Today's Latte Art

It's starting to look like a leaf!

Nutella Meringues

To kick of my little spring break last week, I decided to take on a delicious new dessert recipe. So I ventured into the realm of meringue and made Nutella Meringues. I came across these on Pinterest (you can follow me at pinterest.com/JoceyPearsey). This is actually the first Pinterest project I've done. Yay! They were so easy and yummy I just had to share. I'd post the recipe, but I figured I'd direct you back to the source. Check out the recipe posted on the blog Cream Puffs in Venice.

My presentation wasn't awesome. Next time I'll try piping them through an icing bag. But they were nice and light and were especially tasty with a cup of English Rose tea from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

DIY Custom Coffee Sleeves and Tags

Thanks to my talented graphic designer sister, we were blessed with custom graphics for our wedding. I loved the personal flair it added to everything. And these are graphics that we can still use for lots of other things! We had this first one made into a rubber stamp (about $10 at rubberstampchamp.com), bought a stamp pad ($5) and then stamped some kraft paper coffee cup sleeves (about $20 for 250 on ebay). Combine that with plain white cups and black lids, and we instantly had our own custom coffee cups, which were perfect for our wedding espresso bar with a custom coffee menu that yours truly created. Now I use these cups and sleeves at my little personal home coffee shop. Love it! We also used this same stamp on the little brown paper bags at our candy bar.

The second graphic we had was used for tags to tie up our cutlery. We printed them on kraft paper purchased from Michael's (we kind of have an obsession with "brown paper packages tied up with string"), and then they were punched out with a gift tag punch. A regular hole punch on top and some chunky jute string and knots completed our look. 

If you're interested in custom graphics send me a comment and your email address I'll put you in contact with my sister.

Wedding Shoes

One of my favorite details of our wedding was our shoes. We both wore matching Onitsuka Tigers in Caribbean Blue purchased from Zappos.com. My hubby has always loved these particular shoes and they come in so many fun colors that we couldn't resist having the groomsmen wear this style as well. Wearing tennis shoes for my wedding was so fun made me feel so much freedom to run around, jump and just have fun . . . and my feet were never sore. Plus I get to re-wear them all the time and people recognize them as my "wedding shoes."

DIY Manzanita Centerpieces and Wood Table Numbers

Hello blog world. Its's been awhile since I've posted. We've been busy with the holidays and moving to our new house (also pictures of that to come). I've been meaning to post some of the DIY projects and details from our wedding . . . so here's the first!

Doing a wedding on a limited budget definitely had it's challenges, but we had fun getting creative and using the things we had access to. And what we had access to was a lake and forest (and lots of helpful friends). For our centerpieces we cut 35 manzanita branches from behind my house (free, except for the scars from traipsing through the forest), set them in flower pots from Lowes (less than $2 each) and held them in with concrete ($40ish). We found the tea light lanterns online for $2.75. The table numbers (the date of our wedding shown below) were made from wood from my in-law's firewood pile. We sliced them, drilled holes, twisted copper wire from Home Depot in them, and used a stencil and a sharpie to color in the numbers. Easy! And lastly we covered the top of the concrete with bark.

We are selling the manzanita pots for $15 each in case you're interested. They make great jewelry trees if you trim them a bit. I think we have 18 left. Local pick up only (or you pay shipping). The wood numbers are also for sale individually. Let me know if you're interested or if you have any questions on more of the specifics on our projects!

Chocolate Coconut Biscotti

Here is a little twist on my usual chocolate biscotti recipe. (Oh! And in interesting biscotti news, I will be making my biggest batch of biscotti ever next month, when I'll make a couple hundred pieces and several flavors, for a co-workers fall-themed wedding. I can't wait!) Back to the main point . . . I had a bag of coconut shavings in the cupboard, so I googled "how to toast coconut" and it turned out to be quite simple!

Preheat oven to 350. Place coconut in a thin layer on a baking sheet. Heat the flakes for a few minutes (I found that I needed to use a spatula to keep them rotating on the sheet). Let them cool.

After I toasted the coconut, I melted regular chocolate chips, and then dipped the biscotti in the chocolate . . . then in coconut. They are quite yummy if I do say so myself (especially with a non-sweet coffee!)

Let me know if you want the biscotti recipe and I'll send it your way!

Let the Fall Baking Begin!!

Wow, it's been way too long since I've blogged. I guess in the craziness of planing a wedding and working full time, blogging was something that got put on the back burner. Now that life is settling into a new normal, I'm just as excited about fall baking as I am about blogging again.

There will be lots of upcoming blogs from me about many of the details and do-it-yourself projects from our wedding. So stay tuned! But in the meantime, here was the kick-off to my fall baking. Mini pumpkin muffins with apple-pears. I think apple-pears (which is a cross between an apple and a pear) are only a thing of Central California. But they sure are tasty and they added the perfect flavor to these muffins.