13 Things We Learned in 2013

Last year we wrote a semi-whimsical blog post about all of the things we learned in 2012.  In 2012, if you remember, we officially launched our baking business, and boy did we have a lot to learn.  Our look back at the first 9 months of our business proved to be humorous, as we made plenty of mistakes and slowly grew and learned from all of them.

A year later, we decided to revisit the idea of a look back, and to see what funny stories, lessons, and growing we did in 2013.  So, with no further ado...

13 Things We Learned in 2013

1. Cell phone calendars are the best invention in the world.  Seriously, it's amazing having your entire life organized in your hand wherever you go.  We've been blessed this year to have more and more business, and the only way to keep track of all the delivery dates and orders is with out cell phone.  No matter where we are, we can keep track of our business through our phone, not only with our phone planner, but with constant email contact and website communications.  How did bakeries exist before cell phones?
2. Wine makes even the longest days better.  Seriously, it does.  We work a full-time job and bake on the side.  Sometimes we're up until midnight, 1am baking, and while we love it, it does sometimes wear on us.  That's where a good glass of wine, a Netflix marathon, and a spatula fit together perfectly.  
   
   The combination has gotten us through many a long night of baking when all we want to do is curl up in bed and sleep.
3. Gluten-free is actually really tasty.  At least our gluten-free products are (not to brag or anything).  If you missed our post earlier this year, we're not ones to really jump on the gf fad, but we feel we've really perfected the art of making gf cupcakes.  And it's not just us...we had 6 people (friends and strangers) who have gluten allergies test out an assortment of our gf products.  The results were resoundingly positive.  For once, our tinkering in the kitchens paid off big time!
4. Cookie cakes were quite the fad this year.  Quite the fad.  We made a TON of cookie cakes this year, from simple birthday wishes to complex Minecraft ones.  Cookie cakes are fun and easy for us to make, so we had no problem whipping up a dozen or so.  We were just surprised that so many orders for them came in throughout the year.
5. Business cards end up in amazing places.  We had an email earlier this year from a customer we'd never met looking to order some baked goods from us.  They had received one of our business from a friend who had been at a party that we had baked for.  Sometimes we feel like we could wallpaper our home with the business cards we have stashed around, but in one case, it worked out for the best.
6. Having a good baking playlist is essential.  We have awful tastes in music (we've been told this by many a soul who has been trapped in the car with us)  We like 90s pop, Bruce Springsteen, and Ke$ha.  That's not a typo...that's the music we listen to.  Judge if you want, but we can't help it.  we love us some Spice Girls and Hanson and Third Eye Blind.  It regularly plays in our kitchen.  Sing-a-longs are not mandatory, but definitely encouraged.  And if you know all the dance moves to Nsync's Bye Bye Bye, well...you get to enter our coveted Hall of Fame.  
7. Creative baking is our favorite kind of baking.  We love baking in general...but we really come alive when we are given the opportunity to make some creative cakes and cupcakes.  Take a look at some of these creations we've made in the past year:  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   We can't say they've been easy, but the joy we get when they're complete...and the joy our customers get when the products are in their hands, well...that's what we live for.  We hope that 2014 gives us just as many opportunities to be creative.
8. Baking has its ups and downs.  Sometimes we have so much business we don't know how we have time to sleep.  Sometimes we are so bored we start re-watching Lost (bad choice).  It's frustrating during those times when we don't have business, but as we've learned this year it comes in waves.  We have to be thankful for the business when we have it, and thankful for the down time when we don't.  After all, Lost is better the second time around...right...??
9. Cheesecakes are fun!  We are always looking to expand our baking repertoire, and this year we delved into the cheesecake business.  Our first cheesecake was quite the doozy: a bacon toffee cheesecake for a friend's 40th birthday.
   
    It's a lot of prep work, and a lot of stars aligning quite perfectly, but what can we say, they're pretty fun to make.  Oh, and they taste amazing! :-)  
10. What is better than creative decorating?  Creative flavoring.  We made a bunch of fun flavors this year, and we love experimenting with tastes until they turn out quite right.  Our favorite creation this year had to be a chocolate whisky cupcake we made for a birthday celebration.  
    
    I mean, chocolate and whisky....is there anything better than those two things in this life?  Plus, when all was said and done we were happy with how they looked too for delivery.
11. Taking time to recharge is essential.  In August we went on what we call a North East World Tour.  In the course of 3 weeks we visited Ohio, Philadelphia, and New Jersey for vacations, family catch ups, and birthday celebrations.  We didn't think about baking for 3 weeks, and it was a wonderful time to recharge.  If you do something you love, eventually even that will burn you out.  Closing down shop for a few weeks was a breath of fresh air, and it let us return to the kitchen rejuvenated and excited to start up again.
12. Taste testers are everywhere.  It's a hard lesson for us to learn...we love to bake, and we love to share, but at the end of the day if we're not making money we're not operating a business.  Sometimes it's hard to turn people away when they're asking for donations.  But it's a lesson we had stick to this year, and our bank account is very thankful for it.
13. Blogging helps you get to know us.  Of all the things we did this year, we've received more positive feedback from these silly blog posts than just about anything else.  Apparently you guys like to read about our ridiculous baking world.  And we like to tell you about it.  It's a great give-and-take.  Honestly, this year if we learned anything from this business, it's that you guys like to hear about how it's run from the inside.  Thousands of you checked out our blog for updates, and got to see the fun side of starting your own business.

