Ana's Advent Baptism Brunch

I can't believe that it is already the end of January and Ana is already almost 4 months old!  Today I an finally getting around to blogging about Ana's baptism brunch which happened in the middle of December.

When Lyla was baptized I held a brunch at our house after the service and you can read more about that in this post:

This time around I decided to make the decor and cake Christmas themed since the baptism was during Advent.

I had a hot chocolate bar similar to the one from this Baby It's Cold Outside baby shower.  I used a cake stand and a tray that I already had decorated with some Christmas decor that I had on hand.

I served the hot chocolate in my Cocoa Latte dispenser.  This appliance is no longer made but I love it because it keeps the hot chocolate at the perfect temp and stirs it too.  I also served water with orange slices.

I decorated the table with these simple vases wrapped in velvet ribbon.  I found the fake pine bouquets at Joann Fabrics.  I served three types of breakfast sliders and a hash brown crockpot casserole.  The sliders are so easy because they use King's Hawaiian buns.  I didn't really use a specific recipe.  I just looked at a few and made my own.  I served three types: bacon, egg and cheese, ham and cheese, and mushroom, spinach, egg and cheese.  Each slider had a different glaze on top.  The ham ones were topped with a butter, honey and mustard mixture.  The bacon ones were topped with a butter and maple syrup mixture.  Finally the vegetarian ones were top with a garlic herb butter mixture.

I made this cake topper using my Silhouette Portrait and gold glitter card stock.

This cake was my absolute favorite part of the whole brunch.  I usually am not very successful at making cakes pretty but this one was pretty and extremely tasty.  The cake was a vanilla cake with mascarpone frosting and a cranberry cherry filling.  I used this recipe for the cake and frosting.  I used this recipe for the filling.  I made sugared cranberries using this tutorial and decorated the cake with sugared cranberries and sprigs of rosemary.  I used a mesh strainer filled with powdered sugar to sprinkle powdered sugar onto the rosemary sprigs to make it look like snow.

Here is what the cake looked like when cut.  It was seriously so tasty and I think this mascarpone frosting is my absolute favorite cake frosting ever.  It was not too sweet which is just the way I like my frosting.

I'm not sure what my next blog post will be since things have gotten really busy since I've gone back to work but hopefully it won't be too long before I post again!