Beyond the Buttercream: Bits & Pieces

I’m changing things up today, guys.  I have all this stuff that I want to share with you and it usually doesn’t fit into my dessert posts, so here it goes.  “Beyond the Buttercream” will cover travel, restaurant reviews, what I’m loving, what I’m reading, probably cake, random life musings and just stuff, like sprinkles.

1. I’ve been doing a LOT of cakes lately like this one I did for my uncle’s wedding a few weeks ago home in NY.  I have to tell you, I don’t think there will ever come a day that transporting a cake over 3 hours doesn’t give me epic amounts of anxiety.  I transported this on Friday, the 13th in what went from monsoons to downpours the whole drive home.  Dramatics aside, it arrived in one piece, they loved it and I will do a post on it when I get some more pics!

Pays to have a pastry chef in the family 😉

2. 3 words: avocado egg salad.  I’m beyond obsessed, like I eat it almost everyday.  I’m a firm believer that avocados make your skin glow and that’s just a bonus.  It’s so light and filling, which is really great when you’re constantly surrounded by sweets.  I’m thinking it would be a great “Balancing the Buttercream” post.  Are there any light summer meals you can’t get enough of right now?

3. While I’m on this balancing thing, I recently started doing Tracy Anderson workouts and OMG – amazing!  So I started out with her mat dvd and I thought it was so fantastic, I had to buy more.  I should probably add that I workout regularly and these still make my muscles scream.  The only dvd I was hesitant on trying was her cardio dance dvd because I read so many bad reviews on it.  Well, last week something told me to try it and I friggin love it.  I will say that while I don’t think you need a dance background to do it, you definitely need to have some sort of coordination.  I can understand why some people don’t like it – you basically hop/jump around for 30 minutes.  But when you’re done, you can basically wring out your shirt.  I kind of go by if you look pretty at the end of a workout, you didn’t workout hard enough and I can guarantee you, there’s no pretty after these workouts 🙂

4. Now back to serious business:  Since Crumbs closed a few weeks ago I’ve been seeing and hearing quite a bit of cupcake smack talk.  Look, cupcakes didn’t magically appear a few years ago.  They’ve been around a long time and they’re not going anywhere.  I personally have been cupcake obsessed for about 30 years now and I don’t see that ending anytime soon.  The problem is these chains expand way too quickly and in turn lose quality.  I could really go on about this, but that’s another post for another day!  Bottom line: if you hate cupcakes you basically fail at life.  End of story.

5. Because I would never not leave you on a sweet note: here’s the chocolate peanut butter ganache that I shared on Instagram the other day.  You guys.  Drink it, spoon it, throw yourself in the bowl type of amazing…  Recipe coming soon!

 I hope you all have a great weekend and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts!