The Garnish Decision

[foodfiend]

Well, the decision was based on what I could locate on a Sunday-afternoon shopping trip and what I actually had on hand...



I drizzled white "sparkly gel" on each, used Labs' suggestion and flavored buttercream with Chambord, tinted it pink, then piped a flower. I filled the center with gold "sparkly" gel, then placed a tiny amount of red and pink colored sugar on top of the gold. Then did just a bit of a sprinkle of colored sugar over all.

You know, they look nice, but I was so frustrated. It was h*ll getting the little squares out of the pan in a nice piece, I spent a lot of time pinching the corners and brushing off crumbs. Finally, after I had taken half of the squares out of the pan, I was able to slide an offset knife underneath and get the rest out relatively easily.

Needless to say, these tasted wonderful. I prepared enough for the basket and a cookie tray which DH delivered today. I put 6 perfect ones in a small box to give to the buyer tomorrow, and also some on another cookie tray for our attorney's office. The rest are tightly wrapped in the freezer!!!

[Gourmet_Mom]

VERY PRETTY, Vicci! Well done! And the best part...they tasted wonderful!

[Old Bay]

Beautiful!! Whatever you charged, it wasn't enough!! You should receive pearls (I stole that from "Space Cowboys"--if you haven't seen it--do)!!

[foodfiend]

You know, I realized that (due to a bit of superstitious-ness), I hadn't given some pertinent details about why I was obsessing with these truffles.

These were being made for a basket and couple of cookie trays which I was making for people who helped us out over the past few weeks.

About 15 years ago, DH and I bought and restored a 100+-yo train station for him to use as an office (he is an architect with his own practice). It is a really nice building. About 5 years after we moved into it, a series of circumstances caused us to realize that we really didn't want to be working 80 hour weeks. We scaled back, and decided to put the train station up for sale. In the past 10 years there have been many people interested, but nothing worked out (also, we discouraged more than a few potential buyers when we learned that they had plans to alter the building in a very non-sensitive way).

This buyer has been a dream come true, and we were so afraid that it wouldn't work out that we told very few people (not wanting to "jinx" anything). So, closing is tomorrow at noon!!!

The basket was for a man who owns a neighboring heating supply company who offered to let us use his dumpster for no charge when we were cleaning out the building. That alone saved us almost $500. One cookie tray was for his workers who came over with a forklift to move a 500-pound copier outside for pickup.

Another tray was for a woman who works at our local state representative's office who notarized the sales agreement and didn't charge us.

And yet another tray is for our attorney's office. It's a 2-person firm, and a nice receptionist, and all of them helped us in one way or another (even while on vacation).

So, this Thanksgiving we will have a lot to be thankful for!

[DFen911]

Ok - WOW! Those look just outstanding!! Put that pic on a blog and submit it to foodgawker

And major congrats on the sale. What a nice thing to get all worked out before the holidays.

[foodfiend]

Old Bay, I just put Space Cowboys in our Netflix queue. Thanks for the suggestion, we don't watch a lot of movies and just started this service to alleviate some winter boredom.

Oh, and here's the basket (I did some tweaking before wrapping in cellophane and tying with a gold, orange, and brown sheer ribbon and bow). I guess that I shouldn't have polished the apples and pears quite so much!



Cheeses and crackers from Trader Joe's, wine, fruit, a bag of spiced nuts (I had to hide them from DH), and The Truffles. And I found a nice leather-trimmed basket on sale, too.

[Gourmet_Mom]

Vicci, how wonderful! What a happy holiday this will be! It was really nice for these people to help out. For you to make such efforts to thank them in such a personal way is awesome! No wonder you were so anxious for these treats to turn out special!

[Old Bay]

Vicci, you and your husband are part of a fraternity--you've made a payroll, paid taxes, managed a business, owned your building, maintained it, maybe even skipped a paycheck--I've done all that too. My father began our insurance business in 1947--I'm a chemist and worked in the industry until 1971, when I joined him. Bought him out in 1990--my son joined me in 1997 and I'm turning over my business to him as we speak--I will never retire, just be a problem for him and watch the money (he doesn't seem to mind). I own our building and lease half of it to an MD--great tenant--great retirement income--you should have seen the basket I took her (not as nice as yours,) after she spent $25,000 remodeling her part-really nice---I'm so happy for you both--you will do well, Bill

[cjs]

All I can say is, WOW! Great looking brownies, and gift basket! They all will be thrilled.

Just tossing out a thought here, Vicci - with all the trouble getting 'perfect' squares, I wonder if working with the unfrosted squares, you could handle them like petit four? altho, an under icing is usually used also, so maybe more trouble than not.

What you did, even with all the work, looks just great.

[Trixxee]

Those are beautiful!