As another year ends, we are thankful for every one of you who has supported our business through the year, through business, support, advice, or free supplies (we always take free supplies).  As business continues to grow, we could not imagine being where we are today without any or all of you.

From our kitchen to yours, happy New Year!  May your 2014 be as bright as ours is shaping up to be!

Tis the Season: Holiday Bake Sale

Aw man, it's almost that time of year...It's almost Christmas time!!

(it's never really Christmas time until we see this commercial on tv)

Are you ready?  We're not either.  We don't even have a "Christmas list" ready for all the relatives who ask us, "What would you like for Christmas?".  Oy.

(Maybe we'll just play this song on repeat.  A social experiment) 

If you're like us, you have no idea what to get certain people for the holidays.  We understand your pain.  Might we help you take some of the guess work out of your predicament?

Our second annual Christmas bake sale is going on right NOW!  And it's so easy to get fresh cupcakes and cookies for your friends, family, or even a treat for yourself!  And, even better news, this year we can ship cookies anywhere you'd like!  Well, within the USA.

Click the link above to fill out a form.  Trust us, you'll want to do this sooner rather than later.  If you wait too long, you'll be trolling the aisles of the mall wondering what you can buy for your uncle this year.  Instead of knowing you got his some delicious made-from-scratch holiday cupcakes for him to enjoy all by himself!

Last years sales were great, and the feedback we received from customers varied from, "These were the best cupcakes I've ever had!" to "Why did I only order one box?!"  It's a limited run, so be sure to sign up now to reserve your holiday treats!

Orders, Orders, Orders

Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?  When you're starting your own business does that even exist?

This past week has been INSANE for this small bakery.  We feel like we're just now getting the chance to take a deep breath and clean up our kitchen.  Last week we had 5 (count 'em!) orders, and none of them were small by any means: 3 dozen personalized cookies, a birthday cookie cake, a toffee bacon cheesecake, a red velvet cake for a party, and 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes, including some gluten free ones.  Whew!  By Sunday, this was kind of how we looked:

It was a great week for our business, though, there's no doubt about it.  Not only did we make some nice money baking all this up, but we got to catch up with some old friends on a few of the deliveries and make some new friends on others.  Starting your own business is all about making connections and letting the world know you're there and open for business, and we certainly completed that mission this past week.

One of our favorite treats from this past week has to be our order for vanilla bean and butterscotch cupcakes.  A customer randomly emailed us asking for a last minute order, and it's been awhile since we had anyone asking us for these.  If you've never sampled this before, take a look, it's a beauty...

Sometimes the best treats are the simplest combinations.  We're not breaking any taste barriers here with this combination, but man if it isn't one of the best.  The understated vanilla bean plays off wonderfully with the homemade butterscotch, which, secret, we sometimes eat straight out of the bowl if there's any extra left.  If you've been thinking about ordering some cupcakes for awhile but have been unsure about what to order, might we recommend these?  You really can't go long, and it's a hidden delight on our cupcake menu.

This week we have some more orders coming up, including some more involving bacon.  You people and your pork products!! :-)  Keep looking to our Facebook page for more goodies, and perhaps a small flash sale later this week.  If we can get our act together!

Have a fabulous week, friends!  

Lis

Catching Up with the World

Maaaaaaan, has it really been a month since we updated??  Sometimes time seems to warp forward at an alarming rate.  Doc, where is that flux capacitor?  We need to jump back in time immediately!

Until our Delorean arrives (and we're not holding our breath) we figured we would update all of you loyal readers with what is going on in our baking world.

We haven't been updating recently because one of two scenarios were taking place:

     1. We were slow on orders, so we were busy catching up on our social life
     2. We had so many orders we couldn't keep it all together

We're currently dealing with option 2.  In the past 72 hours we have baked a cheesecake from scratch, 3 dozen cookies, and a large birthday cookie cake.  On top of that, by the end of the week we will have also made a red velvet birthday cake and some gluten-free cupcakes.  Whew!  Is it too early to start hiring some additional kitchen help?  We may need it if this kind of ordering volume keeps up.

Our favorite order so far this week has been a candied bacon toffee cheesecake.  It was a first for us on many levels: We'd never candied bacon before (now that we've had candied bacon, though, we're not sure we can go back to regular bacon), we've never made a cheesecake for a customer, and we've never chopped 2 pounds of toffee candies for a dessert.  It took a ton of prep work to pull off this birthday present, but we are so proud of the finished result.  We dropped the cheesecake off for an office party, and were told within the hour the cheesecake was gone and people were asking for a contact number for the bakery that created such a ridiculous treat.  Can you blame them, though?  Just look at this beauty!

For now, we're heading off to do some inventory of our supplies.  Look at us, sounding all official-like, "doing some inventory".  It's kind of thrilling.

