Champagne Friday - Bastille Day - Part Two

Happy Champagne Friday!

As you know, last week we celebrated Bastille Day and we had a visit from the talented Natasha Burns. You may have already seem some of the gorgeous photos she took over at her blog www.natashaburns.blogspot.com. Today I am sharing a few more that she took around the store as we shared a Champagne or two together, but first here's a delicious Champagne cocktail-

Pillow Talk
Champagne Flute

2 Strawberries
5ml apple juice
15 ml apple liquer
10 ml bourbon vanilla
splash Champagne
extra strawberries to garnish

Muddle strawberries in shaker. Add all remaining ingredients except for Champagne and garnish and shake with ice. Double-strain into flute. Top up with Champagne and garnish with a strawberry. mmm yum!

 One my favorite items in the store, the gramophone really creates a swanky, vintage feel.

Gorgeous, close up detail of our smoke glass chandelier

My Pinboard- allows me a chance to be creative. Here it is decorated with French themed cards and paper for Bastille Day (featuring Zetta Florence wrapping paper)

 

Chocolate and  rose cupcakes..yum 

Our Marie Antoinette inspired cup cakes

These hand carved pinocchio dolls have been a favorite with little kids and big kids!

Below are some more lovely photos from Natasha....all around the shop.

Bastille Day!

Well it's Champagne Friday again and this week it has been Champagne Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! Wednesday was of course Bastille Day and being lovers of all things French (especially Champagne!) we thought it was a great excuse to celebrate! Amongst the guests, I had the lovely Natasha Burns. Natasha is a talented artist who has a fabulous blog that you can see here.
I was lucky enough to have some beautiful photos taken of the event by Natasha which she will be posting on her blog soon...stay tuned.

In the meantime, here are a few photos of our cupcakes. Of course we featured the Champagne Cupcake and Parisian flags that I have been working on in my last posts.

Champagne  cupcakes

Marie Antoinette cupcakes (featuring fairy floss 'wig')

'Cocoa Chanel' (Chocolate) and 'La Vie en Rose' (Rose) flavor cupcakes

Thursday the celebrations continued and a group of us braved the Melbourne winter and ventured out for another Bastille Day event at  'Red Bennies'. It was fab! I never realized there were so many French people in Melbourne! With conversations happening in French all around us and the cool sounds of the Martini Sisters (you can listen to them here) It really felt like we had been transported to a cool Paris Jazz club.

 

The invitation for the evening encouraged fancy dress, amongst the costume choices were the Jazz age and the Moulin Rouge , so I jumped at the chance to get my feathers out!

 

Emma of Fleurage and I,  Heather of Trouve accessories and husband Julian

Gabor and Julian share a laugh

In honor of the fantastic performance last night by the Martini Sisters, I thought what better cocktail to drink than a classic Martini?

Martini

Martini glass

3 ice cubes

2 pitted green olives

2 teaspoons dry vermouth

1 1/2 Cups cracked ice

3 ounces chilled top quality gin, such as Bombay sapphire or Tanqueray

1.Rinse a martini glass with cold water, fill with ice cubes and place in freezer for 5-10 minutes to chill completely.

2.Meanwhile,spear the olives with a toothpick. Pour the vermouth into a small saucer. Add the olives and turn several times to coat with the vermouth. Let stand for 5 minutes.

3.Fill a cocktail shaker with the cracked ice. Drain the vermouth from the olives and add it to the shaker. Then add the gin. With a long handled bar spoon, stir very gently to chill, about 15 times in a clockwise direction. Or just swirl the gin shaker until chilled. Either way, work quickly so the ice doesn't melt and dilute the gin.

4. Remove the glass from the freezer and discard the ice cubes. Set the speared olives in the martini glass. Strain the gin over the olives and serve.

Recipe taken from 'Highballs High Heels'- A girl's guide to the art of cocktails. by Karen Brooks,

Gideon Bosker and Reed Darmon. Published by Barnes & Noble

Champagne Friday- "Let Them Eat Cake!"

