Heart Your Heart

Today is National Wear Red Day, which marks the beginning of February and heart health awareness month.   Heart health is something that is very close to my own heart. Did you know that the number one killer in women is heart disease? Women are more likely to die of heart related issues than cancer. This oftentimes comes as a shock to people as heart disease is often thought to only happen to men.  Sadly, I have been directly affected by heart disease - I lost my father 7 years at ago at the young age of 49 without a warning or any visible signs of a heart condition.  It ripped my world into shreds.  Seven years later, I want to spread the word to prevent others from going through the pain and loss of loosing a loved one the same way that I did.  Spread the word to your loved ones to get their hearts checked out and light up the streets by wearing a bit of red. Learn about the risk and signs here.   And always remember to heart your heart.  

Ruffled Feature:: A Styled Wedding Shoot

One of my favorite aspects about living in New York is the amount of sheer talent in every square inch. I mentioned a while back here, how I was working on special project, well I am excited to share it with you today since this special project is featured on Ruffled wedding blog. I, along with wedding planner extraordinaire Tamra from Ever Swoon, Gabrielle from G! Designs, Jill from Shindig Invites shot by Jessica of Jessica Schmitt Photography, Courtney a talented videographer and Ellen, a makeup artist, brought to life a retro-styled wedding shoot at Colonie in Brooklyn. I assisted in the styling and yours truly made the cake and snowball desserts that decorated the dessert table.  Hop on over to their site for the full shoot!

Winter White Cake with Blood Orange Curd & Buttercream

I believe that everyone should have a no-fail chocolate and white cake recipe that they can turn to whenever they have the desire or need to bake a cake. I luckily have my go to for decadently rich dark chocolate cake from  Bon Appétit, but until recently I was always on the lookout for a white cake that completely blew me away (and let me say this is no easy task, since I am a chocolate girl through and through).  Luckily, my search has ended and my favorite chocolate recipe has met it's match - meet this white cake that I layered in Blood Orange Curd and topped with buttercream and coconut.  This cake is like eating a slice of heaven. It is incredibly light and moist while the blood orange curd gives it a sort of creamsicle taste and  the coconut transports you somewhere warm - very, very warm, but to bring it back to reality (sigh), I topped with a gilded pine cone.   Continue for recipe...