ttyl

Hey, party people. The Evite Blog will be taking a hiatus while we're working on some exciting new things.

While we're away, check out some of our favorite blog posts to keep you inspired for your next party:

• Watermelon + power tools + alcohol = AWESOME! A watermelon keg keeps the good times flowing.

• Knives: Great gifts or bad luck? We discuss the superstition and let users weigh in.

• Everyone likes a good dip. Find out what happened when we made our Sweet Seven Layer Dip.

• Is having a second baby shower perfectly acceptable or a party faux pas?

• Turn a science project into spiked slushies. We tell you how to impress your guests with a block of dry ice and a bottle of booze.

• Peanut butter, good. Jelly, good. Cupcakes, goooood. Our PB&J Cupcake recipe is perfect for both the young and the young at heart.

• Get glowing party décor with nothing more than paper bags, sand and candles.

a vintage bridal shower tea

Like this design? Create an Evite invitation with this image.

Showering a bride-to-be with gifts and good wishes is a lovely tradition, and a fête that is uniquely hers makes the day memorable. While it’s easy—and appreciated—to purchase a gift from the registry, an unexpected set of exquisite, mismatched vintage teacups makes a great surprise for the guest of honor.

Here’s how it works:

• In the invitation, ask each guest to bring one pretty vintage teacup to the shower. (The hostess may want to have a few additional teacups at the ready in case a guest forgets.)
• Also encourage guests to wear any long, old-fashioned gloves they may have; it is a vintage tea party! Older family members will be delighted to dust a pair off, and younger attendees will enjoy playing dress-up. (The organizers may want to provide some at the shower for ladies to borrow and wear.)
• Be sure to ask one guest, perhaps the hostess or the organizers, to gift the bride-to-be with a tea pot.
• At the shower, set aside a small table or area for guests to drop off the teacup they brought, and then encourage everyone to use them! At the end of the party the bride has a pretty mismatched tea set to take home as a sweet memento of the day. 
• This sort of shower makes figuring out the favors easy! A tin of tea, a strainer and some honey (or any combination thereof) is great with the theme.

Note: Vintage tea cups and old-fashioned long gloves can be found at thrift stores, estate sales, church/synagogue bazaars or can come from one’s own collection—trés eco-friendly! It’s especially meaningful if family members have an heirloom teacup they’re willing to give.

ice cream as you like it

A caterer recently told me: “Biscuit tortoni is back!” Having no idea what she was talking about, I took her word for it.

Soon after, a friend of mine described her favorite dessert to me. It involved combining softened ice cream and amaretto and crushed macaroons. She loved it so much, she regularly requested it as her birthday dessert over cake growing up.

It took me some Internet sleuthing, but I soon discovered that the caterer and my friend were talking about the same thing. Biscuit tortoni is a creamy retro dessert that you serve in cupcake liners—it also happens to be extremely easy to make.

Another fantastic thing about this dessert: It’s very tweak-able. Have rum in the house instead of amaretto? Then use that! Prefer chocolate to almonds? Add those instead! Below I give you the dessert and all the options I encountered during my Internet search. (And to give credit where credit is due—I relied on these two recipes most heavily.)

Biscuit Tortoni

• 2 ½ cups macaroons or chocolate-dipped macaroons or amarettini cookies
• ½ cup chopped toasted almonds or chocolate pieces or chopped maraschino cherries or a combination of these things (more or less to taste)
• ¼ cup amaretto or dark rum or brandy or sherry (more or less to taste)
• 1 cup heavy cream, chilled
• 2 tsp almond extract or another liquor/liqueur from above (more or less to taste)
• 1 quart vanilla ice cream, softened
• Maraschino cherries, drained and halved for garnish

1. Crumble the cookies into ½-inch pieces, roughly. (Putting the cookies in a Ziploc bag and running a rolling pin over them tends to work well—macaroons will require you to break up additionally with your fingers.) Toss with almonds or whatever you’re using. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, beat cream with an electric mixer until thickened. Pour in the amaretto (or whatevs) and whip until medium peaks form. Fold the cookie mixture into the whipped cream, reserving ¾ cup or so for topping. (Some recipes suggest you pour the liquor over the cookies and then fold the mixture into the cream.)

3. Add the almond extract to the softened ice cream and stir until blended and very smooth. Fold cookie/whipped cream mixture into ice cream. Will look soupy.

4. Spoon into baking cups or ramekins. Sprinkle each cup with some of the reserved cookie mixture and top with a cherry. (Some of my cherries sunk. You may want to let the mixture sit in the freezer before adding the cherries.) Freeze until firm. Remove from freezer and allow to soften before serving.

Makes roughly 15 individual servings

put your stamp on it

Want your party favors to say “you”? Easy enough. Just put your name/initials/face on one of these customizable options perfect for baby and bridal showers, wedding favors and more.

• In the cookie department, we have: The Flour Pot, Freedom Bakery and Confections, and Gumdrop Cookie Shop. At Flour Pot, you can put you and your spouse-to-be’s names on cookies. At FB&C, you can put your mugs on shortbread. Or go for monograms at Gumdrop.

