Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to myself!  I need to post more often I am noticing.

To celebrate, actually this was just a coincidence, today I spent 8 hours downtown at the All Things Baking expo Business for Bakers seminar. It was hosted by four guys with a good 20-30 years of baking business experience each talking about the business of baking. How to open and run your own bakery. I was afraid it would be boring but it was quite interesting the whole day.

Tomorrow I get to take two classes with Bronwen Weber, piping wedding cakes and a chocolate class. I would probably get more out of some of the other classes offered, but come on, its Bronwen Weber! Why not!! I'm also excited just to see the expo, to see what's new in the world of baking!

As a side note, as I've been working on the trade shows we have coming up for the office, so i'm interested to see the booth styles people are using at this show. The trade shows I will get to go to for work are oil and gas related, not nearly as exciting. Who knows, maybe I'll find an idea to steal anyway. Baking or marketing related. ;)

The Zebra Cake

So I walked into my boss's office and asked her what she was doing that weekend. She mentioned her daughters birthday. To which my response was "Want a cake?" Since I almost con'd her into buying a cake from me I grossly undercharged her. But the cake was still fun (and incredibly frustrating) to make.

The frustrating part was all my error. A baking and pastry certificate from the CIA Greystone and I completely forgot that chocolate mousse filling is not structurally sound to be a filling without a border to coral it in. I fought it all through the process because I didn't pipe a border to hold it in.

In the end I won. What do you think?

The Captain America Cake

A friend wanted a Captain America cake for her son. Chocolate cake with Vanilla frosting...  So first you start with the cake.

Then you soften the butter and make up the frosting...

Then frost the cake and design the top. I used a buttercream transfer for this one.

And this is what I ended up with! 

It was well loved by everyone. I was proud of it. :) 

Baking in Photos

I've been baking, but just not blogging recently. So I thought I would do a recap of the past few months in photos:

Lets Start with October...

These were for a Baby's 1st Birthday party. 

Cupcakes for the baby to play with... I mean eat.

I know these aren't baked... but its a nice way to start off Halloween.

  And for Halloween/Tiffany and Vanessa's Birthday party....

Ghost cake balls, Chocolate frosted chocolate cake with raspberry filling

Vampire bite vanilla cupcakes

Its hard to tell but those are Witch hat and Ghost Rice Krispy Treats

In November...

We had the day of 14 dozen cookies....

Original Peanut Butter Cookies

Since I cant see the TV from the kitchen, and I had 14 dozen cookies to decorate...

.

Then I brought these into the office just for fun. 

Not much was baked in December but we did make this...

Several peanut butter cookies, and one large one

The two average cookies are the ears...

All of these photos are making me want cookies now....

Is it Fall yet?

It's officially October and according to the calendar its fall too... but Texas just doesn't get it. I do know that no matter what the weather is like outside our October social calendar is always full.

The good news is, I'm fitting in cakes all this month. And yesterday I took pre-orders for 6 dozen cookies for Thanksgiving! This weekend I have a Captain America cake to bake. Possibly next week I will be doing a haunted house cake. And then Halloween weekend I will be doing 2 baby's 1st Birthday cakes, desserts for a Halloween party and possibly another Birthday cake. And spending almost every weekend at the Texas Renaissance Festival!!! Yey!!

Oh and look what I got today! Its almost what I wanted from William Sonoma but could only find on ebay. I found this set at Hobby Lobby.

Gotta love Halloween!!

Dawn

Some day I will own a bakery. Maybe I will just be baking and decorating cakes out of my house. I would like that. No stress of being in someone else's kitchen, following some one else's timeline. Just me and the wedding cake. Or birthday cake... Or whatever. But right now I don't do any of that. I spend my day pushing papers and my evenings... well I don't seem to do much in the evenings. Pushing papers can be exhausting. And it really doesn't have anything to do with my Baking and Pastry degree.
I'm hoping this blog will be the dawn of my passion for cakes and pastries. Wish me luck.