Erik, the production manager for our business, absolutely killed it with building this castle from empty boxes. Brandy from Marabou Design created several banners. Our friends Jamie and Jordan who own Deru Market brought the fried chicken and waffles, a buffet of food and 5 incredible cakes.  Matthew Land brought his camera and snapped these photos. Jamie and I worked together on the remaining details including baking all of the treats for the dessert table.

As with every party, something doesn’t go as planned. The banner of honeycomb balls that I spent hours hanging up collapsed from the weight on the fishing line I used. I kind of like how it cascaded to the floor, and truth be told, I didn’t have time to fix it. So… I went with it and tucked Grey’s high chair around the honeycombs and it looked like an intention design moment. Sometimes the things that go wrong end up being my favorite part of the party. The plus side to this was that the kids also had easier access to grabbing the honeycombs and they had so much fun playing with them.

Now we face a big dilemma… what do we do for Grey’s 2nd birthday?!

Follow along over the next couple days and we’ll have a few recipes and how-to’s for some of the fun details at the party!