Have a fantastic end of your work week, folks!  We'll talk to you soon!

We Want To Send You Cookies!

Sometimes things are too good to be true!!  In this case, it's not.

If you read the title, you might be pinching yourself with glee.  Cookies!  Free cookies?!  What in the world is going on?

Here's the deal, and it's very very simple: we want to send you cookies.  One batch of cookies, which usually amounts to 2-3 dozen cookies.  We will mail them, but you'll have to pay for shipping above $5 (higher mailing costs = faster mailing times = fresher cookies)  Keep reading if you're interested.

Rules for Free Cookies:

1. You must be somewhere in the United States.  We're not sending cookies internationally.
2. The cookies can be made for any time between November 1, 2013 and January 31, 2013.  If you don't cash in on the free cookies before then, you lose out.  Sorry.
3. You cannot resell the cookies.  Even if it's for a child's lemonade stand (if you live in a place that lets you have a lemonade stand in December). 
4. If the cookies are mailed, we will cover $5 in shipping, the rest is up to you to cover.  You can pay through PayPal, or send us the money in the mail.  We will not ship your cookies until we receive the funds!  We also won't bake the cookies until you OK the shipping charges. 
5. You have until 11:59pm on October 15, 2013 to submit a request for free cookies. 
6. We will not take special requests for dietary needs for these cookies.  They contain sugar, eggs, flour, butter, and vanilla.  They are made in a kitchen that also regularly uses nuts, especially almonds and walnuts.  If you have a severe nut allergy, we suggest you do not request some free cookies
7. The Catch: (isn't there always one?)  It's not too bad...as we already stated, if you're too far away to deliver the cookies personally, we will ask you to cover shipping charges.  If you are a local delivery, we will give you a dozen or so business cards that we would ask you hand out.  No, we're not going to double check that you did, we're doing this on the honor system, but since we are baking you free cookies we would remind you that you do, sorta, owe us one...
8. By submitting your name into our free cookie campaign, you confirm that you have read the above rules, understand them, and meet the requirements mandatory to submit your cookies.

 

How To Request Free Cookies:

• Click on this link and fill out the information.  It's seriously that easy!!

 

 

How To Win:

• Multiple people can request cookies for you...brides, if you have a cookie table, have all your bridesmaids write in...they don't want to be stuck baking all these cookies themselves
• Don't cheat (we'll see if you enter more than once...we'll be watching)
• Have a good reason for asking for the cookies.  It doesn't have to be a charitable reason, but if it's funny, and honest, and we like it, you can win.

 

That's it!

 

Best of luck to everyone!  We're excited to fire up these ovens for a good reason...

The Case for Gluten-Free

Ahhh, gluten-free baked goods.  The bane of our existence.  The baked goods you want to hate, but end up loving.  The red-headed stepchild of the baking world.

Remember when lactose intolerant was the cool fad "dietary issue" everyone had?  That is so 1998, though, and in the new millennium everyone seems to have developed a hatred towards gluten.  As someone who purposefully fasts for an entire day to guzzle down Olive Garden bread sticks, we don't get the gluten-free fad.  It's expensive, limits what you can eat, and, in our opinion, not the best dietary choice one can make.  We can make the same argument for enriched, bleached white flour, don't get us wrong, but no one seems to be getting on the bleached white flour-free boat, so we're not sure that's ever going to become a thing.

Now, for some people, we understand you legitimately cannot eat gluten.  And to you people we say, "Boo hoo!"  We're sorry, really we are, that gluten upsets your stomach.  Gluten-free bread is some of the most disgusting food "products" we've ever had.  We really do feel for you.

Our old college roommate has the craziest digestive system we've ever seen, and a few years ago she decided to cut gluten out of her diet to try to help herself.  Great for her, bad for us and our "Taste Testers Wanted" need.  If she couldn't eat all of our delicious goods, what were we going to do?

What we decided to do, is to become familiar with gluten-free baking.  It's an expensive experiment to get involved with, as a small bag of gluten-free flour can run you $12 at Whole Foods.  But we were determined to find success.

From all of our GF friends we've talked to, GF products fail because they are dry, crumbly, and gritty.  They lack the ability to hold together (that's what gluten does, students!), so most of the time when you bite into a cookie, it just kind of dissolves everywhere.

We wanted to work on these issues, and we did so by mixing and matching different rice flour substitutes.  The results, while not perfect, aren't half bad.  In fact (brace yourself here) there are times where the taste of a GF cupcake is equal to its gluten-filled rival.  That's right, it's not half bad!

We still have a long way to go to perfect what we feel is the ultimate GF friendly cupcake, but we're happy with the progress we've made so far.  And as our favorite taste tester can attest to, they're pretty delicious once they're iced and decorated.

Interested in trying some of our GF baked goods?  Look to your right, fill out the form, and hit submit.  We're here for you and your GF needs!!

Enjoy the weekend, friends!

Baby Shower Cupcakes: Jungle Animals

Back from the dead, never fear!  It's been over a week since we've posted, we apologize but we've been enjoying this gorgeous weather.  Autumn is probably our favorite time of year, and since we don't have allergies we don't have to worry about all the leaves and stuff.  Sorry allergy sufferers, that's not us.

