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This week was my mother’s birthday. And of course a special occasion like this deserves a really special cake. But before describing the cake, let me talk first about the decoration.My mom has a great passion for flowers like me. Therefore, I couldn't think anything else besides flowers to decorate the cake. And I was so glad that I could find one of the most beautifu
Unfortunately I’m still waiting for spring. After weeks of snow, it seems that finally now we will have the flourish of crocus, daffodils and magnolias. Can’t wait to see them!While I'm expecting the blossoms of my favorite season, I’ve been making some new types of sugar flowers. Today I present to you this white open rose. This rose is different than the others that I made so far. It
Happy Easter my dear friends! For this lovely day I prepared this amazing dessert: chocolate eggs filled with hazelnut praline and brigadeiro. Chocolate Easter eggs filled with some wondeful flavors have become a hit on Brazil this year. Besides brigadeiro, the other option are dulce de leche, brownies, ganache, and what else your imagination can create!I hope you have a wonderful day!&n
Hello dear friends! Today I will share with you my Easter table. This year I decorated it with dyed eggs, sugar flowers and chocolate eggs. Chocolate eggs are a sweet Easter tradition on my country. All candy and chocolate brandies have their egg version in several sizes and flavors. They are also wrapped in colorful foils and ribbons, and some special edition come in fancy boxes.Some parents
Today I prepared for you a tutorial on how to make these precious treats for your Easter. Fabergé eggs were the inspiration for these Mini Easter Cakes. As last year I made chocolate egg, this time I decided to create mini cakes.You can bake any of your favorite cupcake recipe using half egg cake molds. I used one of my chocolate cake recipes and put the half cakes together with dark chocolat
March is approaching bringing the most beautiful of the seasons. I’m really anxious and excited for Spring starts. The flowers and colors are the great inspiration for my creations.I was looking some flowers photos and I found this white hydrangea with pink edges. I took this photo last year during my visit to the Cleveland Botanical Garden. So, while I am still waiting for Spring, I dec
Hi my dear friends! Today I made for you a tutorial on how to make modeling chocolate roses. Those roses are beautiful to decorate cakes, cupcakes, cookies, tortes and also they make a gorgeous and delicious form of edible gift when beautifully packed. It is quite fun to make modeling chocolate roses since they are all hand shaped. Basically you will need a rolling pin, parchm
For the past two weeks I had the pleasure to spent some time with my beloved sister Luana. She came from Brazil to spend her birthday here. It was amazing! And of course I made for her a special birthday cake: raspberries and vanilla mascarpone Bavarian Cream sponge cake decorated with some chocolate modeling roses. The sponge cake recipe is from Donna Hay Magazine Issue 65.
Hi my dear readers! Today I prepared for you these sophisticated Valentine’s Hearts. They are composed of dark chocolate brownie base with dark chocolate mousse filling, covered with dark chocolate. That's right... All dark chocolate!My inspiration for making a layer of cake topped with mousse came from a Scandinavian Princess Cake photo on Miette book. This cake is topped with a huge amount
Hi everyone, how are you? I am very excited to share with you my latest creation, this almond cake decorated with sugar peonies and roses.Since I made my first sugar paste peony, I've been desiring to try other types of peony blooms. And this opportunity came last week when I found these beautiful flowers. So I didn't hesitate to buy them together with these gorgeous burgu
Happy New Year everyone!Sending you my warmest greetings for a new year filled with joy, love, and a lot of sweet moments!For this New Year’s Eve celebration, I made this hazelnut sponge cake filled with caramel cream embellished with a gold glittered rose. Hazelnut Caramel CakeHazelnut Sponge Cakemakes 4 discs 8-inch120 g whole hazelnuts, toasted 120 g potato starch10 eggs140 g granulat
Merry Christmas my dear friends! Wishing you a wonderful time filled with love and a lot of sweets! For this Christmas, I prepared this beautiful dessert table with five marvelous sweets: gingerbread bauble cake with caramel white chocolate ganache, marrons glacés, Mont-Blanc aux marrons, orange sponge cake with cranberry mousse and orange whipped cream, and pistachios marzipan
