French Pastries & Dragon Cake

Thanks to the relatively cool and ultimately not summer weather I made some French pastries to my salon de thé.
The left ones are rose and caramel Religieuses the right ones are mini Desirés:

Creamy orange cake slices:

Finally the dragon cake I made to a friend of mine:

the orange stuff is coloured "strawberry cream" (certainly polymer clay),

it represents the flames with some strawberries,

and there are some cream puffs, serve as rocks on the hill.

Gilded Chest

This chest will be a part of my Salon de Thé project too, actually we will see it when we open the door of the powder room.  I thought a lot about the colour, then with a sudden decision I painted it antique gold and used oil paint to give some antique charm to it. The top is pink marble, painted by me. The walls will be covered with white-pink toile wallpaper.

As finally we are blessed with cooler weather I will make food during the weekend (maybe some pastries to the salon de thé), so more photos will come on next week.

See you soon,
Orsi

Secrets Revealed

As I promised, now I post some photos about my newest project.... or at least a part of it:

This will be the counter of my Salon de Thé (Tea room). It was inspired by Versailles, Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette and the famous French confectionary Ladurée. The counter is white marble with antique gold ornaments, and it took more than two weeks to put together. The base is simple wood covered with several layers of gesso (sanded accurately after every layer) and white paint. Making the marble effect took long days, but I think it worth. The whole floor will be covered with marble in the tea room, so I try do not imagine how long will it take to make....This is how it started:



The cakes are not the final ones (not all of them), I have to make more French pastries to fill in the counter, though the pink "Libertine cakes" were made to this project.

From now on I will post photos about the improvement on a regular basis.

I hope you will enjoy this little journey.

See you soon,

Orsi







Something Posh and Something Homemade

Let me clarify something. I'm not only a miniaturist, who makes miniature food. I love food and eating.... I spend time with looking for recipes in cookbooks, stand in the kitchen and cook either use an old family recipe or try a totally new one found on the internet.
The "Something Posh" is my Chocolate box cake, which is actually more a tower of boxes than a simple chocolate box. I must admit I'm a chocoholic... so it was pretty obvious choice to make a chocolate cake, but I wanted to make something extraordinary... and this was the outcome:

The cake is 3 staggering gift boxes, partially open (except the top one) with loose ribbons. The boxes are chocolate cakes covered with blue marzipan, the top of the boxes are separate unfilled cake layers covered with marzipan too. The partially open bottom layer is decorated with a pale blue sugar layer, which incarnates silk paper, and Belgian chocolate stars and truffles pour from the open box. As blue goes particularly well with silver, I used the tiniest silver beads (if we talk about real cake these are edible sugar beads of course) to decorate the cake with them and used some dark chocolate roses to embellish the feminine line. The cake became a big hit, it was published in the Spanish Miniaturas magazine as well and now it is in a loving home in the U.S.
Something homemade: I'm a "berry-fan" too, I hardly can imagine a summer without ripe strawberries, juicy blackberries and without those fresh and perfect blueberries. So it is a faboulous blueberry-mascarpone cobbler (thanks God and the Italian for the mascarpone and ricotta), simple and yummy. It is perfect for a late summer afternoon indulgence with fresh lemonade or tea if the weather turns colder.

My tiny cobbler on the cookbook's photo:



My newest project I mentioned is on its way, but it will take far more time than I thought, so no photos yet.  I hope it will change by the end of the week. Fingers crossed....

Something Salty

After several posts on sweets I decided to write about salty food today. I'm not a meaty person, eat far more cheese and veggies than meat, so here are some cheese-veggies-fruits combo.
I think France has the widest variety of cheeses, mild or sharp flavours, amazing taste.... is there anyone out there who doesn't know at least one French cheese?
Here is a collection with some wine, nuts, grapes and crackers and European cheeses. The cheeses are clockwise from the olives: Brie de Meaux, St. Nectaire, Tomme,  Emmentaler, mild Roquefort and Langres.

Another ultimate favourite of mine: Italian Caprese from juicy, ripe tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, extra virgin olive oil and basil/oregano.



A healthy snack for hot summer evenings: cheese dips with olives, tortilla chips and fresh vegetables (carrots, cucumber, English celery).



Those ones who have a sweet tooth finally I present the dessert: strawberry pies with luscious strawberries and fresh whipped cream. If you are thirsty, I can offer fresh lemonade too :-)



Second serving anyone?

In the meantime I work on my secret project, I hope I will be able to reveal more within some weeks.

See you soon :-)