To update you on our lives a little bit, this past weekend we had the chance to make some cupcakes for a baby shower.  A friend of ours was attending the baby shower, and admitted it was for a coworker.  The friend works at a vet clinic in Pittsburgh, so automatically an animal theme came into play.  Animal themes are already a solid baby shower theme, but when everyone in attendance works at the same vet clinic we're pretty sure it's a mandatory theme.

We have a love/hate with fondit, because it has such a wonderful look on cakes and cupcakes, but eats up so much of your time.  For example, creating 30 animals for 30 individual cupcakes took us 2 1/2 hours to complete.  There are so many details that have to be accounted for, so many tools to be used, and if the results weren't so breathtakingly awesome we'd probably chuck the lot.  But you have to admit, these animals couldn't be any cuter if they tried!

What mommy-to-be wouldn't love these?

Happy to have been given the opportunity to make some delicious treats for a fun weekend shower.  Now on to the next recipe!

Have a fantastic week, everyone.  Buccos finally have a winning season!! :-)

Cookie Cakes and Cream Puffs

^Could you get a higher calorie count in a blog title?

Hello friends!

Happy Labor Day Weekend!  We love extra long weekends, they make everything seem sooo much more relaxing.  Instead of 48 hours to squeeze in all the fun you want in your life, you can stretch it out for 72.  That sounds much better!

So we've been a little busy these past few weeks, and our blog posts have been limited.  Sorry about that. Sometimes the world just kind of gets ahead of you.  Since we have 72 hours to enjoy our weekend, though, we thought we'd update.

We told you in our last post that people have really been loving cookie cakes this summer, and last week was no different.  We made a fun cookie cake for a co-worker's dad's birthday as a surprise.

Apparently he loves cookie cake but didn't ask for one for his party, so his daughter decided to make sure he had a fun surprise waiting for him.  He thought he was getting just a regular old birthday cake, but instead had a PSR original cookie cake.  Yum!!

Cookie cakes are a ton of fun to make, because the time we have to devote to real cakes isn't involved.  Bake the cake, let it cook, decorate it with some icing, it's very, very minimal.  Not that we don't love decorating, but if we only spend 2 hours in the kitchen instead of 8, well...that's a win in our books.

In addition to updating our blog this weekend, we're also going to try our hand at an old standard, the cream puff.

We've made cream puffs before, but it was eons ago, before we learned all of our important baking knowledge we now possess.  They're fairly simple if you pay attention to them (think of them as an adorably cute puppy that will pee in your house if you're not careful) but our biggest challenge will be trying to find a good pudding/icing combination to stuff them with.  Any suggestions?  Hit us up in the comments.

It's September, folks.  Where did this summer go??  Have a fantastic extended weekend with friends and family.  We'll be updating the blog a few times in the coming week as we have two big projects coming up. Chocolate lovers...you're gonna wanna buckle up for the one order we have!

Cheers everyone!

Sweet Relief's Back (Alright!)

We need a little BSB to set the tone for this post...

(sorry if you a) weren't a preteen/teenager during the 90s boy band craze or b) have no idea who BSB even is...we grew up on these musical gems, you're gonna have to deal with it)

GUYS, WE'RE BACK!!!!

We had a FANTASTIC vacation with our friends and family.  For those of you who haven't stalked us religiously (we'll forgive you this one time) we headed to Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Wildwood NJ for a nice, relaxing, well-deserved break.  We rocked out to some 90s boy band music (including the gem above), patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell (wait, no, that was Davy Crockett), and relaxed on the wonderful sandy beaches of New Jersey with a book in hand.  Oh yeah, we celebrated our birthday too!  Woot!  Best of all, the ovens stayed off, and we simply recovered from a very busy past few weeks.

Little sister Allison is a really good driver through the streets of Philadelphia

As wonderful as the break was, though, we are happy to get back into the kitchens and to get baking.  What's that saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder?  Well, we definitely missed all the baking, decorating, and designing of all our favorite baked goods.  No matter how crazy everything in the kitchen might get at times, it's a familiar crazy, something we're used to and can manage.  Trying to negotiate the streets of Philadelphia during rush hour...??  Not so easy to deal with.

In the coming two weeks we have two big orders heading out, another cookie cake for a birthday (you guys are really loving your cookie cakes this summer!) and some cute themed cupcakes for a baby shower.  On top of that, we received some new birthday presents that we're eager to try out too...from pans, to cookie cutters, we're going to be playing around with some fun flavors.

Until then, have a great weekend, Pittsburgh!  We are PSYCHED for the beautiful weather that will be rolling through the city this weekend.  Sounds like the perfect pool weekend!

The Case for Buttermilk

Ah buttermilk...what can be said about it that hasn't already been said?

To be fair, has anyone ever written a blog about buttermilk before?  Anyone...anyone...Bueller...??