Last week I had the pleasure to meet the adorable Kathy Goldman from the blog Playin with my Food. Her blog is filled with delicious recipes, beautiful photos and she has the cutest Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, named Sofie. We had an amazing time baking a Buche de Noel and making some sugar poinsettias.This Buche de Noel consists of chocolate cake filled with chestnut pastry cream
This week I tried to make some sugar poinsettias. They are very simple to make and soon I will be sharing a tutorial for you. I think they are pretty to decorate little cakes like these ones from Donna Hay Magazine. These cakes are chic desserts that you can prepare for your holiday party. They also have a delicious surprise hidden inside: an apple and cranberry caramelized filling. I adapte
It is Christmas time! How I love this part of the year, especially the snow, lights, colors, songs, food... Well everything about it! Baking becomes so much more fun with all the wonderful flavors with endless options for decoration. Peppermint is one of the ingredients that I love most and the combination with chocolate is fantastic. So these were the flavors that I chose for this two tier
It is Christmas time! How I love this holiday season, especially the snow, lights, colors, songs, food... Well everything about it! Baking becomes so much more fun with all the wonderful flavors with endless options for decoration. Peppermint is one of the ingredients that I love most and the combination with chocolate is fantastic. So these were the flavors that I chose for this two tier mini cak
When I saw these cute Seckel pears on the grocery store I immediately thought to use them to decorate some tartlets. These little sweet pears are perfect for a delicious and beautiful dessert, especially when they are poached in sweet wines. I used this time French sweet wine Sauternes, but you can also use Tokay, Beaumes de Venise, and orange Muscat. The tartlets cru
Happy Thanksgiving!This year I prepared for dessert a delicious Golden Hubbard Mascarpone Tart. My inspiration came from the pumpking compote that my mom used to make (or "doce de abóbora" in Portuguese). This is a very traditional dessert in my country and it’s basically made like a preserve using squash, sugar and spices.First, I chose a beautiful Golden Hubbard squash. Then I coo
Hello my dear friends, how are you? I've been working on some holiday recipes and soon you will see them published here. In the meantime I tried something different. I picked up some sugar flowers from previous posts and arranged them in a mini cake. Just a reminder, the magnolia is from this Easter post, the dahlias from thistutorial, the roses from this recent one and the b
Last week I was checking some photo albums on my computer when I found pictures of peonies that I bought last spring. Looking at the photos, I remembered the time I was living in England. I was fortunate to have a peony on my house's garden. Better then that! At every corner of my neighborhood, there was a garden with a lot of peonies of every color and shape. Ca
This is my last of three recipes from the sweet table that I prepared to celebrate my 2th blog anniversary. Today I share with you rose water and pink peppercorn brigadeiros. It has been a while that I want to try this combination and I felt this was a great opportunity to test it on my brigadeiros. I have to say I loved the result. I should try that before! Pink pepp
Hi dear friends!As I promised on Sunday, here is the recipe of the white chocolate cupcakes with rose buttercream that I created to commemorate the Lulu’s Sweet Secrets anniversary.It took me some attempts to figure out how to make a light and fluffy white chocolate cupcake. But now I’m proud and glad to say that I made a wonderful treat to your afternoon tea or party dessert table!The best way I
Lulu’s Sweet Secrets celebrates 2 years this week. To start the commemoration I will share with you my rose dessert table. My intention was to create a romantic table with a lot of sugar roses. Since I started blogging, making sugar flowers has become my passion. Every day I feel more and more motivated to learn about them.This table consists of one rose water and pistachio cake, white c
During my childhood, my family spent every Sunday at my maternal grandparents’ farm. It was an adorable time of family gatherings and fun especially for me, my sister and my cousins. We played around the orchards, coffee plantations and the gardens. I loved to feed the chickens, to pick flowers and fresh fruits.My grandma with me and my grandpa with my sisterWe grew up eating fresh and wonderful f
Today is my dad's birthday. This cake, made with a lot of love, is my humble attempt at giving him a very special present on this wonderful day.Happy birthday papito! I love you! This cake consists of Brazil nut sponge cake layers with baba de moça filling covered with meringue frosting. Baba de moça is a traditional Brazilian recipe. This egg coconut custard cr
