15 Things We Learned in 2015

For the past few years we've spent the last month or so in quiet reflection (ha, there's nothing quiet about our life) of the year we've had as a bakery.  We're a big fan of organized, meaningful lists, so we've come up with this as a way to laugh at ourselves, smile at the year we've had, and get ready for the new calendars we're preparing to hang.

We don't know about you, but from a bakery point-of-view we killed it in 2015!  Take a look at the list below to see all we've accomplished in the past 12 months!

15 Things We Learned in 2015

1. Setting a goal and achieving it is the best feeling in the world!

Last year we decided that for 2015 we wanted to book one wedding cake.  Just one.  We wanted to improve our skills enough that one sweet (maybe crazy) couple would say, yeah, you know what, let's do this, let's roll the dice and make this happen!

We didn't really have a game plan other than a simple, "Put yourself out there more!"  But it worked, somehow, because by December of this year we had made a wedding cake for 3 different weddings this year.  Three!  

It's so awesome to look back a year ago and see what a huge year it's been for us in the wedding world.  To others, 3 weddings may sound like nothing, but to us, it's hopefully the start of something great!

2. Wedding cakes are fantastic.  And stressful.  And fantastic.  And stressful.

As much as we've loved dipping a toe into the wedding world, we can't say it's been a smooth transition.  Something always seems to go wrong when the stakes are higher.  You know?

It certainly helps when you know what you're doing.  Or at least can fake it long enough to figure it out.  But our first few wedding cakes were not without their issues.  One of the cakes melted after we finished it, causing us to have a panic attack 45 minutes before we had to drop it off.  Another cake almost didn't survive the car ride to the reception hall.  

But at the end of the day, all 3 of these cakes represent 3 different couples who got married this year in Pittsburgh.  Each cake represents their own personalities: traditional, bold, romantic, quirky, unique, elegant, they're each one of a kind and pretty amazing.  And it's even more amazing to stand back and think, "Yeah, we did this!  We made these cakes!"

3. It's never too early to start planning out supply shopping trips

Our order volume has definitely increased this year, and it's something we've had to account for.  We can no longer just run to the store willy-nilly whenever we run out of milk.  Nope, like seasoned veterans we now understand that time management is crucial to a good baker. 

4. There's a thing to be said for stacking coupons at the store

Like our better time management skills, 2015 was also the year of the coupons!  With the price of eggs sky-high, it's important for us to remain competitively priced without losing money on the products we offer.  One way we've done this is through couponing.  Yeah, we've turned into one of "those" people at the registers.  But hey, it works, and in the long run it should make you happy too!  We didn't need to raise the prices on anything we offered this year, a savings we passed onto you!

5. Large cakes let our creativity shine

When we first started baking things for Pittsburgh, we still didn't have the training we needed to really conquer big cakes.  Sometimes it's still a learning process for us, if we're honest.  One of the downsides of being self-taught, the learning curve is much bigger.

But now that we've had the chance to make some awesome themed cakes this year, we must admit, it's a wonderful creative outlet for us!  There's nothing better than imagining a cake in your head and then watching it come to life before your very eyes!

If we had to pick a favorite cake we've designed in the past year, this would be top 3 easily.  Not because we're big boat enthusiasts, but because it was such an ambitious project for us to take on.  When we were approached to make this cake for a 60th birthday party, immediately this image popped into our head.  Let's make a boat shaped cake, stick it on some water, and serve it up.  But could we make this idea a reality?  

It took a lot of time, and careful detail work, but when this cake was done we were so proud of the results.  It was exactly how we imagined it, and the customer loved it too.  That's a win win!

6. Cheesecakes aren't as scary as everyone thinks (no really)

Another area we've really expanded in our bakery this year is our cheesecake creations.  Cheesecakes were always those big scary baked goods that no one ever seemed to want to touch.  They were too difficult, too fragile, too expensive, and just not worth the time.

But we decided to give it a whirl this year, and we're glad we did!  No, they aren't the easiest thing in the world to make, but it's a good challenging item for us to make, and an even better item to offer to our customers.  In November and December alone we sold 4 cheesecakes for the holidays!  That's some great additional business we might have missed out on in years past.

7. We still make mistakes in the baking world.  Major mistakes.

A week or so ago we were dipping pretzel rods into melted baking candies to make some Star Wars light sabers for a party we were attending.  Seems fairly simple, right?  Melt candies, flavor them, dip pretzels, let dry.

Except, we forgot you can't use an alcohol-based flavor on the candy melts, or it ruins the candies and you can't apply them to the pretzels.  So we ruined a huge batch of candies and had to go to the store for more.  It happens, and we're human.  Oh well.