We're going to be honest with you, for years we've kind of looked at buttermilk as the black sheep of the cooking world.  That random product they still sell at supermarkets that no one ever uses.  Honestly, how many of us can say we've ever had a glass of buttermilk?  Well, besides our grandparents.  Has anyone born since 1980 had a glass of buttermilk?  Honest question here.

Since we don't drink buttermilk, we've never had much reason to buy it.  In our humble opinion, why bother?  It's not that we're lazy bakers, but we're practical with our baking.  Why buy whole milk AND buttermilk when one can pretty much do the job of both.  Remember, this is a start up business...we're not rolling in the funds right now.

So we used regular milk for all of our baking needs.  We figured, hey, this tastes delicious, what could the harm be?

STOP!

If you were thinking the same thing, let us correct you.  There is a huge difference between buttermilk and milk.  If you're a casual baker, or baked good consumer, you may never notice the difference.  Half the time we still don't when we're eating the finished product.  But let us tell you, there's a HUGE difference.

  

What makes buttermilk buttermilk is that it's more acidic than regular whole milk, which gives it its different (and to many Gen Y- and X-ers unusual) taste.  Maybe this doesn't seem to be a deal breaker to you, but remember, baking is all about chemistry.  Ahh, chemistry, one of our least favorite classes in high school.  And chemistry, in baking, is super important.  It's what makes things taste so good.

So the extra acid in the buttermilk actually helps your baked goods.  It helps the milk to react and incorporate itself quicker into your batter (milk is usually one of the last ingredients you add), which leads to fluffier cupcakes, richer cookies, and beautifully dense cakes.  

Is it necessary?  Absolutely not.  But over the past few months as we've experimented with buttermilk more, we've found it's sometimes is exactly what you need to bring that "wow" factor.  Think about it this way...in baseball, a home run is a home run, so long as it leaves the park.  But for all those Pirate fans out there, how many of you remember a home run that just makes it over the fence, and how many of you will always remember the few baseballs that have landed straight into the river?  We want to launch our home run cupcakes into the river each and every time we pull them out of the ovens.

If you don't want to splurge and buy buttermilk (who does?) head over to this site, where you can learn how to make your own buttermilk with things you have around the house.  We usually use lemon juice, but have also used plain yogurt with similar results.

Next time you're baking, we challenge you to try using buttermilk.  Add some lemon juice to your milk, let it sit, and see how much better your baking becomes.  It's gonna be outta the park...and into the river!!

Happy (almost) Friday, friends!

Chocolate Whisky Cupcakes

As you guys have seen in the past 10 months this blog has existed (has it really been that long??), we bake a lot.  Cakes, pies, cookies, cupcakes, we do a lot throughout the year to create some pretty awesome sweet treats.  While we taste test and sample all of our goods before we deliver them, after doing this for so long there's very little we create anymore that completely blows our mind.  This weekend, though, we met our life-ending equivalent.  Game, set, match.  Mind blown.

To back up a little bit, though, last Monday we got a call from a good friend of ours asking if we could make a birthday cake for her husband's 30th birthday.  Oh my word, we're celebrating friends turning 30 already!  Where has our life gone?!?  :-)  Anyway, we bounced around a few ideas until she messaged us and said, "What about some whiskey cupcakes?"

Whoa.  Hold the phone.  Whiskey cupcakes?  This was new, and exciting, and a great idea!  We love making alcohol cupcakes, and have used rum, vodka, beer, wine, and tequila in past cupcake creations.  Whiskey, though...this was a new challenge.

When we're creating new flavor combinations, we like to spend some time on google looking up other similar recipes.  Not so we can rip off other people's ideas (we've had that happen to us before, and we know how awful a feeling that is), but to get some inspiration, and some ideas of where other bakers have gone in the past.  It helps us focus our thoughts and make a nice list of "Where to Start".

The overall theme we kept reading was chocolate and whiskey.  Chocolate, whiskey....hmmm, we had a plan forming.  We messed around with some flavor combinations, trying to find something that really hit the spot.  We added some espresso to the mix, because we liked the acidic with the whiskey, and then went about creating some cupcakes.

When the cakes came out our kitchen smelled like a man cave...strong coffee, whiskey, lots of chocolate.  It was a pretty fantastic smell.  Now we needed a great icing to go with it.

We believe that icings are the best part of any cake/cupcake combo. It's a make or break deal in our opinion.  Icings should not be flat and tasteless, they should be full of flavor, rich and creamy, and make you want to lick the bowl clean.  We hate when a promising looking cake ends up being dull because the icing isn't any good.  It's SUCH a disappointment.

This order was no different, the icing had to be pretty unreal.  So we took some whisky, and some melted dark chocolate, some butter and cream cheese and whipping cream, and set out to create a masterpiece. 

As we said in the beginning of this post, there's very little anymore that absolutely floors us anymore when it comes to baking.  This whisky icing...holy crap was it a show stopper.

The best part about these cupcakes was that they ended up going to a good friend for his 30th birthday.  It doesn't get much better heading to a party with some cupcakes you made knowing they're about to rock everyone's world.  Sharing in the party is half the fun in our opinion!!

