Australia Day Treats

The Little Birdie family have been celebrating Australia Day this weekend. As well as reflecting on the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove in 1788 (and how fortunate we are to live in such a fabulous country), it gives us a wonderful excuse to indulge in some typically delicious Australian treats on January 26th.

Quintessentially Australian gumnuts

We have focused on lamingtons this year.

Lamingtons by Cakes by Judy C and Jocelyn's Provisions

We found a particularly enjoyable extract about the origin of The Lamington by Better Homes and Gardens', "Fast Ed":

It shouldn't really be surprising that the lamington was invented by a Frenchman. Predictable, but deeply unsettling. After all, facing the primacy of French cuisine, how could we find a food culture of our own? Australians could draw proudly on few dishes as a national icon.

Pies were invented by the Poms, as was 'fish and chips'. Sausage rolls are German, and Bolognese is molto Italiano. Even the pavlova isn't ours - like Crowded House and Russell Crowe, it's from New Zealand.

So I had high hopes pinned on the lamington, that quintessentially Australian treat. For it's not just Australian: it's from Queensland!

It was a particularly hot summer in 1900, and Brisbane sweltered under a blanket of dank humidity. The Governor, Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron of Lamington, departed for his country house in Toowoomba, cradling a dim hope that the mountains would provide some relief. He and Lady Lamington brought their staff along, including their renowned chef, Armand Gallad.

As was the fashion, a myriad of guests arrived to visit, and the Governor's household put on great entertainment. Chef Gallad was kept busy baking and grilling in the kitchen, striving to feed the gourmet hordes.

One afternoon, in an effort to create a novel high tea, he dipped some leftover sponge cake in a light chocolate sauce, then rolled the resulting cakes in coconut. The effect was simple, but very elegant, and decidedly delicious.

Lord Lamington was impressed, almost as much as his guests. Several of the society ladies in attendance requested the recipe for this delectable new treat, and the chef, suitably chuffed, obliged. Next month, the recipe was published in the Queensland Ladies Home Journal, attributed as 'Lady Lamington's Chocolate-Coconut Cake', soon after known by its diminutive, the lamington.

(Source: Fast Ed online)

This year we decided to try lamingtons made by two of our favourite suppliers, Cakes by Judy C and Jocelyn's Provisions, who created their interpretations of the famous lamington especially for Australia Day 2013. Trish from Marche du Macaron also made sure our taste buds were very well taken care of with some classic chocolate and golden salted caramel macarons, which perfectly complemented the chocolatey-coconuty-goodness of the lamingtons, and contributed so well to the earthy-toned Australia Day vibe.

Cakes by Judy C's lamingtons (left) and Jocelyn's Provisions' lamingtons (right and top) were both variations on the traditional lamington, and both delish!

Lamington cupcakes by Cakes by Judy C

Salted caramel and chocolate macarons by Marche du Macaron

Judy C made some seriously chocolatey lamingtons - a must for all chocoholics!

Lamington cupcake and double chocolate lamington by Cakes by Judy C 

You might have also spied the cute-as-pie lamington cupcakes also made by Judy C. Vanilla cupcakes with a beautiful chocolate icing and juicy shredded coconut.

Lamington cupcake by Cakes by Judy C

Lamington cupcake and double chocolate lamington by Cakes by Judy C

Jocelyn's Provisions created some seriously indulgent lamingtons soaked in jam and smothered in chocolate and desiccated coconut. Yum!

Lamington by Jocelyn's Provisions

Lamington by Jocelyn's Provisions (with lamington cupcakes by Cakes by Judy C in the background)

We can never pass up an opportunity to enjoy macarons by Marche du Macaron (especially salted caramel - mmm!)

Salted caramel and chocolate macarons by Marche du Macaron

The Little Birdie girls were very lucky to have Gerri's son, Archie, to help them take photos of the delectable Australia Day treats.

Archie taking a photo on his Elmo phone

 Archie was also a willing taste-tester...

Lulu is hoping to assist with taste-testing duties next Australia Day...

It has been exceptionally wet and rainy in Queensland over this years' Australia Day long weekend. Perfect weather for playing inside and indulging in some indoor camping activities...

We hope all our Queensland followers are dry, snug, and safe inside, and that everyone has enjoyed a special Australia Day weekend with their friends and family.

Credits
Styling by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events
Sweets by Marche du Macaron, Cakes by Judy C, and Jocelyn's Provisions

Carole & Gerri

Little Red Riding Hood & Forest Friends Dessert Table

Today we are thrilled to share photographs from our Little Red Riding Hood and Forest Friends Dessert Table, which we styled for Chloe, the daughter of Anna, a good friend of the Little Birdie Girls. This dessert table has been featured on the wonderful blog of Amy Atlas Events - it's always such a thrill when Amy supports our work. Click here to see her feature.

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Anna has been a major supporter of Little Birdie Events from when we first opened our doors for business (and even before then), so we were delighted when it came time to commence the enjoyable task of styling a special dessert table for Chloe's first birthday.

