"decoration" news and stories

Instead of fussing with steamed milk and trying to perfect the very difficult skill of making good latte art, which is very tricky to practice unless you have access to a good espresso machine and work in a coffee shop or drink a lot of coffee, a good way to decorate your drinks is with a stencil. Aerolatte sells a Cappuccino Art Set. The art set comes with a collection of stencils that can be placed on top of your drink and dusted with cocoa powder or cinnamon using a fine duster, similar to the type used for sprinkling powdered sugar. The six stencils are made of sturdy plastic, are dishwasher safe and come with a small storage tin. There is only one downside and that is the fact that you are limited to the designs that are provided. As elegant as the premade stencils are, if you want to make your own, you can use the exact same technique (perhaps even the same stencils) that we used for making cupcake stencils a few weeks ago.

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Artist Prudence Emma Staite is a lot like Willy Wonka in that she makes an astounding variety of things from chocolate. Her website, Food is Art, shows just how dedicated she is to remaking ordinary objects into edible art. Using fine Belgian chocolate, she makes everything from chocolate sculptures, like the chocolate kitchen set pictured here, to chocolate board games. The giant chocolate Jenga puzzle is made of more than 130 pounds of chocolate! She also has miniature chocolate games, paintings and does custom works. Her most Wonka-like creation is the edible chocolate room. The room contains pieces made entirely of chocolate, including a fireplace with mantle and chandelier, and even the walls are made of lickable chocolate with lickable sugar wall paper.

 

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I can sort-of understand the $99 chocolate bunny for sale on the Neiman Marcus special occasion desserts website. Though I'm not completely sure what "semi-solid" means, the bunny is 19-inches high and weighs almost 5 pounds. And $35 for egg-shaped chocolate chicks is not entirely unreasonable because they have been painstakingly hand-decorated with colored chocolate. I have to draw the line on exorbitantly priced desserts somewhere, though, and the set of three chocolate eggs filled with marshmallows, graham cracker and caramel does not seem worth the $80 price tag, especially considering the additional $17 shipping fee. The most unreasonable dessert is a six-inch square cheesecake, wrapped in chocolate "paper" to look like a present, that retails for $190 plus $27 for shipping. Did I mention that the cake only serves 6 people?

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Who doesn’t want to get a shiny, gold Oscar statuette during the Academy Awards?

Unfortunately, without a nomination, your odds of getting one are slim. There’s always next year, right? That is still no reason why you shouldn’t bring home the gold anyway. Order some edible gold leaf and use it to dress up your favorite desserts. The gold is a very, very thin sheet of 22-25 karat gold that is safe to eat. It can also be found as an edible gold dust – not to be confused with non-edible gold sprinkles – that can be sifted onto desserts and other confections. Check your local cake decorating or craft store, or buy some online before the big night.