Champagne Cup Cakes

As you may have seen in my previous post, I am busily preparing for Bastille Day next week. All the plans are starting to come together and I am getting very excited! I was looking around for inspiration about what to eat when I stumbled across a gorgeous blog called 52cupcakes. (to check it out click here) This blog has the most wonderful collection of inspirational ideas for cupcakes. It was here that I found a recipe for Champagne Cupcakes! How divine. I think these cakes will be perfect for Bastille Day! I did give them a trial run last night and all I can say is YUM! Marie Antoinette would definitely approve! So for Champagne Friday this week, I am posting a cake recipe instead of my usual cocktail recipe. It is as equally indulgent!

Take inspiration from Marie Antoinette with a selection of items from Fanantique

Here is the official recipe for Champagne Cup Cakes taken from 52cupcakes. Please see further down for my quick and easy cheat's version!!

Champagne Cupcakes - Official version

Ingredients:

2 3/4 Cups Plain Flour

3 Tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Salt

2/3 C butter

1 1/2 Sugar

3/4 C Champagne (the sweeter the better)

6 Egg Whites

Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees C, prepare cupcake tin with cup-cake liners.

Cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Sift Flour, powder and salt together and blend into creamed mixture alternately with Champagne.

In another bold beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 egg whites into batter to lighten it, then gradually add the remaining egg whites.

Fill the cupcake liners to about 2/3 full.

Bake at 175 degrees C for 20 minutes.

Champagne Buttercream Icing

3/4 C vegetable Shortening

1-1/2 sticks of butter (room temperature)

3 Tablespoons Champagne

4 1/2 C icing Sugar

In a large bowl, beat the shortening and butter until combined, add the Champagne. Slowly add

the icing sugar and blend until smooth.

If this is all too hard, try my cheat's version.......
(tried and tested)


Cheat's Champagne Cup Cakes


Ingredients
Vanilla cake mix (I like Betty Crocker)
- refer to cake mix for other ingredients needed, usually eggs & butter.
A bottle of Champagne

Directions
Prepare mixture as directed on cake mix box BUT substitute Champagne for the water then take out a Champagne glass and get drinking the left over Champagne. Spoon mixture into lined cup cake tin and bake for approximately 15 mins in moderate oven.
Icing - If you are lucky enough, the cake mix that you purchased will include ready to spread frosting. Simply add a little champagne to this( this will make it a little runny but if you put the mixture in the fridge for a bit it will thicken up again..if it is really runny add a little icing sugar)
Important- Don't forget to finish off the bottle of Champagne, an opened bottle will not keep well!

Craft Corner at Fanantique

Cut and Paste

With Bastille Day coming up next week, I have been planning a little French event at the boutique. I have been brainstorming about what to serve at the event (Champagne is of course a given) but I thought it would be fun to have some sweets and cakes with little French flags on top.
I was lucky enough to pick up some traditional red, white and blue flags at the party shop down the road, but I got to thinking that surely I could be more creative.
We have in the store at the moment a gorgeous set of Parisian style rubber stamps from Zetta Florence that I have been dying to play with so I thought this could be the perfect excuse. We also have some fantastic decorative wrapping paper (also from Zetta Florence) that had me inspired. I decided to try making my own 'cup cake flags'. I picked up some toothpicks and craft glue and got to work with my trusty cutting board and scalpel.

 

Zetta Florence Decorative Wrap

 Above: Zetta Florence Parisian Style Stamps

I set myself up in front of the TV one night as Gabor watched the World Cup (and I pretended to) and got to work. Apart from a few interruptions from Gomez, who thought it was great fun to jump on top of what I was doing (cat paws and ink pads are not a good combination) and a headache from those silly South African horn thingies at the soccer the whole thing was quite successful if I do say so myself.

Parisian Style Cup Cake Flags

My success with this project and the fun of using the stamps inspired me to create more.

Parisian Style gift tags

Small gift cards

Greeting Cards