Dulce Designs Candy

Happy Valentine’s Day

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:40:25 +0000

Happy Valentine’s day to all my clients, family and friends! Today is not just about sharing love with your spouse or significant other it is also about showing love and kindness to all those loved one’s in your life. My husband and I usually do not really celebrate Valentine’s day except for a simple card and some carry out…but this year he has decided to take me out to a nice dinner and I could not be more excited for a date night with him, I even bought a new maternity dress!! We are going to Daveed’s at 934 in Mt. Adams, I have never been but have heard great things. I am also secretly hoping that my husband continues the tradition of getting me chocolate covered Oreo’s from Graeters…they are my favorite, that combined with dinner would be a perfect day for me!

Here is a very simple Valentine’s day recipe I wanted to share with you all courtesy of Glendora Patch. Chocolate covered strawberries are a perfect gift to give on this special day or just for you to enjoy yourself!

Ingredients

1 12 oz. package of semi sweet chocolate morsels

1 12 oz. package of white chocolate morsels

½ cups of half and half

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Clean the strawberries, pat dry.

Make sure strawberries are at room temperature.

Have either toothpicks and a block of Styrofoam, or piece of wax paper ready.

Stick toothpicks through the top end of the strawberries.

Leave the leaves on the strawberries

Melt the chocolate morsels in a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, place the chocolate in a Pyrex bowl and place over a small saucepan.

Pour the half and half and the vanilla extract into the melted chocolate and stir.

Dip your strawberries into the mixture.

If you have a Styrofoam block, stick the other end of the toothpick into the Styrofoam to let the strawberry dry. If you just have wax paper, place your strawberries to dry on the wax paper.

Chill the strawberries for about 15-30 minutes in the refrigerator. Do not leave them in the fridge longer, or they will start to look white and chalky.

The Knot Best of Weddings 2012 Pick

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:06:28 +0000

We are proud to announce that Dulce Designs has been rated by local brides and voted The Knot Best of Weddings 2012 Pick for the second year in a row. Again this is all because we have awesome bride’s who leave such kind words about us, so a big thank you to all of our past clients! We are so excited to see what 2012 has in store for us, I can already tell there are going to be some fabulous events coming up. Right now is our booking season and this time I really enjoy because it gives me an opportunity to really focus on meeting and getting to know my new clients/brides.

I am also very excited to be doing a Valentine’s day themed candy/coffee/hot chocolate buffet at my good friends Lindsey’s wedding this weekend. This candy buffet will be full of yummy treats (all in the color red) and it is also my first time adding a coffee/hot chocolate station to the buffet. I have been amazed at the delicious and unique items you can add to a hot chocolate and coffee station…I will be sure to post photos soon!

Again thank you to all my bride’s and past clients for the great reviews on The Knot, looking forward to more great things in 2012!

Bride’s Choice Awards 2012 Winner!

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:40:43 +0000

We are so pleased to announce that for the second straight year in a row we have won the Bride’s Choice Award. Thank you to all our past bride’s and clients…we could not have done this without your support and kind words!!

{Cincinnati,OH} – January 23, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce Dulce Designs has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for Favors & Gifts!

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, Dulce Designs was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Dulce Designs is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Dulce Designs for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.”

We are happy to announce that Dulce Designs is one of the very best Favors and Gifts professionals within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for taking the time to review our business on WeddingWire. Thanks to their positive feedback we were able to receive the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ for 2012.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/dulce-designs-cincinnati/320e7eff7c84c540.html.

To learn more about the Bride’s Choice Awards™, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

S’mores Buffet

admin — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:48:25 +0000

I have found the cutest candy buffet alternative that I must share! A s’mores buffet…this is so fun and while it could be a bit messy at a large wedding/event without an attendant cleaning it up or supervising, it is perfect for: birthday parties, engagement parties, baby showers, bridal parties etc… The best part it looks so easy to do and you can also include other complimentary desserts to make it more of a dessert bar. I also love how it looks while displayed and the below picture of s’mores edible favors is so adorable! If you are interested in doing a s’mores buffet for your event but do not want the hassle of setting it up, call Dulce Designs to help!

Here are some inspirational photos I found:

Dulce’s Winter Referral Deal

admin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:45:40 +0000

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a marvelous holiday and New Years celebrated with family, friends and great food. I am so excited to get ready for 2012…I have a feeling this is going to be a great year and we already have many stellar events planned this year. We are however still booking events and wanted to take this time to offer a great deal to past clients and brides. If you refer a bride/client to Dulce Designs anytime January-March once they are all booked you will receive $50…it is just that easy! I hope you all take advantage of this great opportunity.

I look forward to a great booking season and we also have some great things in the works we will be sharing shortly!

Let me know if you have any questions.

Happy Holidays

admin — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 01:30:43 +0000

We wanted to take this time to thank everyone for their business and continued support in 2011! It was a very successful year and we owe it all to our clients and those we partner with. I personally wanted to also thank my husband for all of his love and confidence in me this year with Dulce as well as my dear friends (Nicole, Jen, and Marlisa) whom I bounce many ideas off of.

We wish everyone a Happy Holiday and a very blessed New Year! We will be out of the office until early January to celebrate the holidays and new year with family and loved ones.

Thank you all again and see you in 2012!

A Gold and White Candy Buffet

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:47:05 +0000

I have to take one quick second to brag…I really do have some fabulous brides that I work with!

