Pepper Design Blog

Frightfully Delicious Dessert Buffet by Amy Atlas

It’s about that time of the year for some fabulous Halloween inspiration! We may be six weeks away… but it’s the PERFECT holiday to show off great {creepy} crafty skills, so get those idea fountains flowing! How many opportunities do you really get throughout the year to make spooky stew or creepy crawly spider cupcakes?

Dessert bars are by far my favorite — I created one last year for Halloween based off of this terrific Amy Atlas design and my guests were so afraid to eat and ‘destroy’ it, because it’s so fun to look at and makes a great party centerpiece!

Amy Atlas is just so darn clever, you can design your entire party around her buffet’s because they make such a statement on their own!

Friday Guest Blog Interview: Celebrations at Home!

It is such an honor to host Chris of Celebrations at Home for our Friday Guest Blog series! She’s an extremely talented event planner & styler (you MUST check out her nautical themed baby shower after the jump!) with a degree in Fashion Merchandising and a spot-on specialty for creating perfect celebrations. Her passions include fashion, interior decorating and entertaining — and you’ll absolutely agree with me that her eye for details is superb after reading her interview! After throwing a multitude of themed parties, showers and events for family and friends, she finally took her passion to the blogging world and created Celebrations at Home.

Again, we quizzed her with four critical home & entertaining design questions, and you will love her answers! She’s offered us some incredible inspiration, tips and DIY ideas for our next Celebration at Home. Read more »

Cupcake Heaven: Delicious Lemon Raspberry!

The search today for modern & pretty — but delightfully appetizing & divine — cupcakes is virtually endless. Cupcakes are the new wedding cake, dessert bar and afternoon snack. There are so many fabulous bakeries sprinkled about to satisfy the craving — but when Vanilla Bake Shop decided to divulge one of it’s best kept secrets, how to recreate the salivatingly sweet Raspberry Meyer Lemon Cupcake with Martha and her audience, I dropped everything to give it a try myself. Amy Berman (founder of the Santa Monica patisserie) was featured on The Martha Stewart Show after proving that her cupcakes were not only beautiful, but also extraordinarily finger-licking delicious!

Note: the Raspberry Meyer Lemon Cupcake is pictured top left in the picture below, the other delicious goodies shown are also all Vanilla Bake Shop.

After many an attempt to recreate such delectable finds on my own, I borrowed Amy’s recipe to make the (complicated but definitely worth it) treats for a friend’s beach baby shower.

While the pressed white sugar topping is clever (I’ll be using that again) I opted to swap it out for crushed graham crackers for a sun-kissed, sandy-beach cupcake topped with candy shells. (Another great hint after experimentation: try adding a whole raspberry into each filling hole with the lemon meyer concentrate – you’ll knowwhat I mean after you watch the video). For a link to a video of Martha and Amy assembling the mini creations — as well as the recipe — follow the jump. Read more »