So happy 30th to our good friend John.  Nothing says "manly cupcakes to celebrate the last few days in your 20s" like chocolate whiskey cupcakes!

August Living

IT'S AUGUST!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

We're sorry for all you haters out there, but August is our favorite month of the year!  Besides it being our birth month (and who doesn't love their birth month??!!?!) it's also,  in our opinion, the best summer month out there.  It seems like all sorts of fun things happen in August.  Family vacations, bonfires, early football games, pool parties....did we mention vacation??  Because we're going on vacation in less than 2 weeks, and we absolutely cannot wait!

We have one last order this weekend, and then we're peacing out for a 14 day hiatus until we're back with some more orders in late August/early September.  In that two week span we will:

1. Head to the beach with our favorite sister for some sun and surf (and boys!  Lots of boys.)
2. Attend our first ever Backstreet Boys/Jesse McCartney/DJ Pauly D concert in Cleveland.  Don't be jealous, even though we know you are.
3. Head out to a first place Buccos game.  We love baseball games in general, but heading out to a Buccos game right now...it's absolutely electric
4. Try out a few ideas we have for some new cupcake flavors.  Fall is coming...is it too early to start investing in some pumpkin?
5. Watch lots of awful television that we haven't had time to catch up on.

Even though this is a job we love (and we mean LOVE!), we still like to take some time off every once in awhile to sort of relax, refocus, and get all our ducks back in a row.  Whenever we've taken some time off in the past we've come back chomping at the bit to get back in the kitchen...that's always a good sign that you're doing something you love.  Most people don't like returning to their jobs after vacation, and to be honest, if someone wanted to pay us to never work again, we'd be fine with that too.  But coming back from vacation and heading back into the kitchen...we can't wait!

It's been a tremendously busy few weeks, and we've been honored and humbled by all the love, support, and (maybe most importantly) orders you guys have sent our way these past few weeks.  Birthdays (lots of birthdays!) weddings, baby showers, we have seen just about everything under the sun these past few weeks.  And we love it!  It's great to watch as our business slowly starts to grow through recommendations from others who have sampled some of our previous tastes.

Now the only question remains...who's going to bake us a birthday cake??

Have a fabulous weekend, guys.  Let's go Bucs!

Cookie Cake: Minecraft Edition

Hello friends!  Another beautiful weekend has come to an end, and we're not sure where all the time has gone.  Probably into the kitchen, where we've spent a good chunk of our weekend.

We had a fun task this weekend of making a very different birthday cake: a Minecraft themed cookie cake.  Carson's birthday party is Tuesday, but he's not a fan of cookie cake.  That's ok, though, because his mom told us he was a huge lover of cookie cake (who isn't?)  She wanted to know if we could make a cookie cake themed after a video game he loves, Minecraft.

If you've never played Minecraft, it's an interesting concept.  It's like Legos meets survivor meets Erector Set.  The game involves building homes out of different "element blocks", creating things through mining, and pretty much wasting a bunch of time you already don't have.  What's interesting about this game is how many people are flat out addicted to this game.  Kids as young as 5 play it, as well as some of our friends who are in their 30s.  It really doesn't have a limit to what it can do, unless your imagination limits it.

The graphics of the game is somewhat different and takes some getting used to.  Everything's very geometric and simple looking.  We felt like the game walked off our 1992 family computer.  Once you get past that, though, it's easy to become addicted.

With the idea of cookie cake as the background, we wanted a tasty cake that was decorated well.  We decided to make it 3D with some fun cookie blocks we built, that really kept true to the spirit.

So what do you think?

These pictures seem a little blank, and it's true, they're missing some things.  There are some Minecraft figurines that need to be added to the cake too, but they won't go on the cake until it's ready to be eaten.  We'll post some updated pictures later this week.

Happy birthday Carson!  Hope you have a fantastic day!!

And to the rest of you out there, hope you have a wonderful week.

**UPDATE**

Finally got a picture of the completed cake.  Looks like it was an awesome party!!

Open the Floodgates!

Since Pittsburgh has been receiving SO many flash flood warnings these past few weeks, we thought it would be funny (funny ironic, not funny hahaha) to bring some flooding into our own bakery.  We decided to flood some cookies.

Now our guess is the majority of you read that last sentence and pictured us dumping some delicious cookies into a bucket of water.  Why in the world would we ruin perfectly good cookies like that?  No, flooding cookies is a method used to ice certain cookies, usually sugar cookies, and it's something we love to do and never seem to make time to do it.  Well we made time finally and flooded up a storm...er...maybe it's the other way around since storms cause flooding.

...anyway...

If you've never flooded cookies before, it's a fairly straight forward process.  There are a few things we suggest to all first-time flooders:

1. Use sugar cookies (they bake with a flat top, which is essential to get a good cookie iced this way.
2. Use simple shaped cookie cutters.  You'll see in the pictures below we used a random assortment of woodland creatures (thank you Ikea!)  DO NOT USE CRAZY COOKIE CUTTERS LIKE THIS IF YOU'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE.  Stick to hearts, or squares, or another geometrically simple shape.  Trust us.
3. Practice makes perfect.  It will take you probably a few cookies to find your groove. Do not despair if your first few look like your kids finger painted all of them.

