Summer is not just about flowery landscapes and long days in the park. This particular season is also synonymous with weddings due to the fact that the wonderful weather is perfectly suitable for that special day in a person's life. During the summer season, outdoor weddings are extremely popular and are usually embellished with colorful decorations.

To emphasize summer within your wedding décor, you can add berries as a part of your cuisine, as well as to make your place settings even more spectacular. An ideal option is to add a colorful wedding cake that is made of fresh fruits like strawberries. This will not only add a wonderful burst of joy to the festivities, it will also be a unique wedding cake that will bring together the colors and taste of these fruits.

Paired together with flowers, berry fruits can make glorious decorations and can immensely enhance the entire atmosphere of a function. Not only do these unique decorations celebrate the glory of the season, they also symbolize abundance and a hearty future.

However, berries can have a lot of importance at a wedding that goes beyond the decorations. The best part about these fruits is that they can easily be used in all types of cuisine and in all courses. From appetizers to dessert, berries can liven up any dish and make your ceremony even more exotic. There are several berry recipes that will help you get started on choosing the best dishes to be a part of your wedding menu. Despite popular belief, fruits can also adorn the main course of your menu and therefore are not restricted only to the desserts. Fruits like strawberries go great with meats like Chicken or Fish and can add an exotic twist to a simple recipe.

The internet is an ideal source for unique and one-of-a-kind berry recipes that will help you get started on planning your wedding menu. These fruits can also be the theme of your wedding and make it a novel celebration. It is also a little known fact that fruits can make a great giveaway at a wedding. Friends would definitely enjoy a basketful of colorful fruits to take home and remind them of the wonderful celebration.

While choosing berries, it is important to be sure of the source from which you procure them. Only the best quality fruits will suit your special day so it is imperative that you conduct thorough research about the source of the berries in order to ensure that you receive only the highest standard of fruits. The internet will provide you with ample information about a particular source. Get started on selecting the best possible fruits for your wedding and start the preparation of adding a special element to the most important day of your life. Berries will help you make your summer wedding even more exotic and ensure that it is remembered for a long time.

Berries at Driscoll's - We grow some of the finest strawberries, raspberries, blueberries & blackberries. Also, we have a huge variety of berry recipes for you because there is just so much one can do with berries. Our recipe index gives you options for appetizers, beverages, main courses, etc. Check out our entire recipe index here. If you would like to speak to a Driscoll's representative, please call our 24 hour toll free number at 1-800-871-3333.

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The use of sugar in baking is vital to a bakers knowledge, but not too complex. To understand its role in baking, we must understand where it came from. Sugar cane was the first source of white sugar. It is a grass that originated from Asia, though it now grows in many locales. It was later discovered that sugar could be obtained from beets as well. Whether cane or beet is used, the juices are extracted and purified with carbon dioxide. Sugar crystals are formed from this juice. These sugars are complex, consisting of sucrose and fructose. There are some who believe one is better than the other, but most agree they are of basically the same quality. Almost everyone knows that sugar acts as a sweetener, but it also acts as a preservative and adds volume, tenderness, and color.

When sugar is creamed with butter, air bubbles are created in the butter. The leavening agent then expands those air bubbles and the reaction creates a rise when baking. This enhances the volume of the baked goods. Sugar has hygroscopic properties, which means it also draws in moisture from the other batter ingredients. The amount of gluten is thus reduced which produces a more tender, softer end result. Less gluten also means greater volume because the baked good will rise more. Due to the fact that sugar draws in and absorbs moisture, it prolongs the shelf life of the baked good. In this way, it acts as a preservative. Any kind of liquid sugar will hold the most moisture and stay fresh longer than if a different kind was used. Brown sugar holds the second-most moisture. This is helpful because, as a baker, I want my products to stay fresh as long as possible. Sugar also effects the color of the baked good. The browning in the oven is the result of the sugars reacting with the proteins when heated. A light-colored crust tells you there isn't very much sugar in a baked good. This is especially helpful if you are watching your sugar intake.

To illustrate this point, in my early years, I once followed a recipe for cookies but accidentally added less than half the sugar that it called for. The resulting cookies were crunchy bricks. It didn't help that, thinking I was an expert, I made a 250 batch of these bricks. My aunt, who owned my bakery before me, was very upset I wasted so many ingredients and didn't let me near an oven for quite some time. When you understand the purpose of sugar in baking you will produce better baked goods on a more consistent basis. I've since learned the use of sugar in baking and the roles it plays. However, it is also important to understand the different types of sugar.

Sugar comes in a variety of colors, usually ranging from a white to a brown shade. The color is indicative of the amount of molasses manufacturers add when forming the crystals during the refining process. The size of the granules is indicative of the amount of air that is possible to incorporate. Larger granules will incorporate more air into the batter when combined with fat. However, larger granules will also take longer to dissolve. In addition, finer granules will cause more spreading in things like cookies. If you find your cookies are spreading too much, try using a sugar with a larger granule. Or try using confectioners sugar. The cornstarch in it deters spreading more than any other sugar.

Some of the "different types of sugar" are: Granulated White, Castor, Decorators, Crystal, Confectioners, Invert, Brown, Raw, Demerara, Muscovada and Turbinado

Sugar, in and of itself, is not bad for you, but many of my customers ask, why is sugar bad for you? I always tell them this: Everything in moderation! Too much sugar can be bad for the health.

As a baker and bakery owner I love anything related to how food works. If you like baking, check out my blog:

http://bakingallday.blogspot.com/

-Haley C.

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