Exciting Updates!!!

Hello All........ 

We have a couple of exciting updates to share with you. 

First off our vanilla is coming along great!  It smells so rich & yummy..can't wait to use it!!!  The color is such a beautiful amber color too - every time I look at it I get hungry for caramel!  Secondly we got our bakery project launched on Kickstarter tonight!!!  If you're not familiar with Kickstarter it's a very amazing grassroots fundraising site.  You can put just about any kind of project on there & get pledges from friends & family to help you reach your goal, ours being to open a bakery by Spring 2012.  You don't pay people back, but offer rewards for certain pledges.  I hope we get to send out boxes & boxes of delicious cookies & brownies!!!  Thank you everyone for your wonderful love & support - the bakery is dedicated to every last one of you!

Here's the vanilla after three weeks

Elmo & Snickerdoodles & Peppermint Oh My!

Christmas is only a little over a week away....can't hardly believe it!  Hope everyone is having fun getting ready for their holiday celebration.  Our nieces & nephew are heading to California this Christmas :0( but they're going to Disneyland too :0) so I'm excited for them, I LOVE Disneyland!!!


I got to do some Elmo cupcakes and cake pops for a 2 year olds birthday.  Never made either before but they all turned out really cute!  Now let me vent about cake pops for a minute, they're a pain to make!  We didn't use a special pan or anything.  Remember, we do things old school.  You have to get the ratio of cake crumbs to frosting just right.  Too much cake they crumble.  Too much frosting they're a sticky wet mess.  Then we learned don't dip them unless they're frozen or the weight of the chocolate will tear them right off the sticks.  But you have to work quick because they thaw fast.  What??????  Too many rules for something so sweet!  Luckily you can dip them in sprinkles, coconut, crushed nuts or candies or cookies - whatever your sweet tooth dictates, this will hide the lumpyness.  But really who cares if they don't look perfect?  Pretty doesn't mean good & good doesn't mean pretty.  This applies to people too but we'll save that convo for another time....and blog ;0)  I have pictures of the Elmo cupcakes but didn't take pictures of the cake pops, no reminder of the irritation.  But God bless my sister Edie, she had the patience to deal with coating them & did a fantastic job!


We also did some Snickerdoodle cupcakes and Peppermint cupcakes for our friend Jill to give out at work.  The Snickerdoodle ones taste just like the cookie, if the cookie also had a delicious cinnamon buttercream frosting.  The peppermint were yummy too - the frosting has such a clean minty taste it makes you want to kiss someone!  Good thing this time of year has lots of opportunity for kissing with all the Mistletoe!  Peppermint cupcakes....the reason for a kissing season!


Enjoy the pictures!!

It's Elmo!!!

Snickerdoodle....we even made the candies on top

Peppermint.....we didn't make these candies.  Wha..wha...whaaaaa.....

Vanilla Update

Hello all......  Here is a picture of our homemade Vanilla after just five days.  It's so cool to be able to see the progress from a bottle of Vodka to some pretty snazzy Vanilla we're going to get to use.  And the best part is WE MADE IT!!! 

Some of you may ask why such a fancy brand of Vodka, why not the cheap stuff?  My favorite tattoo shop in North Hollywood - Graffiti Palace -  had a sign hanging up that read "Good tattoos aren't cheap & cheap tattoos aren't good", same is true for baking.  No, you don't have to spend a lot to create a good product but we chose Tito's for two reasons 1) they're local & our goal is to support as many local Joe's as we can by buying as many local products as possible and 2) they just have an amazing Vodka so of course we're going to use it!  I'm pretty flexible with some brands I'll use depending on cost but there are a few that I will not negotiate on, Hershey's & Tito's being a couple of them.  Use what you're comfortable with & trust and you'll have a consistently good product every time.

Have a great Tuesday everyone!  Talk to you soon & stay baked!

UT Event 12.2.11

We had a blast at the UT event for the Information Department.  We made Lemon Cookies, New England Cookies (because Old England Cookies would be gross lol) and a chocolate cake with gnash, toffee and beer buttercream.  All are oh so good!

Home Made Vanilla After 2 Days

This is just after 2 days!  The color is already looking amazing!

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)

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.

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!!!

Beginning Of Something Great!!!

We have a BLOG!!!!  Finally........  Stay tuned for updates and pictures.