If you have some cooled sugar cookies, you're pretty much ready to go.  Oh, but first you need some royal icing.  Of course, searching for "royal" anything this week brings up nothing but William and Kate's baby. 

 

No, Google, we DON'T want to read another story about this.  We actually just want a recipe we can share with our readers for royal icing.

If you've never made royal icing before, click here for a super simple recipe.  Ours is slightly different (and slightly better in our humble opinions), but we don't like to give trade secrets out on the world wide web.

The trick to flooding cookies is to build a dam to stop the icing from spilling over the side of the cookies.  And what do you build the dam with?  Why icing, of course?   This is where you will need some practice if you don't have a steady hand.  Be patient, it will become easier.  And you will find that not all of your cookies look awful after they've set.

So once you've dammed up the cookies, they look like this, nice and yummy and ready for flooding...

We think that's a bear cub.  These Swedish cookie cutters are questionable, though.

To flood, you take the same royal icing, water it down, and drip it carefully into the center of the cookie.  The hope is that your icing will spread around the top of the cookie but not overflow thanks to the wonderful white-walled icing dam you have built.

Here we're watching the icing spread.  If you're impatient like we are (who has time to slowly watch this spread??) or if there are little nooks and crannies you just can't seem to get the icing into, you may have to help it along.  You'll find tools that work for you, but we often suggest starting with a tooth pick.  Just be careful the white icing outline stay in tact.  

You will eventually get it to spread over everything, and it will be finished and ready for drying.

Once everything's spread across the cookie, it's a good idea to look for any air bubbles and pop them as well.  Again, we suggest a toothpick, but find what works for you.

If you get really fancy, you can start to add details to your cookie that will help define it better.  Below we took a snail, added a swirl, and gave it a little more character than the bear cub up above.

Once it dries completely the snail will be the cutest little thing.  You can add other items too, sprinkles, candies, you name it.  It helps to really make flooding cookies a ton of fun.

So now go practice!  Take an evening and try it out!  Let us know what you think, and how successful it was.  And if you happen to be using the same Ikea cookie cutters...give us a call!!

Happy Wednesday!!

Yep...It Happened

Welp, folks, our morning started off really well.  Wanted to try out a new recipe, and we figured what better day to do it than an overcast Sunday in Pittsburgh.

Then...well, then this happened...

One cookie cake in 20 pieces on our counter.  Yep.  Happy Sunday to us!

We've told you many times for every wonderful thing we make we make an equal mess that ends up in the garbage.  Here's proof.

If you're in the area, though, it tastes delicious.  We added 3 types of chips, dark chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate, and butterscotch, as well as some walnuts.  Yummmm!! :-)

Dog Days of Summer

Man, guys, it's so hot!!

We hate this stretch of the year, when the heat and humidity just kill any motivation to bake that we have.  It's no small wonder we love baking in the winter, when it's super cold outside.

Our sister is a photographer (shameless plug, click here to view her ridiculously good photos) and she always talks about how her wedding business has a "down time", usually in the winter where not a lot of people choose to get married.  We wish we had the same "down time" in July with our baking, but alas we don't.  It seems you people always want to eat cake!

So through these hot months we crank up the air conditioning and pray for cooler days.  As in, nothing like this past week.

Nevertheless, baking still goes on.  We have quite a few orders in these hot and humid summer months, which is great news for us.  Starting a business is a ridiculously slow process (we think we've seen paint dry quicker than this business take off), but we're happy to see things starting to snowball. We have more orders now than we did a year ago, and it's a trend we're looking to continue in the coming months and years as we move into the next phase of our "Build a Bakery" stage.

We have another themed birthday next week that we're excited to tell you about in future posts.  If you follow us on Facebook you might already know what the cake is going to look like.  It should be a blast to make, and will allow us to do something we've never done before.  This blog is all about new experiences, so we're happy for the chance.

We're also trying to find some good reasons to spread our skills around for reduced or no costs.  If anyone reading out there knows of a good cause in or around the Pittsburgh area that might have need for some baked goods, give us a call.  Your talents and gifts are wonderful things, but they mean so much more when you share them with others.

We're out to go cool off the kitchen.  Wheeeew-eeey, this heatwave needs to break!

Stay cool, friends!

Baking Up Fresh: Dr. Who Birthday Cake

Happy weekend friends!  It's mid summer, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in first place in the MLB, and we are rocking the baking as we head into the July 4th holiday weekend.  If only summer time was a little cooler so we didn't have die slightly every time we opened the oven.

This weekend we've been busy baking a themed birthday cake for our baby brother.  He's finally turning 21 (huzzah!!) and we decided to surprise him with a Dr. Who cake to ring in the anniversary of his birth.

Haven't seen Dr. Who?  It's ok, we haven't either.  So it was a little challenging when we decided to make this cake, since we don't even know what the show's about. (since making this cake, a doctor, who can apparently change actors depending on the season, can time travel, or something like that, and tries to save the world.  We think...)