Originally Anna was thinking about an Owl and the Pussycat dessert table, as Chloe loves owls, though when it came time to brainstorm, this had evolved in to a forest friends theme. The Little Birdie girls took this one step further adding a bit more of a girly touch with a Little Red Riding Hood theme with forest and woodland creatures.

We developed a striking colour palette, with rich Scandinavian forest hues with a playful splash of red and vibrant green. It included full-bodied cranberry red, warm scarlet, vibrant moss green, playful Granny Smith apple green, rich dark chocolate, and smooth Café au Lait.

Preparation photographs by Little Birdie Events

We like to create dessert tables by designing the decor and food with an interpretation on the theme so that it is not entirely literal, with pops of the theme added to it. We find that this creates a striking and pleasantly unexpected effect to the table. As such, the centrepiece cake was designed to include Little Red Riding Hood in the most effective way, and the food and decor were designed to support and showcase this.

We are delighted to share the details and photographs of this dessert table with you. We have included vendor credits with the photos at the end of the post. As usual, we are grateful to our wonderful suppliers for helping to put turn our vision into delicious morsels of food.

Read on for the details...

{Backdrop}

We worked with the dark brick wall where the dessert table was to be situated, which suited the look of the table very well. The backdrop also included an elaborate black frame with the saying "Once Upon A Time", and the table was framed by vases lined with woodgrain paper containing artificial cherry tree branches with moss at the base.

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

{Stationery}

Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

We created our stationery suite incorporating red gingham, woodgrain, and Scandinavian flowers for displaying food names, as well as personalised stickers for chocolate bars. Part of the stationery suite we created was a design for edible images for decorated vanilla biscuits.

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Biscuits by Cakes by Judy C
Photography by Little Birdie Events

{Details}

The Little Birdie girls take particular delight in creating details special to each event. For this event we used woodgrain paper for the risers and vases, and we wrapped Toblerone bars (for that alpine touch) with red paper and applied personalised stickers. We used moss in vases and wooden planter boxes as well as moss bunnies, red blown glass apples, and real pinecones to decorate the table.

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

{Food}

We love designing interesting treaty foods that coordinate with the theme, for example, we worked with our favourite macaron supplier, Marche du Macaron, to create macarons that appeared like apples.

Apple & Cinnamon macarons by Marche du Macaron
Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

We also designed "toffee apple" bite-sized "tree" cupcakes, by asking a cupcake supplier, The Cupcake Parlour, to add a toffee swirl to their usual Granny Smith green apple-flavoured cupcakes.

Toffee Apple baby cupcakes by The Cupcake Parlour
Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

For the other sweet treats we focused on forest-y flavour themes with green apple, toffee, chocolate, mocha, and cherries. Anna preferred the idea of bite-sized sweets, so we focused on providing these for the dessert table.

Other sweet treats on the dessert table included:

Mocha macarons adorned with sugar toadstools

Mocha macarons by Marche du Macaron
Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Classic vanilla biscuits decorated with our designed edible image and white icing "dots", which sat atop plates of sugared spearmint leaf jellies

Decorated classic vanilla biscuits by Cakes by Judy C
Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Petite raspberry jam tarts

Raspberry jam tarts by Cakes by Judy C

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Petite caramel tarts

Petite caramel tarts by Cakes by Judy C
Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Red velvet whoopie pies

Red velvet whoopie pies by Cakes by Judy C
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Chocolate and raspberry kisses

Chocolate and raspberry kisses by Cakes by Judy C
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Black forest "tree" baby cupcakes

Black forest "tree" baby cupcakes by The Cupcake Parlour
Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Toberlone bars wrapped in paper with a personalised sticker attached, as well as mini Cherry Ripe bars wrapped in a personalised sticker we created.

Toblerone bars
Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Fresh cherries

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Candies included red cherry lollipops "planted" in wooden plantar boxes with lovely large gingham bows, rosy apple lollipops (a special request from Anna), and green apple bon bons.

Lollipops from Little Big CompanyConcept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

{Cake}

The delightful cake, which was designed to feature Little Red Riding Hood, was made by Mother Hubbard Cakes.

Cake by Mother Hubbard CakesConcept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

{Drinks}

One of our gorgeous drink dispensers served Anna's "Little Red's Punch", which was a delicious and refreshing combination of pink grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, and lemonade.

We decorated mini glass bottles with different red-based ribbons and small red bows adorned each grey-striped straw.

Concept, design, and styling by Little Birdie Events
Stationery by Little Birdie Events
Photography by Little Birdie Events

{Photography}

The Little Birdie girls have enjoyed experimenting with our SLR while capturing images of our work.

{Vendor Details}

Concept, design, and styling - Little Birdie Events

Stationery - Little Birdie Events

Sweets - Marche du Macaron, Cakes by Judy C, The Cupcake Parlour, Little Big Company

Cake - Mother Hubbard Cakes

Photography - Little Birdie Events

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Check out our Facebook page for more photographs of Chloe's Little Red Riding Hood and Forest Friends Dessert Table.

Carole & Gerri