Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Have your Cake and Eat it Too!

As you all well know by now, I have a total sweet tooth. I love all things chocolate, covered in icing and/or ice cream. I've met very few sweet I don't like and generally the only thing I steer clear of is coconut. So you can imagine my delight when we decided on a dessert party to celebrate my mother-in-law's retirement!

The only stipulations were that we kept it a surprise and we brought sweets...done and done! All of the delicious desserts came from Walton's Fancy and Staple here in Austin. If you're ever in town you MUST give it a try! It's on 6th street, it has a floral shop in it, their pastry chef is a genius and their sandwiches and salads are wonderful too.

I digress...David and I hit town on Saturday and began our second family gathering. My sister-in-law came in from NYC and we had a great time cooking out and visiting. I had heard about a new store in New Braunfels called Gourmage and I was dying to try it! It didn't take much convincing to get Claudia and Kate to go with me! Gourmage has tons of wonderful cheeses and they will let you try anything you want. The owners are a husband and wife team and she is the cheese guru and he is the chocolatier. There are truffles, chocolate covered apricots, chocolate covered orange peels...the list goes on and on! We settled on a sun dried tomato and basil feta cheese and an apricot and ginger cheese...I can't remember the name if it for the life of me, but it was SO good. I think we ate and drank our weight in wine and cheese Saturday night!

Sunday it was all about the surprise and the desserts! I would like to point out that my mother-in-law is the only person on the planet that we could pull this over on. How in the world we were able to set up an entire surprise party in her own home and keep her out of her dining room is beyond me. But we did it nonetheless. She was so surprised when all of her friends came to celebrate with her and honor her. We all have a great time and everyone left with gorgeous and fabulous leftovers! Success!

The first peak at all of the goodies! Those pedifores on the left were topped with an orchid...just gorgeous!

The whole spread...and then close-ups below because they're worth it!

David's family...

The Buck convention going on in their backyard while we were taking pictures...This was right before Rookie took off after them and chased them away. He thinks he's so big and bad...

11 comments:

Natasha said...

i am so glad all this food is not in front of me because i am a sweet addict too!!! all those treats look tasty!!

Kristen said...

Those treats look AMAZING!

Virginia Belle said...

The pictures of the sweets are making my mouth water! Gourmage sounds like the perfect store. Cheese and chocolate=heaven!

Samantha said...

I have a huge sweet tooth too, and I'm trying desperately to kick the habit! Those pictures aren't helping ;-)

They look almost too good to eat...almost.

Also, the bucks are awesome! Deer are such beautiful creatures.

Anonymous said...

Yummo! You can invite me over anytime. lol You look like you are an awesome hostess!

Kara said...

if i'd have walked in and seen that spread, i'd have thought i had died and gone to heaven!

Annie said...

They are almost too pretty to eat.....almost :P

Susannah said...

How cool and fun! Those desserts look to die for!

AussieMumma said...

Oh my god! Yum yum and yum! I love desserts! Looks delish :)

Chic Runner said...

These look amazing! I shouldn't have read your blog at lunch time. And I just read about Taylor coming to visit! how fun. Glad you had a great time. We love our taylors :)

Travis and Rebecca said...

Ok. If you love chocolate you have got to try the chocolate cake recipe in the Pi Phi cookbook: Ring Ching - Dinner is Served. It's on page 194... Grandma Delaney's Chocolate Cake. It's to die for! I'm making it tomorrow for Claire's 1/2 birthday party. Don't forget the icing... it's the best part! (if you don't have the cookbook, i'll e-mail the recipe to you)