Belle Amour Less of the traditional & more of the original

Some of you may remember a post back in September about The European Sweet Table Contest 2010. I love sweet tables and so decided to make my own and enter. As a sweet table takes quite a bit of work I made it for my birthday and invited relatives round to help me eat it!

Thinking of a theme

I wanted to give the table a theme rather than just a colour and my love of fairytales led to Snow White & the Seven Dwarves. The intro to the story talks of the queen wanting a child that was ‘as fair as snow, as rosy as the red blood and with hairs and eyes as black as ebony’ so that decided my colours for me: red, black and white. Other elements of the story are the wicked stepmother asking a huntsman to bring back Snow White’s heart, he instead bought back a deer’s heart. This led to deer cake toppers that I sprayed red, heart biscuits and I also cross-stitched a heart, then covered a button with it, for the bow around the cake.

Of course it wouldn’t be right without the seven dwarves so I made some! Technically I guess they are gnomes as I used a gnome mould and plaster of paris but they look like dwarves! I also created ‘mountains’ of cranberry nougat; the cranberries being the jewels for them to mine.

Finally is the poisoned apple that the stepmother gives to Snow White, to represent this I made red candied apples using sticks from my apple tree in the back garden and also had one as the cake topper.

Beautifying the backdrop!

For the backdrop I wanted a rustic feel and the woodland wallpaper was perfect; I blu-tacked it to my living room for the purpose of the shoot. The finishing touch… the famous mirror! I did Photoshop out the reflection because me with a camera kind of ruined the look but it is a real mirror bought from eBay that I sprayed black. The table was also an eBay find exchanged for a couple of bags of sweets for the owner’s children! I also sprayed it black. Ideally it would have been a more ornate, vintage, black table with peeling paint but I just didn’t have the funds.

It was quite a bit of work but I enjoyed pulling in all the different elements and seeing the table come together. And it was worth it… I won!

Dessert table details

Red velvet cake and cupcakes with cheesecake frosting.

Candied apples with whittled sticks from the garden.

Heart biscuits: these were from a recipe book. Any plain biscuit recipe would work. Roll out the dough and cut 2 hearts per biscuit and then a smaller heart out of one of the hearts. When baked, spread jam on the complete heart and dust the hearts with heart-shaped-holes with icing sugar and plop on top of the jam ones!

Nougat with cranberries and macadamia nuts. I didn’t dip the nougat in chocolate however and rather than let it set completely I mounded it into a ‘mountain’ shape around a paper cone.

The book pages were created using an old-fashioned font and a beautiful illustration I found here. I just brightened it up a touch before printing it out.

Thank you!

Many thanks to the lovely judges Lindsey, Jenn, Kim, Courtney & Kate who voted for me, to Laure of Sweet Girly Mommy for putting on the competition, Love ‘n Gift for the generous prize and a huge congratulations to the other sweet table makers, I had some tough competition! Please do check them out here, they’re lovely!

Debs