April Showers

Springtime in Pittsburgh!!!!!  Ahhhhhhhhh!!!  Don't you love that morning when you wake up and realize that winter is officially over?  For me it usually happens in the middle of the night when I wake up sweating because my winter comforter is too much for the mild spring night.  It's that moment, that wonderful moment, when you finally realize SPRING IS HERE!!!

We are busy this April, which excites me.  March was pretty boring, but you'll have those moments in any business.  We have 3 dozen cupcakes ordered, a cake to prepare, and a meeting with a bride for a wedding cake...you heard me right, a wedding cake.  *fist pump*  So there will be lots of baking going on in the coming month, which greatly excites m\us.

In other news, we are trying to go organic at PSR, and we're starting at home with some old-fashioned plant life. We're all about healthy eating (crazy, I know, we are trying to start a bakery), and while we love decadent treats that make your mouth water, we also believe in moderation, and mixing those treats with some better-for-you alternatives like low-sugar cupcakes, gluten-free cupcakes, and all natural organic.  Don't worry, guys, we make all of these!


So we spent the weekend planting lots of strawberries...some we bough, certified organic, from a local nursery.  Others we planted by band, to see how we can fair growing them from scratch.  But we are bound and determined to get these strawberries growing in time for strawberry season.

Have you ever had a strawberry cupcake?  Better question, have you ever had a PSR strawberry cupcake? If not, you definitely need to make a goal to try some.  They are one of our favorite cupcakes ever, and trust us when we say we've tried a lot of cupcakes!!  Sweet, moist, and full of summer flavors, we can't stop making them.  And what can make our strawberry cupcakes even better?  Knowing our strawberries are home grown, organic, and free of chemicals we don't want in our system.

We're hoping to really make this a yearly thing, and if you have any other ideas for fruits to plant, give us a shout out.  There's something about baking that's so much better when you grew some of the ingredients yourself!

For now, though, enjoy this beautiful weather!!!  It's springtime in Pittsburgh!

March Madness

Who has two thumbs and is winning her NCAA work bracket??  THIS GIRL!!!  (and I hate college hoops!)

March is almost over!  What?!  Where has this month gone?  It certainly hasn't gone into baking, because I've been so busy!!  I've learned that baking has its ups and downs: sometimes I'm overloaded with lots of orders and business, and other times I can relax, rest up, and clean my poor mixer.  It's been a clean my poor mixer kind of month, but that's ok, I've needed it.  I've had crazy crazy work hours this month, as well as being the maid of honor for my best friend's wedding, and taking trips to Canada and Philadelphia.  Oh yeah, and I got into a car crash too!  Exciting March!

April is gearing up to be a pretty busy month for me, though.  I have several orders in, including a really special one that I can't wait to tell you guys about (more about that another day!)  Lots of publicity and new customers should be coming my way, which is a wonderful thing.  More customers means more fans, which means more people to bake for!  See how this snowball effect works?!

For now, I'm taking a few last days to relax, recuperate from the wedding bonanza that was this past weekend, and clean my kitchen for the frenzy that will be April.  Cakes, cupcakes, pies, it's all going into next month as we bake our hearts out.  Cannot wait to try everything out.

I hope you're having a wonderful month.  On a side note, I'm looking for a few willing volunteers to cupcake test for me next weekend.  You cannot have any food allergies, and you must be able to pick up the cupcakes on your own.  Email me at pghsweetrelief@yahoo.com if you're interested.  I only need maybe 4 or 5 taste testers, so let me know if you're interested.

Until next time...hope your NCAA bracket is doing as well as mine!!!

Lis

Pi Day

A fun fact about myself that I should add to my autobiography, I love random goofy holidays that we make up for no apparent reason.  Groundhog's Day, besides being an epic movie, is also one of my favorite ridiculous holidays.  St. Patrick's Day, Arbor Day, I love them!!