Hi my dear friends! I would like to thank you all for your comments on the last tutorial post. I’m really happy to know that you find my work inspiring.I just returned from Brazil where I spent the last month on vocation, visiting fond places, family and friends, satisfying local food cravings, taking a lot of photos and baking some sweets like this one I will share with y
Hello dear readers, hope you are doing well. I’m very pleased with all your adorable comments on my last post about the yellow dahlia. I very much appreciate them. To thank you all I prepared some tips on how I made my sugar dahlias. I’m very excited to share my first tutorial and I hope you like it!I really love make these flowers and I’m pretty sure you will love too. It’s required a little bit
Dahlias used to be one of my favorite flowers when I was a little girl. The garden at my grandma’s farm were graced with their vibrant and perfectly symmetrical flowers. There were many kinds with different sizes, petal shapes and colors to my contentment. The ones with the yellow honeycomb style along with the ruby giant were my favorites.Last week I found some pretty dahlias and instan
This is the 100th post published on this blog. So I thought it would be a good idea to post something simple but at the same time elegant. Today I prepared for you blueberry cherry muffins made with homemade crème fraîche.I chose a blueberry muffin recipe from the book Pierre Hermé Pastries, but I made some adaptations by adding some cherries and vanilla instead lemon zest. I also m
The dessert tables in Brazilian parties are always filled with a lot of sweets, which we call "docinhos" in Portuguese. They are made mainly with sweetened condensed milk mixed with nuts, fruits or chocolate, and then shaped as little balls. They are decorated with sprinkles, sugar or nuts, according to the chose flavor. Today I will share with you some of the most popular Braz
July was a very special month this year. My husband and I celebrated 10 years together and 2 years of marriage. Since our first kiss, our days have been filled with love, happiness, passion, and each day seems to be better than the last. To commemorate these two important days, I prepared a cherry mousse cake: layers of sponge cake soaked in Kirsch syrup, cherry mousse and cherry jam covered
Lilac and yellow is a graceful color pair such as the duo blueberry and lemon together in flavor. Perhaps they are one of my favorite combinations, and they were my inspiration for these mini cupcakes that I prepared for you, my dears. I made this cake recipe for the first time a while ago using lemon brigadeiro and blueberry jam as filling, and I loved it. This time I made a miniature versi
The famous cake Baba was an invention of the former King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine, Stanislas Leszczynski. During his exile at Lunéville in 1760, finding a raisin brioche too dry and hard, he had the idea of soaking it with Malaga wine. So he named it as “Ali Baba”, in memory of the character of the Thousand and One Nights.In 1835, The Stohrer patisserie in Paris replaced the M
When I started this blog, I had never made a cupcake even being in love with this gorgeous treat. I thought that some of the cutest cupcakes should have a pink frosting with one cherry on top. So I drew this cupcake to use as a logo to my blog. But until now, I hadn't made a real cherry cupcake. Cherries are in season, so I decided to recreate my draw in a real and delicious cu
Hi my dearest friends! As I promised, here I am with the recipe and photos from my birthday cake. First I would like to thank you for all the birthday wishes. They made my day even better! Turning 30 years old was not as scary as I thought it would be. In fact it has been the most pleasure time of my life. I’m wonderfully married and I’m learning and making what I discovered to be my passion: baki
Today is a very especial day for me. I just turned 30 years old.My plan was to publish my birthday cake just next week with a photo of the cake slice that I will cut tonight. But I thought it was so beautiful that I couldn’t resist showing you a photo of it today. This is an almond sponge cake with dulce de leche mascarpone and hazelnut almond praline filling. I will be back next week w
Ispahan rose, also known as “Rose d'Isfahan” or “Pompon des Princes”, is one of the most beautiful and finest Damask roses.They were introduced in Europe during the Crusades on the XIII century, brought from Persia. Damasks flowers are renowned for being the most fragrant roses from the Old Garden. Their fine petals are used to make rose oil,