• M&Ms get personal by dropping the famed Ms in favor of your initials. Go whole hog and select a color scheme to match your wedding party.

• Personal Wine lets you do the talking with personalized wine labels. Use one of their templates, or create your own.

• Or create a label to go on anything at all at Beau-coup: candle tins, mint tins, even lip butters.

question of the week: summer tv

Summer has long been considered a wasteland when it comes to television. But is there another time of the year when it's this acceptable to indulge in reality TV?

And a little shameless plug: If you're having friends over to watch your favorite show, send them an invitation from our movie / TV night gallery.

play dough cookies

By now, we've probably all seen the awesomeness that is the Rainbow Cake. But Play Dough Cookies are poised to steal its multicolored thunder!

Perfect for both the young and the young at heart, these cookies will certainly steal the spotlight on any dessert table. You can find different variations online that include using sticks to make them look like lollipops — my favorite of which is this step-by-step pictorial that makes the whole process seem so simple (don't let it bother you that the text is in Serbian).

take two: brie en croute

Today is Bastille Day! What better way to celebrate le quatorze juillet (or even just a random Tuesday) than with some melty French cheese tucked inside a deliciously flaky crust. Here is Christine's take on the très mouthwatering brie en croûte.

Serving a wedge of brie at a party is a sure crowd-pleaser, but wrap it in puff pastry and bake it, and it’s downright showstopping.

Every time I serve the French specialty brie en croûte, it’s gone by mid-party. No one has any shame about eating the last bit. I’ve seen people spy the last of the brie, pick up the plate right off of the serving table, and walk away with it. I take it as a compliment.

This dish also makes a perfectly satisfying meal accompanied by a green salad — think of it as inverted fondue.

Brie en Croûte

• A round of brie
• Puff pastry (thawed)
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup pecans
• Cinnamon to taste
• Egg white, slightly beaten
• Apples and or pear slices

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out pastry with rolling pin until it can envelop the brie. Place brie on pastry and sprinkle with brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon. Close pastry around brie. Seal edges by brushing with egg white, then pinching together. Brush rest of pastry with remaining egg white. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until brown. Serve with apples or pears.

Brie en Croûte

• A round of brie
• Puff pastry (thawed)
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup pecans
• Cinnamon to taste
• Egg white, slightly beaten
• Apples and or pear slices

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out pastry with rolling pin until it can envelop the brie. Place brie on pastry and sprinkle with brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon. Close pastry around brie. Seal edges by brushing with egg white, then pinching together. Brush rest of pastry with remaining egg white. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until brown. Serve with apples or pears.

question of the week: summer drinks

Certain drinks have a way of conjuring up images of summertime. A daiquiri brings to mind lounging in a poolside chaise, a Mai Tai says sunset at the beach while a glass of Sangria sends you to a backyard barbecue.

Tell us which drink says summer to you.

pie dough change-o

In my family, the leftover pie dough is as big a deal as the actual pie. We make Dum-Dums out of them—a cinnamony pinwheel cookie whose name origin nobody recalls and appears to have no logic.

I adore these cookies, and they only appear around the holidays, so they’re a real treat. They won't win any beauty contests, but they're awfully tasty and smell divine. Once, my family made Dum-Dums and ate them all before I awoke. I was SO MAD. Perhaps it was my own fault since I slept in so late—that was my family’s stance—but I felt deeply wronged.

Recently I discovered these cookies don’t have to be a holidays-only kind of thing. I made a pie for a potluck, and, as is customary in my family, I used a recipe that gives you enough dough to cover the top of the pie, but then I didn’t cover it. I made Dum-Dums with the extra dough and served them to a friend one early evening. As it turned out, they are the perfect little sweet thing to serve a guest. I told my friend the story of the all the Dum-Dums being gone before I awoke. After eating one, she said: “I would have been mad about that, too.”

Dum-Dums

Leftover pie dough
Butter, melted
Brown sugar
Cinnamon
Nuts, finely chopped (optional)

Measurements are impossible for this recipe since it all depends on how much leftover pie dough you have. (Or make the pie dough, skip the pie and bake these.)

Preheat oven to 325.

Roll out the dough so it’s about 1/8 inch thick. Brush with melted butter. Cover with a layer of brown sugar—add as much as you think you’d like. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nuts, if using. (Pecans are a nice addition.) Roll dough into a log, then slice into roughly 1/4-inch slices. Put on baking sheet and brush with more butter, if desired. Bake for about 15 minutes or until dough is cooked but not brown.

Best served warm.

on the cuff

The baby shower world has lots of knickknacks for the new mom-to-be — beauty products, jewelry, scrapbooks, etc. But dads have a way of getting overlooked in the gift department.

Now snazzy dads everywhere can present the newest members of their family by way of these sonogram cuff links. They're subtle, sleek and the perfect way to be a proud dad-to-be.