Monday, November 28, 2011

Home Made Vanilla

Happy Monday! Here are some pictures of our first bottle of home made vanilla. Being in Austin we HAD to use a locally made Vodka & Tito's was a the natural choice. We've given Tito's as gifts to quite a few people and we get the same remarks - smoothest Vodka ever. Of course we weren't going to use anything else. We used a blend of vanilla beans - proprietary secret - but if you want to try it yourself it's 3 vanilla beans (split until about 2" from the top) per 1 cup of Vodka. You can use any kind of Vodka but I highly recommend using one you enjoy drinking. It takes about two months to be developed enough to use but we're thinking of doing two more bottles the same way so we have "Mother" bottles, a constant source of delicious & unique vanilla, or as we like to refer to it - Danzig. You know, because he sings Mother.....don't judge ;0) I love me some Danzig.  We are going to make as many of our own extracts as we can. Old School baking at it's finest. Enjoy the pics!


Ok so the vanilla beans look a little like mummified fingers. Trust me, they are vanilla beans.

Thanks Tito's! (I bought this at Spec's, $25.99 cash price)


Sunday, November 27, 2011

Pictures of Yummy Goodness!!

"US Mint.......Cause it's money"!  Sorry - couldn't help ourselves ;0)
Chocolate Cake, Ganache and Cream Cheese Mint topper. So.Freakin.Good.


Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake - Chocolate cake, chocolate mousse & white chocolate mousse

"Everett & Mary" Pineapple Brown Sugar Cake with Cherry Cream Cheese Frosting

"Practically Magical"  Coconut Cake with fresh Lime Buttercream. Dangerous......

"I Love Austin"  Chocolate cake, Ganache and Beer Buttercream - taste's like peanut brittle!

Dark Cherry Cream Cheese Filling.  This was the filling for my mom's birthday cake. Forget the cake, just grab a spoon!

Coconut cake, Coconut Custard with Cream Cheese frosting. Coconut seems to be a thing here.....

Almond Cake with fresh Strawberries (YUMMM) and fresh Whip Cream.  Nothing says summer like some strawberries!

Ryan's 21st Birthday......  Carrot Cake Cutting Board with Cream Cheese frosting covered in fondant.  My sister-in-law Lisa covered the cake to look like a cutting board & made the knife.  I think it turned out great!  My mom Rosalie, sister Edie (Princess) & I (Moose's Sister) made the sandwich fixings.  We used Rice Krispie Treats (homemade of course) to make the Ciabatta roll and shaped the fixins' out of fondant then painted it with food dye to get the right colors. Not bad for a first!

Sophia's 3rd Birthday.....White & Chocolate Cake with Classic Vanilla Buttercream.  All of the animals and flowers are made out of meringue.  One of the most fun cakes we've put together!

Wedding Cake for our dear friend Eric..... Our first wedding cake - Top & bottom tiers are almond cake, middle tier is strawberry cake all with whipped filling/frosting.  Flowers & twigs are fondant.  When we got to the delivery site an adorable little girl got so excited because she thought the birds on top were toys, unfortunately we didn't catch her in time to tell her they're cake before she picked up the bride. Good thing the bride & groom are awesome!

Chef Hat Cake for Ryan's Le Cordon Bleu Graduation.  White Cake, fresh Strawberries & Cream Cheese frosting all covered in fondant. I now have a love/hate relationship with the stuff. This sucker was HEAVY, about 60lbs. We made a support out of PVC (screwed to the cutting board) to run up the middle of the cake. From what I hear Ryan tried to deep fry a piece. Not sure how it turned out.

Chicken!!! Our amazing friend Jill LOVES chickens, proven by the coop full of them in her backyard - did I mention she doesn't live on a farm? - so for her birthday we had to dress up her cake with them. White Cake with Classic Vanilla Buttercream adorned by pink shimmery candy melt chickens.  The blinged out one isn't edible though!

"Boots, BBQ & Beer"! 
Ashley & Niel's wedding shower set-up.  Coconut with Lime Buttercream and Chocolate with Beer Buttercream cupcakes and some oatmeal raisin cookies.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Hope you all have full hearts & bellies :0) 

I've been a bit absent from my new blog, a situation I will rectify by being more regular with my postings.  Getting a jump on resolutions I suppose.  Things have gotten a bit busier as we work towards our dream of opening a bakery & sharing our treats with all the wonderful people in Austin, TX.  I've added a few more recipes to my done list & will post pictures soon.  I still have a dream of a store by Spring - praying it can happen!

I want to thank all of my wonderful family & friends for their encouragement and support.  We couldn't do it without you!!!