A charlotte is one of those classic French desserts that fascinates for its beauty and elegance. Since I bought the Ladurée Sucré book I have desired to make this Strawberry Rhubarb Charlotte recipe. It consists of layers of rhubarb compote, sponge cake and strawberry Bavarian cream trimmed with ladyfingers. Seeing that its main ingredients are in season, there is no better time than now
On March I prepared for a friend's blog this papaya candied recipe. This is another traditional candy from my home state in Brazil. As it is very sweet, it needs some suave accompaniment to balance the intense flavor. In Brazil we like to have it with Minas cheese, which is a traditional Brazilian cheese similar with farmer’s cheese. But I also really like to enjoy it
Since I started this blog, hunting and gathering new props has become a new pleasure. I really like spend hours in shops searching for unique and beautiful pieces. Besides using them for food styling, they are also a great source of inspiration. Weeks ago I was in an antique shop in Chagrin Falls and I found a vintage Haviland & Co plate. I fell in love with it immediately. I s
I usually like to buy some flowers to my home. It is amazing how they transform the ambiance and bring beauty to the daily life.This week I chose a bouquet with the purpose of reproducing it in sugar flowers. The flower that caught my attention was the red and white gerbera. I have never seen this flower before and I knew that I should try to make it. Beyond it I also made
It wasn't in my plans publish a salty recipe anymore since I have discovered my passion for baking and cake decorating. Then last week I made this amazing artichoke risotto from the book Escoffianas Brasileiras by the famous Brazilian chef Alex Atala. Recently his restaurant, D.O.M., was rated the 4th best restaurant in the world by the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants.
Happy Mother’s day to my beloved mom and all the moms over the world!I baked this cake with a lot of love and gratitude. Mom I love you! You are my inspiration and mean everything to me! I wish you a wonderful day!
Hi my Dear friends! Today I will share with you my newest passion: painting fondant. These cookies were made inspired by some blossoms trees that I photographed weeks ago.I have painted since I was around 10 years old. As soon my mom noticed my interest for art, she enrolled me in a painting class. I started painting fabrics and years late I initiated to work on oil in canvas, which
Last weekend a friend of mine ask me to prepare some cupcakes for her daughter's birthday. The theme was karaoke so I decided to decorate them with some little microphones, stars and music notes, all made with Satin Icing fondant. I painted the music notes using gel food coloring and I sprinkled some edible black glitter for finishing. To make the microphones I used food decorating pens,
When you think about making a cake for your beloved mom, you desire to make the most beautiful one, a cake that expresses your feeling and gratitude for all her unconditional love. Recently it was my mom’s birthday, and despite the distance between us, I made a special cake for her. She has a passion for flowers (such as me, it's in our DNA) and one of her favorites are orchids, which she has been
Happy Easter my dear friends! For this beautifulday I made a dessert table with some delicious treats: chocolate cake, somevanilla cupcakes, bonbons and chocolate eggs.My inspiration for decorating came fromsome flowers of this season. For the cake I used sugar magnolias, which is oneof my favorite. I had this idea after photographing them during my visit to arboretum couple of weeks ago. This was
Hi Dear readers. Today Ihave something different to share with you. It is not a recipe but aninspiration for Easter. I’m amazed at the beauty of this season and I can’tstop thinking about flowers and decorated eggs. I already published some died eggs and chocolates eggs posts. Now I showed you some ideas for sequin andglittered eggs inspired by the beautiful work of Torie Jayne.I saw for the first
Hi everyone! I’m sharing a traditional sweettreat from Brazil at A Clove o Garlic, a Pinch of Salt blog. It was a pleasurefor me to prepare my first guest post to Tiffany! Her blog is amazing and Ilove the way she writes about the Brazilian culture specially the food. Check itout more about this papaya recipe here.
For this post I was inspired by the Faberge Eggs.Onthe Easter of 1885, the Czar Alexander III ordered to a young jeweler, Peter Fabergé,an exceptional gift for his wife, Czarina Fedorovna. Fabergé created ajewel-shaped egg. As a surprise, he put inside the egg a golden yolk; withinthe yolk was a golden hen; and concealed within the hen was a diamond miniatureof the royal crown and a tiny ruby egg.
