Halloween cake pops

I had to bake something for Halloween and I have been dying to try making cake pops. Of course it made sense to make jack o'lanterns and then I thought I would attempt ghosts as well.


They are not exactly how I wanted them to look but for my first attempt, I think they are pretty good. Plus, they are super yummy spice cake with cream cheese frosting inside. I might be trying them in a few weeks for a certain persons birthday, just not sure of they shapes I am going to do.

Trusty Gal wedding: Flowers

Last week Ben and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary in Paris but the whole day we could not help thinking back on what we were doing on our wedding day. It is so hard to believe that it has been two years already and yet, that is has only been two years. I wanted to do a post about our wedding flowers and centerpieces.

I did not want a wedding that screamed fall but that took cues from it. I wanted to go with orange flowers with brown ribbon. I know I could have gone with a much more complex bouquets and flowers but I am all about simplicity.

I wanted a ball of orange roses for my bouquet. It was wrapped with the brown ribbon I mentioned and my mom's rosary from Italy (I will focus more on that in another wedding recap post).

Photo courtesy of J Henderson Studios.

The bridesmaids bouquets were a smaller version of my own except they also had a few orange calla lilies.

Photo courtesy of J Henderson Studios.

I could not find any flower girl baskets I liked so I made my own. Nothing too crazy, I just got some brown fabric and covered a wicker basket. Their flowers were a combination of everything floral we had in the wedding (orange roses, hypericum berries and seeded eucalyptus) except the calla lilies.

Photo courtesy of J Henderson Studios.

The boutonnieres were super simple orange roses with seeded eucalyptus and wrapped in brown ribbon (you have no idea how much ribbon I purchased for this wedding).

Photo courtesy of J Henderson Studios.

These arrangements were on the first few pews in the church and then we reused them on the guest book and cake tables at the reception. You will notice that everything had duel purposes at the wedding and at the reception.

Photo courtesy of J Henderson Studios.

These two topiaries were on the altar at the church and were rushed over to put on the food table.

Now on to the centerpieces. These small topiaries were on the guest book table at the ceremony and then were used on half of the tables as centerpieces at the reception.

Photo courtesy of J Henderson Studios.

The other half of the tables had these hurricanes with beads in them.

Here is shot from when my mom and I made them.

Here you can see how the tables were arranged and like I said, half of them had the small topiaries on them instead of the hurricanes. Notice the monogrammed table runner, those were all generously made for us, as a surprise to me, by a co worker of my mothers. They were so gorgeous but I have no idea what to do with all 14 of them now.

We had two of these tall, calla lily arrangements on the two tables reserved for the wedding party.

Now all of the roses sit in a bow in my mother attic along with most of the vases and all of the table runners. I swear I will do something with them soon!

Pumpkin Swirled Brownies

It is officially fall weather and so I had to bake something. My favorite dessert that I found last year was pumpkin swirled brownies. They have a little cayenne pepper that adds just a kick but really contributes to the warmth from the nutmeg and cinnamon. I think they are so yummy but I have received some feedback that people would like to just have the pumpkin part by itself. I will be trying that soon.