Summer Tapas Cocktail Party

A few weeks ago we showed you this picture of a delicious glass of Sangria, perfect for a summer night!  This week we wanted to show you the food we served with our Sangria for a few of our friends at our Summer Tapas Cocktail Party!

 

To start we made some fresh toasted bread, which was drizzled with olive oil and rubbed with garlic when it came off the grill.  We served that with some slices of Manchego cheese and a fresh tomato puree.  We also made some Chili Roasted Shrimp that had just the right amount of heat, and a sauce that was perfect for dipping bread.  Our last snack were Chicken Croquettes which are like homemade chicken nuggets, only much, much better!  We served these with a Pomegranate Honey dipping sauce, and these were a big hit.

Besides our food we also made Sangria which started with a bottle of Spanish Red Wine, and we then added green apples, grapes, raspberries, oranges, and limes.  It was so fresh and made for a great addition to the party.  

We dressed up our table with different types of plates and bowls, along with some hot pink and floral napkins.  We had the perfect summer night, while catching up with friends, sipping on Sangria, and having some delicious snacks!

S'mores Pops

To celebrate the first days of summer we wanted to make one of our favorite summer treats; S'mores!  It's been very hot in Boston this week so we didn't exactly want to cook these in the traditional way over a grill. Then we decided to make these S'mores Pops!  We took marshmallows, dipped them in melted chocolate, and then coated them in crushed graham crackers.  They were delicious!  

What are some of your favorite summer treats?

Vintage Carnival Bridal Shower

As our Sugar & Bows followers know, we have been working very diligently on a bridal shower that was held last Sunday.  We are very excited to share these pictures and our story of how the shower turned out.  After meeting the bride, Julie, and learning of her love for all things sweet and for amusement parks we decided on a Vintage Carnival theme for this shower.  We were inspired by the colors of cotton candy, bubblegum, ice cream, and other carnival treats and settled on using peach, light yellow and pale pink as our main accent colors.  Julie mentioned that she was trying to incorporate a vintage look into her wedding so we wanted to make sure that we included that as well. 

The centerpieces were small wooden Ferris Wheels that were painted a rustic gold to include some sparkle to each table while keeping with the dark look of the metal used on real Ferris Wheels.  Surrounding the Ferris Wheels we adorned each table with small bags of homemade kettle corn that was sweet and salty, and perfect for the guests to snack on before lunch.  Each bag was decorated with some bakers twine and a raffle ticket hand stamped with a letter "J".  Also on the table were custom made Bingo cards and personalized pencils to match the theme.  The Mother of the Bride wanted to make sure their guests were entertained so we had a few games going on throughout the day, but the Bingo was a big hit. 

When visiting our venue, The Neighborhood Club in Quincy, MA, we knew we wanted to add some fun to the room to capture the sense of wonderment you get when visiting a carnival.  When we found these extra-large balloons we knew immediately we had to use them for Julie's shower. We attached delicate fringed streamers to the balloons and placed large bunches throughout the room.  Surrounding the room were tables for gifts, desserts, and favors.  We created a banner to display on each table to remind the guests of the stands you see at carnivals selling treats.  All of these details created the enchanted feeling we wanted for Julie's day.

As we mentioned earlier, Julie has a real sweet tooth.  She loves eating all different types of candy, but she really has a love of nostalgic candy.  Upon hearing this we knew we had to create a candy favor but we wanted something different from what you typically get at a shower.  Keeping with the carnival theme we used orange Circus Peanuts, which just so happened to be the Mother of the Bride's favorite, and Necco Wafers.  The peanuts were bagged and tied with pink twine as were the Necco Wafers which were rolled in a clear candy wrapper.  All favors were sealed with a "Thank You" sticker and were displayed on this great vintage candy stand.

Another sweet thing we had to focus on was the cake!  When we asked Julie her favorite type of cake she immediately said Funfetti, which isn't really standard for a bridal shower.  Now, most people know what Funfetti Cake is, right?  You buy it in a box at the grocery store and it’s a yellow cake with lots of different colored sprinkles in the mix.  So, always up for a challenge, we created our own version of Funfetti using pastel colored sprinkles in one of our recipes for moist yellow cake.  Before we decided on Funfetti, we knew how we wanted to decorate the cakes.  We wanted to use a variety of vintage cake stands that we have collected over the years, some small, some large, some colored, and some glass.  We decorated the cakes to match our accent colors and tried out some new decorating techniques which we think turned out great!

We had so much fun creating this Vintage Carnival with Julie, her bridesmaids, and her family.  We couldn't have asked for a better bride.

Celebration Brownies

Here at Sugar & Bows, we have been very busy prepping for a bridal shower that we styled this past Sunday.  The shower turned out perfectly and we were so happy to be a part of it!  We have lots of great photos to share with you, but before we show you those, we want to share these delicious brownies!  

After a long weekend of baking, crafting, and prepping we had to reward ourselves with a big brownie.  They were perfectly chocolaty, and a great way to finish an amazing weekend, and start a new week.

Check back for photos of Julie & Jon's shower next week!

Schools Out

We created these cute lemonade gift baskets for two very special teachers.  The baskets included lemonade mix, a travel mug, and our famous sugar cookies shaped like lemon slices.  We hope they enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed making them.