A few years ago some middle school students I was leading in a small group asked me if I was ready for Pi Day.  I figured they meant pie, as in humble, peach, and chicken pot.  No no, they told me, giving me that look pre-teens save for their parents when they think they're being ridiculous, Pi Day.  As in 3.14 pi.  As in math, and formulas, and all sorts of fun riddiculousness that happens in the math world.

I blinked a few times.  There was really such a thing as Pi Day...?

There is, everyone, in case you've been hiding under a rock these past few years.  The first Pi Day was celebrated in the late 80s and in 2010 the national government began to consider making this an actual national holiday.  The idea is simple: you celebrate pi, or 3.14 on March 14th, and all the nerdiness that is associated with loving Pi.  In my opinion, I feel this holiday has picked up steam in recent years as high school math teachers have desperately looked for ways to motivate their classes.  A day where we can talk about pi and eat pie?  Most high school students are down with that.

That's the second part about Pi Day: pie.  You have to eat it.  At least a piece, but I seriously consider more than one perfectly OK on Pi Day.  Is this holiday ridiculous enough for you yet?  I love it!!

I was at work today and realized tomorrow is Pi Day.  Tomorrow!  Time to bake some pie!  My coworkers had no idea what I was talking about when I explained it to them, but I have faith I can make them a fan tomorrow.  Who doesn't like pie??

So I started baking.  I came up with an apple crumb (well, I bought that one, because I'm short on time!) a chocolate peanut butter, and a strawberry.  Something for everyone!!

If you forgot about Pi Day, it's not too late, stores are open 24 hours!!  And if you never knew about it, have fun with it at work tomorrow!  Stop by Eat N'Park on your way into work and pick up a pie to share with your coworkers.  If you're feeling especially intellectual, discuss with your coworkers your favorite "Pi loving moment" (because don't we all have one!?!)

Happy Pi Day everyone!!  May your pie's be tasty, and always a la mode!!!

Goats

Sometimes you have to not post about cupcakes, you know... :-)

Goats.  Who remembers the last time you looked at one and thought, "What a cute and cuddly creature!"  They're like reject sheep, honestly...sheep are cuter, and fluffy, and sell good mattresses.  Goats...eat stuff.  Are associated with tin cans.  Smell unfavorable.  Yet here in 2013, it's all we seem to be able to talk about. Goats.

If you haven't seen this YouTube video yet, goats are taking over the internet.

I'm not sure why this is as funny as it is, but I can't stop watching.  It's like a car crash.  You want to look away, and click on something else, but you can't!

Now people are remixing songs to include these goats.

Why can't we look away?  Why can't we stop watching?  What is YouTube doing to us?!?!

If you don't hear from us in a few days, check in, make sure we haven't sold the place and opened a goat farm.  Goodness, that would be madness!!

Ron Swanson

Sometimes, when I need a break from baking, I watch Parks and Recreation over and over again.

Ron Swanson is my hero.

Frankie Says Relax!!

Do you ever have those months where you look back and say, "Where did this month go?!?!" That was our February.  How is March 1 this Friday???  As you know, this isn't our favorite month, so we're not super sad to see it go, but our life seems to be on fast forward right now!!

We have a break from our full time job at Initech today, and decided to get caught up on some bakery odds and ends while we have the chance.  It's been a crazy few weeks at work, and baking has taken a back seat to sleeping, showering, and occasionally eating. :-)  Luckily we're approaching wedding season, though, which means we'll be baking out the wazoo over the coming weeks.  Themed wedding cakes are our favorites, and we should have some pretty fun ones coming up this spring/summer season.

In the mean time, we've been baking up some fun treats for some birthday celebrations.  Our favorite of the month?  This stunning almond raspberry cake we made for a good friend.  Simple, elegant, and absolutely delicious.  Sometimes celebrating birthdays isn't about the icing and the sprinkles, but the smile one gets when biting into a perfectly delicious bite of cake.  Mmmmmmmm. :-)

We also had fun baking some cupcakes for a bridal shower last week.  It was a last minute request with one very simply instructions: no chocolate.  WHAAAAA...??!?!?!  No chocolate???  How could anyone want to throw a party without chocolate cupcakes??  The shock was quite unbelievable, but after we regained our breath from the initial bad news, we did manage to find some good flavors to celebrate the upcoming nuptials  strawberry champagne, vanilla bean, and lemon raspberry.  Even without a bit of chocolate in the batch, they still turned out surprisingly well.