8. Christmas cookies are great, but they lead to sleep deprivation

As we're writing this list, we are officially done with cookie baking season for the year, and enjoying the normal sleep patterns that January-October afford us.  While we love Christmas cookies as much as the next holiday elf, we don't want to see another cookie sheet for awhile.

9. When you're an adult, no one will yell at you if your dinner is the extra better in the bowl

Sometimes baking = late nights.

When you don't have time to cook yourself something healthy, cake batter it is.  With lots and lots of milk, of course!

10. There will always be someone who doesn't like what you do

Earlier this year we met with a potential client about a wedding she wanted us to bake for.  We brought some samples of our work, and while we talked she sat and ate a few of the things we had made.  After a few bites she very bluntly told us she thought it was awful and didn't want to work with us, abruptly adjoining the meeting.

At first we were a little surprised.  No one had ever ended a consultation like that before (even if they didn't end up booking us, they were still polite enough not to walk out).  Then we were worried something was wrong with our offerings.  Maybe they were horrible and we shouldn't be doing this?

But after some time, we realized what we offered wasn't what this woman was looking for.  And that's ok.  There isn't a one-size-fits-all in any world, especially a baking world.  It didn't work out with this one person, but for the dozens of other people we baked for this year it did.  Sometimes that's ok.

11. You can conquer the baking world with a powerful stand mixer and 5 lbs of sugar

True story.  If you like to bake and haven't invested in a good mixer, get to it!  And before you buy, research research research!

12. Know your limitations and stick to them!

Sometimes when we get calls about new orders it's exciting to us.  We want to say yes to everything, because it's still such a thrill that people actually want to hire us!

But we also need to sleep.  And function.  And shower.  We're a small bakery, one, maybe two people work on your items when you place an order with us.  There's only so much we can take on.  Sometimes growing a business means learning how to say no to orders you can't possibly take on.  That happened quite a few times this year, and we've learned it's ok!

13. Don't be afraid to try something risky.  Even if it doesn't turn out

This year PSR had it's first international order (read all about our adventure HERE) that was a step outside of our comfort zone.  Our customer wanted us to design a dragon out of cake, that required us to use baking skills we had never tried before.

At first we weren't sure if the cake would turn out the way we wanted it to.  And looking back, if we were to do this cake again we'd probably change a few minor things.  But even though the risk was high, the reward was even higher when we managed to pull it off and impress our customer.  And isn't that what it's all about??

14. Do something nice once in awhile, just because you can

Our little brother (not so little as he towers over us in height) has had a fun year helping out our bakery.  He's taste-tested more odd flavor combinations than any one person should have to.  He's stepped in to bake in a pinch when we're low on time and have 750 cupcakes to get out by the end of the day.  He's driven us (verrrrrrrry slowly) to wedding venues and helped us set up wedding cakes, navigating traffic, grumpy pedestrians, and tricky staircases.

We wanted to repay him for his birthday this year, because he's been helpful even when he didn't have to be.  Our brother is an avid comic book and Disney fan, so this year's Big Hero 6 was a film that was practically made just for him.  We knew right away that we wanted to turn it into a cake for him.

It was a labor of love, and one that we offered up for free.  But the end result was pretty great.  The San Francisco Bridge wrapping around the cake, some awesome figurines that he could keep and enjoy, it is another Top 3 cake of the year.  And one we truly fell in love with!

15. Dishes still suck

Maybe 2016 will be better?  We're not betting on it, though.

See you next year, fools!! :)  We can't wait to see what 2016 brings our way!

Pittsburgh Bakery - Pokemon Birthday Cake

Well it's been awhile!

Consistent blogging is never going to be our thing, we guess.

But we're back, with a fun new project we just worked on last week that was a fun break from all the pies we baked for Thanksgiving.

A lot of our business comes from friends and previous client referrals, and we can't tell you how much we love and adore your support.  No really, without you guys talking us up so much we'd be watching a lot more Netflix.  A friend recommended a new order to us though 2 weeks ago, and it was a cake we had so much fun making: a Pokeball!

We're geeky here at this bakery.  We regularly supply Geek Girl Brunch Pittsburgh with nerdy treats for their get togethers.  Our favorite cake of the year so far would probably be THIS Big Hero 6 cake we make over the summer.  So when you request we create a Pokeball cake, of course we're going to be 100% in on this idea!

What we loved about this cake was how easy it was to create, as well as how cute the cupcakes turned out.  Who wouldn't want a pokeball or two when they're made of sugar and super sweet??

