Congrats LDIR graduates!

Boy, what a weekend!!  In fact, what a week!!  This week went by somewhat slow and somewhat fast!  Looking back at the week, it seem to take forever to reach Saturday, yet, it is now almost the start of another week!  Well, this was one hectic week and weekend because, once again, I had the greatest pleasure of working with the same folks from the "For the Love of Justice" event!  This event was super special because it was a celebration event for those graduating from the "Leadership Development in Interethnic Relations" (LDIR) program!  And even more special, my other other half, Christina was graduating from the program!  I was contacted to create a dessert table for their graduation reception.  The colors were ivory, royal blue and mahogany brown...very rich and distinct colors!  The reception was also held outside in a beautiful courtyard at The Village at Ed Gould Plaza.  Everything turned out quite beautiful!  Take a look!

I dragged my sweet friend Mai away from her  bed around 4 am Saturday morning...I know, we're a little crazy, but hey, we enjoy what we do!  I had asked my dear friend to help me set up this event and to also handle the floral arrangements, since she has many years of experience in that field!  We decided to hit up the LA flower district before heading to the venue to set up...hence, waking up at 4 am...(we have both decided that sleep is highly over-rated, and us, being super-women, can handle 2 hours of sleep!)  Did I mention that we're crazy?  Well, we may be slightly... however, to pull out this beautiful set up, despite the tiniest bits of set backs we had that morning, and running on 2 hours of sleep, we really must be super-women, in my humble opinion! Ok, ok, enough pats on the back...hehee...The only hiccup we really, really had was the sun following our beautiful set up and melting away the meltables on our table!  We had to play "move the table from the sun" a few times, but in the end, the sun didn't cause too much damage!

 

Aren't they cute?  They're baked mini cake donuts!  Guilt-free!!  I originally bought one mini donut pan and one regular sized donut pan...I used it maybe once or twice and just really love the cuteness factor of mini-sized anything.  Although, I must admit, coming from a donut background, mini donuts knocked on my heart a little bit more.  So, I decided to put the pan to use and make some baked mini donuts for this event.  Of course, on recipe will make about 5 dozen mini donuts.  I only had one mini pan!  And instead of scratching the idea, I did what anyone else of my craziness would: buy 2 more pans!!  And that's what I did!  They were well worth it though...these are just too darn cute!!  And "healthy" too!  My favorite on this table would have to be my bacon caramel popcorn drizzled with chocolate.  They were so good!  I made a test batch last week and messed around with the recipe and got yummy goodness.  The bacon was smokey and crispy, and the caramel light and creamy, infused with chai tea and cayenne to give it a light, robust (oxymoron isn't it?) taste.  I hope everyone at the event had a chance to try the popcorn! 

Of course, I had a blast designing and setting up this table!  It always is a blast!  However, this set up was made even more fun and delightful with the company of my sweet friend and her artistic touches upon the table!  Congrats to the new LDIR graduates!

Until the next madness begins!