Nothing Bakes Like a Parrott

30th Birthday Celebration

At the end of August, my sister Sarah, turned 30!  I still have a couple more years to go, but had so much fun helping to plan her surprise party.  Sarah's husband, Rich, rented a cabin on a lake in Maine for the week, so we had the party right on the lake.  I was in charge of the decorations and dessert. 

I created all of the floral arrangements in collected vases, jars, and these cute ice cream bowls.  The flowers were placed on old wood boxes both found and made by my husband and father-in-law out of reclaimed wood.  Tables were covered with pretty pink, green, and yellow vintage table cloths.

For dessert I did a build-you-own strawberry shortcake bar complete with vanilla cupcakes, biscuits, and angel food cake.  Friends and family could pick from fresh or sweetened strawberries, ice cream, cool whip, and whip cream.  I also made Italian cookies and brownie and s'more pops as favors.

Island Wedding Adventures

Happy Summer!  It has been a busy Spring and Summer in the bakery full of weddings, showers, and parties.  This past weekend we did some island hopping for three weddings on two islands!

We headed to Peaks Island first for a wedding at Harborview at Jones Landing and The Inn on Peaks.

The dessert table at Jones Landing included mini cupcakes, blueberry pie pops, chocolate-covered pretzles, s'mores pops, brownie pops, classic whoopie pies, a 2-tiered coconut cake with coconut buttercream, and sea glass candy.

Event planning and design was done by Sarah Goodwin of daisies & pearls merrymaking.

We headed back to the mainland to hop back on a water taxi to Diamond Cove.

We love a classic fondant-covered cake decorated with fresh, seasonal flowers.  Mason jars were placed around the cake where the bridesmaids would eventually place their bouquets.

We loved all the nautical touches from the lobster trap display for the escort cards to the white cord around the table numbers.  So perfect for a Maine wedding!

And after a long day of set-up, all my sister, Sarah, who came with me to Diamond Cove, and I could think about was ICE CREAM!  Diamond Cove has one restaurant, a general store, and an art gallery.  As we waited for our water taxi to pick us up (because we missed the ferry, oops!) we went to the general store to be greeted with this sign:

Frowny face, indeed!  They did manage to dig up to semi-frozen twix ice cream bars, which did the trick.  Then we headed back to Portland and called it a day!

Valentine's Day Engagement Shoot

I recently had the great pleausre of collaborating with a group of wonderfully talented wedding professionals for a 1950's-inspired, surprise Valetine's Day engagement at my bakery.  You may read about the inspriation and story behind the shoot on our amazing designer and stylist, Sarah Goodwin's, blog.

Photography: Meredith Perdue

Design, Styling and Tablescape: Sarah Goodwin: daisies & pearls

Dessert Table and Venue: Jessica Parrott Robitaille: Nothing Bakes Like a Parrott

Paper Goods: Sarah Parrott Bianculli: Parrott Design Studio

Photo Booth: Parrott’s Photo Booth Company

Hair and Makeup: Michelle Wheaton: ENVY Hair Salon

A special thanks to our super cute models, Chris and Lindsey.  We had so much fun spending the afternoon with them and loved hearing their love story.

Preppy Wedding at the Abenaqui Country Club

One of most favorite weddings from this past summer!  Tasty treats including brownie pops, pie pops, fruit tarts, cannolis, baklava, mini whoopie pies and mini cupcakes. 

This beautiful preppy wedding was designed my Kate Parker Designs

You may see more details of their wedding here and here.

All photos by Mark Davidson.

The Noyes Brain Tumor Foundation Annual Event

Every year I have the honor and privilage to work with the Noyes Brain Tumor Foundation and their Cooking For a Cure Event which raises money for brain tumor research at St. Jude's Children's Hospital.  This year I had a little fun with tissue paper and tasty treats!

I also had the opportunity to create ALL of the centerpieces for the event!

 

Wedding Pie Dessert Table in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I wanted to share a pie table we did this past summer!  The wedding was held at the Harbour Place in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  The simple and rustic table included blueberry and pecan pies, accompanied by fresh whip cream, along with a giant pile of whoopie pies.

Diana Ma was the event designer and wedding planner.  I loved the long family-style seating, the burlap runners, and lovely floral centerpieces.

Autumn Inspired Wedding Dessert Table

The 2011 wedding season came to a close for Nothing Bakes Like a Parrott this past sunday at Grace in Portland.  We ended on a great note with this fall inspired cupcake table.

The wedding colors were beautiful fall tones of browns, golds, purples, and pewter.  I have been dying to use kale in a dessert table this season and was so excited to finally get to showcase it!  Along with sweet mini pumpkins!

The cupcake flavors were also inspired by the seasons.  We made a tasty pumpkin cupcake with maple buttercream, a vanilla spice cupcake with a fresh apple chutney filling and a delicious chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganache.  Yum!

We also had a first in our kitchen by making non-pareils!  This nostaligic tasty treat was such a great addition and surprisingly not as difficult as I initially thought to make!  Along with the non-pareils we also had fall-inspired M&M's.

The rooms was beautiful (as always with Grace!)

Probably one of my most favorite details was the lace around the vase - fanastic!

Casino Themed Wedding Desert Table

One of the most fun "themed" dessert tables from the 2011 wedding season is this is this Vegas themed jem!  For this table we took some subtle feelings of Sin City and made it sweet!

One of our favorite details is the playing card holders for all the mini cupcakes.  Super cute way to bring a fun detail to a tasty treat!

Yes - the bride and groom are high fiving! 

Another fun detail to our sugar cookies is the frosting playing cards!  And on our to-go bags - what is more vegas than a kiss-y lips?!

Elegant Pink and Navy Wedding Dessert Table

This adorable pink and navy table was done for a fantastic bride and groom!  We did a bunch of fun and tasty treats for the table including mini cupcakes, cheesecake pops, whoopie pies, and brownie pops. 

The Bride's faminly also made some delicious italian cookies (because what would an Italian wedding be without italian cookies?!) and amazing rum balls (seriously tasty!)

We also arranged some gorgeous white hydrangeas and a variety of pink and white large roses and spray roses.

Ahhh... italian!

Every dessert was also equiped with letterpress tags done by my sister Sarah, from Parrott Design Studio.  She also did their invitations so we were able to incorporate the theme of the invites to the tags!

The cupcakes included chocolate pecan coconut frosting, chocolate cupcakes with ganache and a salted caramel filling, vanilla with strawberry buttercream and vanilla cupcakes with buttercream - yum!

This wedding was so beautiful!  I was so glad to be a part of it!

Wolfe's Neck Farm Wedding Dessert Table

I love all of the beautiful dessert tables I have the opportunity to design each wedding season, and this one *might* be one of my most favorite!  This wedding was held at Wolfe's Neck Farm in Freeport, Maine and planned by Sarah Goodwin and daisies and pearl Merry Making.  The lovely and fantastic bride and groom wanted a feel of upscale picnic and gave me room to play.  

For this dessert table we integrated beautiful flowers and greenery along with artichokes, brussel sprouts, lemons, and limes.  The sweets also integrated fresh touches of Maine including strawberry-rhubarb and fresh orchard apple mini pies, white whoopie pies with fresh blueberry preserve and mascarpone filling, mini cupcakes and the always popular brownie pops and chocolate dipped pretzle rods.

Thank you so much Perrin and Shirley for letting me share in your beauitful wedding!