We have another fun birthday cake coming up this week that we're super excited about and then the holiday rush is upon us!  If you haven't gotten your order in yet for holiday treats, don't wait, we have a limited number of days open still.

Until next time...and we promise it won't be 6 more weeks!

PSR Goes International (kinda)

Sometimes the baking business is the pits.  Dishes to wash, invoices to write, budgets to magically budget.  If you think our lives are some magical fantasy episode of Ace of Cakes or something, that's very far from the truth.

But for every ugly dish we have to wash and dry long after we want to crawl into bed, we have moments that are fun and special and remind us why we got into this business in the first place.  Moments like this weekend, when we completed our first international order.

An international order for PSR is like the Pittsburgh International Airport claiming it's an international airport.  Sure, they have a daily flight to Toronto and Cozumel, but most people don't think of the PIA as an international travel destination.  Same with a bakery in Pittsburgh.  International orders?  What?

Here's what happened, though.  A woman contacted us from the UK to let us know her son's birthday was coming up, and he was now living in Pittsburgh.  She was hoping we could bake and deliver him a cake.  It took some planning, since most of our customers pay with cash or check on delivery (thanks, PayPal!), but once the logistics were worked out, we decided to make a cake with a Welsh dragon on top.  And write "Happy Birthday" in Welsh on top.  Because, you know, we majored in languages in college (nope, we didn't).

The cake turned out fantastically, though.  Take a look at some of the photos below of the prep work and finished results!  And stay tuned, we still have another wedding cake and birthday cake coming up soon that you'll want to see (no, really, you will!)

The head and neck of the dragon were molded from rice krispie treats.  It's a light-weight replacement for cake that's easy to sculpt)

Also, if you're like us and didn't know the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom, we found this handy dandy map for you.  This isn't just a baking blog, you guys, we're here to educate!!

Big Dreaming

We're a few weeks late with this, but we wanted to talk to you today about our New Year's resolutions.  Not our personal ones, mind you, but our bakery resolutions.  It's good to look forward into 2014 to see what we should be aiming for, right?  Well here are 3 resolutions Pittsburgh Sweet Relief has for this coming year.

1. Build an Epic Cake
We've made some pretty awesome cakes in the past 18 months of business (hellllllloooo, who could forget that we made this awesome cake...twice!) but this year we're thinking bigger and better.  We're thinking lots of tiers, lots of colors, lots of whimsy and imagination.  Honestly, we're thinking we want to go a little crazy here!  Our goal by December 31, 2014 is to have successfully made a truly amazing cake for someone that beats everything we've previously done!

Oh, and if you're on the fence about whether you want a big crazy cake for your birthday party/wedding/graduation/retirement/shower/etc you should drop us a line.  We're gonna offer huge discounts to the first person who lets us try this out for their event.  Monumental discounts.  So contact us.

2. Increase Our Business
This is a no-brainer, but it had to be said: obviously we want our business to grow.  We want more of you guys to fall in love with everything we have to offer.  This requires more dedication on our end, though.  2013 was a crazy year: We changed jobs, made new friends, sort of reinvented ourselves.  Personally, it was great, but all the time we devoted to training for a 5k was less time we had to devote to building our business.  It still grew, thanks to the wonderful support of all of you, but this year, we want to focus back in on what we love: baking wonderful things for you, and telling everyone about it.  Easy peasy, right?? :-)

3. Perfect Something New
In the past year we've learned a lot of new tricks to the trade.  We've learned a pinch of salt can go a long way.  We've learned that macaroons will always continue to be difficult for us to perfect.  We've learned that making flowers out of gum paste is a really relaxing way to spend 6 hours.  We've learned 365 days later we still don't like doing the dishes.

This year, though, we want to take something, learn it, and perfect it.  You know our staples are cookies, cakes, and cupcakes, and we don't feel like there's anything wrong with that.  In the past year we've dabbled with cheesecakes, bread, pies, and pastries, and we've learned lots of secrets to all of them.  Now it's our turn to step it up.  We're going to perfect the art of something, and add it to our repertoire.  We're going to make the effort to continue to educate ourselves about the baking world, and not stop until we've become successful at something new.

Big goals for 2014, we realize that.  But if you don't aim high, you don't achieve big things, right?? :-)  Anyway, these are our goals.  If you see us, hold us accountable.  Maybe we'll give you a cookie if you help us hold up our end of the bargain.

Polar Vortex Round II starts this week.  Get those fuzzy socks back out, it's gonna be a cold one out there!!

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!

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!

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!!

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!!