This past July’s couple was no exception and so in love are they. I worked closely with Liz to design a candy buffet that matched her wedding decor and also that included her pets and love for animals. The result was fabulous and she was even so kind as to share some photos with me to post on here. Here is what she had to say about her candy buffet, “Working with Angela was the easiest part of my whole wedding. She was prompt and receptive to my ideas–even when I had a bridezilla moment and decided to replace my entire order. The Candy Bar looked beautiful–and, of course, yummy. My photographer must have thought so as well–because we have about 15 photos of it from many different angles! It’s also refreshing to see a young woman in Cincy starting her own business. Angela’s professionalism and creativity were second to none–and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate her flexibility and responsiveness.” And by the way Liz was in NO WAY a bridezilla…she was awesome to work with and so organized!!!

Thank you Jeff and Liz…I wish you a lifetime of happiness!

All labels and signs are courtesy of: Design the Date

Not Your Average Rice Krispy Treat!

admin — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:16:41 +0000

This past weekend 6 of my old sorority sisters and I all met in Chicago for our annual girls weekend getaway! This is a great time for all of us to get together to catch up and reminisce. I look forward to this all year long, we always have such a great time! The older you get it is hard to all stay in touch with one another so knowing that we do this every year makes it a lot easier for everyone to stay in contact and gives us something to look forward to. I can say that this year I definitely became aware of the fact that I am getting older…after a long day of shopping I was in desperate need of a nap and when 10pm rolled around the yawns starting coming. But we had a GREAT time filled with sigh seeing, cocktails (just cranberry juice for me, of course, because of the babe!), shopping, great food and even better company. Our hotel, The Wit, was very swanky and in a great location of Chicago and dinner at Hub 51 on Saturday was amazing (thanks to my husband for the recommendation). My favorite part of the trip was our late night visit to “the bean” in Millennium Park, it was super cold and rainy but we had a blast. Two of my best girlfriends and I rode together on the way down and our car ride was full of lots of chatting (of course), Christmas music and yummy car treats such as: Mike and Ikes, Swedish Fish and Hot Tamales…all my favorites! The best was the cake batter rice crispy treats my friend Jen made…they were amazing and very addicting!

So good, in fact, that I had to share the recipe with you all…I hope you enjoy.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp. butter
1 (10 oz.) bag of mini-marshmallows
1/4 cup yellow cake mix (the dry cake mix, not prepared into a batter!)
6 cups crispy rice cereal
1 (1.75 oz.) container of sprinkles

Method:

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat and add marshmallows. Stir until they begin to melt, adding in (dry) cake mix one spoonful at a time so its combined. Stir in cereal so it is completely coated with marshmallow mixture. Sprinkle in half of the sprinkles and mix. Press into a baking dish (any size will do) and top with remaining sprinkles. Let sit for about 30 minutes before cutting. I find spraying a knife with nonstick spray helps to cut them. **TIP: For more of a cake batter flavor increase the amount of cake mix to 1/3 cup!

Recipe and photo courtesy of: http://gimmesomeoven.com/cake-batter-rice-crispy-treats/

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

admin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 21:12:34 +0000

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?! The best part is these are egg free so very safe to eat although maybe not the healthiest…but you can have anything in moderation right?!

Happy Cooking!! Recipe and photo courtesy of Recipegirl.com

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

Yield: 32 brownies

Prep Time: 30 min + cooling time

Cook Time: 25 min

These brownies are a major treat for cookie dough lovers…

Ingredients:

BROWNIE:
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

COOKIE DOUGH (EGG FREE!):
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3 Tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup semisweet chips + 1 teaspoon shortening for drizzle, optional

Directions:

1. Prepare the brownies: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 9×13-inch pan with nonstick spray. In a medium glass bowl, melt chocolate in the microwave in short bursts of 30 seconds; stir after each burst and remove from microwave when melted and smooth. Set aside to cool slightly. In a large mixing bowl, mix butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract. Mix in melted chocolate. Blend in flour and mix just until combined (don’t over-mix). Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake 25 to 35 minutes. Watch closely and remove from oven when toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely.

2. Prepare the cookie dough: In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to combine butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Mix in milk and vanilla. Mix in flour just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

3. Spread cookie dough over the cooled brownies. Refrigerate until the dough is quite firm. It’s okay to speed up the process and place it in the freezer too. The firmer the dough, the easier it will be to cut into neat squares. Use a sharp knife to cut the brownies. You may need to wipe the knife off with a paper towel in between cuts since the fudgy brownies and cookie dough will tend to stick to the knife a bit. These brownies are best to serve placed inside cupcake papers and served with a fork.

4. If you’d like to add chocolate drizzle on top, melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips with 1 teaspoon of shortening in the microwave; stir until smooth. Scoop the melted chocolate into a zip baggie and snip off the corner. Squeeze the bag to drizzle the chocolate on top of each brownie. Sprinkle additional chocolate chips on top, if desired.

Fall 2011 Bridal Shows

admin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:08:08 +0000

As you all may know we have been super busy with bridal shows this fall! We participated in two wonderful bridal shows one at The Newport Aquarium and the other one for A Bride’s Concierge held at Paul Brown Stadium…both shows combined had almost 500 brides. It was so much fun to combine talents with Sweet Petit Desserts to create a dessert buffet for all the bride’s and groom’s to check out. We love working together and the options for dessert buffets is endless! Check out the below combination photo from our shows and email me for more information on how to have a dessert buffet at your next event.