All we know is the one lady in Dr. Who is also in The Office.  So we found some comfort in that.  At least it wasn't too weird.

Since we can't make a cake of Nellie (how creepy would that be to see!!??!?!?!) we decided to go with the classic Dr. Who image: the Tardis.

We have no idea what this is actually used for in the show.  We think it's for time travel, but don't quote us on this.  We still haven't seen a single minute of this show.  However, if you type "Dr. Who" into google we guarantee images of this pop up.  So we thought, why not, let's build a Tardis out of cake.

Sounds simple...pretty straight forward too.  We forgot what a pain in the butt dying fondant navy blue is, though.  Since it's cheaper to buy fondant in bulk white, we hand-dye 95% of all our colored fondant, the only exception being black.  The darker the color is, the harder it is to dye...which is why we buy our black fondant.  But navy blue...that's about as close to black as you can get, which means it's going to take a lot of dye, a lot of kneading, and a LOT of time to get the right color.

To give you a perspective of time, it took us almost an hour to get our navy blue just the right color.  Partially because we're perfectionists, partially because we added too much black dye and it started to veer into the "grey" category.  With some work, though, we got it into the perfect shade we were looking for.  After that, it was just some simple decorating, and the cake was good to go.

Here's the finished result...what do you think?

Pretty close if you ask us.

What we loved about this baking challenge was our own lack of understanding on this cake theme: we've never seen the show, and it's not like we have the time to sit down and watch 10 episodes to get into the feel of the cake...we had to just jump right in and hope for the best.  Thankfully this show has such an iconic image we could use to replicate into a birthday cake.

Enjoy your holiday week, it's supposed to be beautiful out!!

Cupcakes vs. Cakes

As a baker, we have created some pretty amazing treats.  Cookies, pies, cupcakes, cakes, brownies, sugar doves, Swedish rolls, tarts, and a million different types of icings.  Some less successfully than others, we'll admit, but still checking them off our list.  Our favorites, though, usually involve cake, as you faithful readers know.  There's something about a good cake that just make us smile like a Cheshire cat.

Sometimes when customers order with us, they go back and forth between whether they should order a cake or cupcakes for their event/party/wedding/Tuesday night.  We never realized what a serious decision this was until people really struggled to make the ultimate decision.  For some people, this may be the hardest decision they ever have to make.

To help with your ultimate decision, we have compiled the following arguments for choosing both cakes and cupcakes for your special occasion.  Read carefully, and may the best baked goods win!

Choosing Cupcakes

1. Cupcakes are super customizable, which is why we love making them.  For big parties you don't have to stick with one flavor that the entire group has to suffer through.  Heck, half the fun is coming up with the awesome flavor combinations you'll be serving your guests and yourself.  Classic chocolate and vanilla are always winners, but what about pistachio, or peach mango, or even beer cheese and bacon??  Kick your party up a notch with a wonderful dessert flavor adventure for everyone to enjoy.

2. Arranging cupcakes is such an art, and we love the challenge.  At events, it's so much fun to figure out how we're going to arrange the cupcakes for guests to admire, oogle over, and eventually devour.  We've done simple things like tiered platters, and fun designs that involve cake platter, old books, and even cereal bowls.  Staging cupcakes can help tie a theme together, and in larger parties they can be spread to separate locations throughout the party to cut down on lines and potential accidents.  

3. On average, cupcakes will cost you less.  If you have 100 people attending your wedding you order, say, 10 dozen cupcakes for the big day, so you have a few extras on hand.  If the extra 20 cupcakes are there at the end of the night, looks like you have some treats for after the honeymoon, enough to make you happy but not enough to put the bulge on too early into your marriage.  It's a win-win!

With cake, a lot of times you are at the mercy of the "serving size".  The amount of cake you have to buy, and get rid of depends on who is serving it, how much a "serving size" is to them, and how much extra you'll have to buy.  They can't chop half a layer off a cake if you don't need that much--if you buy a 3-tiered cake, you're stuck with all the leftovers, even if you don't want it.  Sure the extra cake is fun to eat for awhile...but eventually, your freezer and your stomach will hate you.

Choosing Cake

1. Cake is the traditional choice.  Sometimes cupcakes just aren't the proper dessert to serve at a function.  Cakes give you that beautiful, elegant drama that cupcakes will never be able to replicate.  If you're going for a bold look, or feel the event won't be as successful with cupcakes, then choosing a cake is definitely the way to go for your event.

2. Cakes tell a story.  While you can place cupcakes in and around a themed setup, it's hard for them to truly portray an emotion other than fun or whimsical.  The size of cupcakes limits the scope of beauty they can present.  Cakes don't have that problem, and can definitely bring the "wow" factor you were missing from a party or event that wasn't there before.

3. Cakes let the creativity flow.  Themed cakes can be as crazy, bright, bold, daring, and elegant as you can imagine.  They can be in any shape imaginable, in any color, in any size, in any flavor.  Cupcakes have some limitations, being trapped in a wrapper.  If you want off-the-wall crazy fun, a cake might be the direction you're looking for.

The verdict is yours to decide.  So what will it be...?  Cakes...or cupcakes...??