For now, we're going to go reorganize our pantry (always an awful task), watch some Downton Abbey, and relax on this day off from Initech.  It's 43 and sunny today, a perfect sign that spring is just around the corner!!

Enjoy the sunshine, and watch out...some Psych themed cupcakes will be popping up in our bakery this week to celebrate the return of the wonderful tv show!  We can't figure this recipe out!!

Lis

Febru--ewwwwy

We're going to start off this post with a bit of honesty: we hate the month of February.  It is so cold, and so glum, and so confusing with the "Is it Leap Year, Isn't It??" drama, and seems like that last final hurdle between winter and spring.  How this month is only (usually) 28 days is beyond us, because it always seems like the longest month of the year.

The only good things about February:

     1. It's our half birthday on February 19th (and we have always been firm believers that you celebrate your half birthday!)

     2. It's Groundhog's Day, meaning the wonderful Bill Murray movie will be on TV again.

Otherwise, this month can pass as quickly as possible.

It's been another busy week for us here at PSR, although that is slowly becoming the norm.  We made our first tiered wedding cake, baked some delicious cupcakes, and managed to design a new logo.  Some wonderful pictures for you to drool over coming right up!

(the top photo is our raspberry lemon and the bottom is our breakfast cupcake, complete with freshly cooked bacon on top!)

So as we slowly build into a business, things have started to fall in place.  We came up with a name, thanks to a lengthy Facebook post.  We passed out PA SafeServ test.  We've bought new supplies and tools, and boxes, redesigned business cards, launched websites, wined and dined potential clients.  It's a very small snowball still, but at least it's rolling.

One thing that was bothering us was the lack of a logo on any of our products.  We're of the firm belief that branding, advertising, and logos help people to recognize your product (on a large scale: the golden arches of McDonalds.  On a smaller scale, we all know the commercials and advertising campaigns for Edgar Snyder and Associates). We feel we advertise fairly well, given our income, but we were still on the hunt for a good logo.  Online designs, while well priced at times, were a big game of "what ifs".  You paid for one design, and if you didn't like it, oh well.  We figured we'd rather pay a little more and make sure we had some say in the design.

A friend of the bakery is a graphic design student, and he does all that awesome stuff on computers we can only dream of.  Our computers are used for email, facebooking, and catching up on tv shows via Hulu.  We gave him a vague idea of what we were looking for: Color, definitely.  But elegance.  Also fun, we're a fun bakery.  The classic black and white theme works wonders too, though.  Feminine, but not too feminine that men run away screaming.  Honestly, that's almost word for word what we typed him.  He somehow made sense of all of that, and began working.  

8 revisions later (take that etsy and your "no-revision" policy!) we finally had a logo that I loved, he was proud of, and I could pay him for.

Ladies and gentlemen, our new logo:

Thoughts?  We personally LOVE it.  He somehow managed to incorporate everything we asked for in our email.  Fun, elegant, colorful, feminine (but not TOO feminine), and expressive of who we are.  You might see this popping up a little more often, as we slowly use logo placement to help you keep track of our business!

So on to today, and our busy weekend.  Business checks to cash, a sale to organize (read that and prepare yourself.  We're having a flash sale soon, on Facebook.  Amazing deals, extremely limited supply.  Keep watch, because it won't come around again anytime soon!!) and a pineapple birthday cake to make.  Any Psych lovers out there?  This cake is going to be for you!!

Have a wonderful weekend, try to stay warm.  March better come quickly, so we can get into the wedding swing of things!!  Cannot wait!!

Lis