Taylor Grocery Meet and Greet!

On July 14th we held a meet and greet reception at The Taylor Grocery restaurant. It was to share with some of the event planners in oxford some of the new things we are doing. Most people associate Taylor Grocery with catfish only; however, we do much more!

This is me with my mom Rhonda Webb. She helped me with the groom's cake and took all the pictures that night. We made the groom's cake look like the ole miss football stadium.
Here the owner, catering manager, and myself are getting our picture taken for the Oxford Invitation magazine!

This is me and the catering manager Butch Scott.

I think the cake turned out great!

The theme was rustic to match the store and we used chocolate brown and yellow linens with sunflowers for decorations. So I decided to design the wedding cake around that theme.

I used a chocolate fondant to cover the cake and piped on some sunflowers. The ribbon is made out of fondant that is painted with a sunflower orange edible powder.

I made the fruit arrangement with grapes, blueberries, and strawberries.

We served pecan tassies, and fruit cups as some of the desserts.

These are key lime tassies.

We also served hors d'oeuvres.

These are our chicken salad cucumber bites and tomato salad cups.

My pictures are a little out of order. Here are some more desserts. We made chocolate bites, some in white chocolate and some in milk.

I'm a little sad the some of the pictures looked great on the camera but when we put them on the computer they were fuzzy. I had to include some though because I still think they look OK even with the fuzz.

Everyone raved over my fruit dip garnished with some fresh mint from my mom's garden.

We served this raspberry lemon punch for our non alcohol guests such as myself.

All in all I think it was a great evening and we have gotten a few events from it, so I think it was well worth the work. For those who came or helped in anyway thank you so much. And I hope all those who missed out can book there next event with us and enjoy some of the same wonderful food!

4th of July Trifle

I helped my mom make this trifle for dessert Saturday! It was so yummy! The great part about it was how light it was, you don't feel like you have eaten a heavy dessert. It had a white cake layered between whipped cream, strawberries and fresh blueberries from her farm. This dessert is so easy to make in any size. You just have to find a glass or bowl. You can make it individual in goblets or large like this one in a trifle dish.

Cool Tip!

Tip Of the day!

Ok so I was thinking about my blog and I know I use this as a site to show customers different cakes and desserts I have made. However, I have decided I need to share a little knowledge along the way. So whenever I get the chance I will give a little tidbit of decorating knowledge from my vaulted brain. And yes my brain is a vault. I guard my recipes and a lot of how I do things, because this is my career and I don't want people to think it's so easy I don't need to pay her! I have put a lot of time, money, and practice into what I do to make it better. And a lot of love! So with that being said, I'm going to try and share my gift of cake decorating and desserts with whomever is interested. Please use my knowledge don't abuse it and hopefully you can gain a little from my tips.

Today I decorated this 2 layer cake with butter cream icing. I wanted it to be a little different from what I normally do. Let's face it birthday cakes tend to look the same! Same shell border, flowers, and greeting. The only difference is the shape and color. I decided to make the border have 2 colors. The way to do this is really simple. Take your decorating bag with tip attached. Use a butter knife or flat edge spatula(one that is skinny) and spread a single line of the darker colored icing into the bag. Make sure to only put about butter knife width line no more. Then fill the rest of the bag with the lighter color as normal. Remember too much icing in the bag will make it harder to handle and harder on your hand. Practice a few times on the counter or onto a plate squeezing out the desired shape. If done correctly the colors will come out at the same time giving a border that looks like the trim below. Have fun and good luck decorating!

A simple cake for Chris!

Chris's mom ordered this cake for him. He just came back from Iraq and he also recently graduated, so they gave him a party for both. This cake is a white cake with butter cream icing and fondant ornaments on top. I painted the flag, ribbon, scroll, and hat with luster dust and edible ink. It's hard to tell but the flag has a slight shimmer to it.

NAUIAB luncheon

I made this cake for a large meeting last Monday. I had no idea what the group was, they just sent me the logo. It was a fun cake to make. It's just a simple white sheet cake with butter cream icing. But what made it great was the gum paste magnolia. It was a leftover flower from a previous cake. I remembered that I had saved it and thought it would be great to use. I could have made one out of butter cream, but it wouldn't have had the same look! The ribbon is the only other part that isn't icing. I made it with fondant and then dusted on copper and gold luster dust. They took a professional picture with Judge Graves making the first cut. I can't wait till they get me a copy. I will post it when they do. And it will be on the http://taylorgrocerycatering.com website. As are other pictures from the banquet last week.

Banquet's for MSMA

This past weekend we had a Friday, Saturday, Sunday event for the MSMA at the Oxford conference center. We served breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day for 2oo people along with a few small events in between those times. I have a few pictures of the desserts Me and my crew made. I ran a kitchen with about 10 people or more. I did most of the baking Wednesday and Thursday with my mom and sister Christie. And then all the finale details (cutting, icing, plating, etc...) the day of the event with the kitchen and serving staff. It was so much fun and I'm so grateful for all the help! I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. I don't have pictures of everything, but as soon as I get the ones butch took I will post them.

Gourmet cheese cake with strawberries and whip cream,

we served this Saturday night and one lunch that afternoon.

This was the breakfast buffet we set up each morning. It had blueberry muffins, apple cinnamon muffins, banana bread, cinnamon rolls, fresh fruit, 3 types of danishes (of which Christie made), bagels, biscuits, sausage, bacon, and gravy.

This was the dessert buffet served Friday afternoon. It included: German chocolate cake, strawberry cake, caramel cake, coconut meringue pie, chocolate meringue pie, and apple pie. The lady that ran the entire event collects glass cake stands and brought several of hers to display the desserts on. It was so pretty! This picture just doesn't do it justice.

Here I am making a face at one of the servers! I finally had an excuse to wear my new chef coat!

The strawberry cake was so moist that it began to fall. We had to plate one whole cake

German chocolate cake! My favorite, I'm such a chocoholic!

The inside and top have the German icing. And the outside is iced in a rich chocolate icing.

The coconut and chocolate pie look very similar. The only difference is the coconut on top and the chocolate chips on the other! You can see the caramel cake in the back of this picture. I didn't have a recipe for the icing. I had to make one up that morning. It actually turned out great!

I wish I had more pictures to show now. Unfortunately I spent most of my time in the kitchen and had to get someone else to take the few that I got.

The past few weeks have been really busy and I went out of town and couldn't update anything I had made. So here are a few of the things I have been working on the last 2 weeks.

My mom's birthday cake!

My sister Christie and I made this cake for my mom's birthday which was yesterday. It's a chocolate cake with a chocolate moose filling and butter cream icing. The kettle is wrapped in fondant and then we painted it a copper color. My mom has a garden with sections for each plant that are shaped very similar to this

This is a view of the kettle once it was sliced.

Graduation/Birthday cake for John

His mother sent us the info of her son. She said he loved baseball and had a list of achievements received while in school. The one's I listed on the scroll are his favorite.

Strawberry Cake

This is a 3 tier strawberry cake with a fluffy strawberry Icing.

This is a side view before I covered it with the icing.

Prom cake

The Hickory Flat High School Prom ordered this cake. They wanted a cake with teal dotes all over it.

Cheesecake Bites

I made two trays of cheesecake bites. One was a chocolate chip cheesecake and the other was a plain cheesecake.