Closed on the 4th

We will be taking a much needed day off on July 4th! It’s pretty sad to skip a brunch Sunday, but it’s Michelle Herbivore’s birthday and there are fireworks, so who can resist? If you need to order a cake for that weekend, please call by Thursday morning to have the order available for pickup Saturday. Have a great weekend!

Why we haven’t been blogging lately. (we’ve been busy!)

I have to say, I am extremely excited about how well the bakery is doing in the midst of the “economic downturn”. We have been consistently busier every day, and we have you wonderful customers to thank.

Aside from trying to keep up with the line that keeps forming in front of our pastry cases (hence the hiring post!) we have been happily turning out wedding cakes in the kitchen. Katie and I finally feel like we hit our stride this year and found even the days which we thought would be difficult to come off without a hitch. Except for that cake in Vancouver where we forgot part of the cake, had to drive back to Portland grab it, and drive back… but we were still ready with time to spare.

you can't even tell we made two trips for this cake, see?

I really really love this cake. The awesome thing about forgetting part of it is that we got to see Leanne, the bride, getting ready to walk down the aisle… in a golf cart! The wedding was at a country club and the set up was gorgeous; I actually wanted to stay and hang out for the party.

We were recently blogged about on the Cupcakes Take the Cake blog because of this photo, which I think looks very “Martha Stewart”.

tiny bride drags tiny groom on tiny cake

I don’t like to say bad things about stuff we make, but I thought this one was going to be ugly. I was worried about the colors – sunshine yellow and white two-toned cupcakes matched with a forest green ribbon… I just couldn’t see it. The whole drive to the location (4 miles up a gravel mountain road, okay!) I was stressed about how bad it was going to look. But you can see from the picture how it came out… amazing! I hadn’t considered the “sunflower” theme at all. Turned out to be one of my favorites this year, so there!

This cake was a little different, which is what made it fun. Piping wavy lines on purpose was harder than I thought! The cake itself was our mocha cake, made with Stumptown Espresso. I had to run around town searching for orchids for this one after the florist ordered the wrong kind of flowers for me. (Thank you florist ladies at Zupans for stocking so many beautiful orchids.)

two beers and the wavy lines were easy

This was again at a really fancy location (I am easily impressed by classy restaurants) called Aqua Riva. Apparently they made an entirely vegan Italian meal for this wedding. The location overlooked the river and even had valet parking (oooooooh!).

I’m going to mostly toot my own horn on this last one, so just take it. I’m really into this fresh, colorful, wildflower type of look for cakes. It works especially well with cupcakes, and the color palette of the cupcakes and the flowers for this wedding is, in my opinion, exquisite. The top cake and the white cupcakes were all gluten free. What I’m most proud of is the flower arrangement on the top, which I did myself! I didn’t realize when I started doing wedding cakes that I would have to quickly learn to arrange flowers as well… but almost every cake with flowers on it is arranged by us when we set up the cake.

my crowning achievement

We’re still doing wedding tastings on for September and October weddings so I’m sure there will be more to come! Hurry up and decide to get married – we start booking next years dates in January.

-Lisa

Closing Early and opening early.

Today is Memorial Day, and we will be closing at 1pm. We have lots of bagels, so get out of bed and stop and eat one before you go for your bike ride in this lovely weather! Or, if you’re like me, you can eat one and go home and get back in bed with your cats. But the windows are open, so it’s almost like being outside.

And now, on Saturdays, we will be opening at 8am, so you early risers can stop giving us puppy dog eyes outside the door at 8:30. We still won’t have doughnuts until 9am though, because we draw the line at getting here at 5:30 am. Don’t care what you say about baker’s hours, we aren’t doing it.

-Lisa

Little bit of Nothin’ (you say you have allergies?)

Let me introduce you to Katie. I’ve mentioned her a few times, and I feel like a formal introduction is necessary before I get into the baked good portion of this post. I took this picture as we were waiting for our lunch last summer after setting up a wedding cake.

so serious!

Katie is amazing at a million different things. She comes up with tons of new recipes, decorates cakes, keeps the bakery cases full of new stuff as well as the old standbys. She also takes pictures of everything – most of the photos on this site are hers – and keeps up our flickr page. She helps me with wedding cakes, bakes and decorates all of the special orders, and she still bakes at home for fun!  You can also watch her demonstrate her caramel nut bar recipe on Everyday Dish.

Her latest experimental recipe has wowed us all, and has been flying out of the bakery in your excited hands every day. It started with the name Freedom Muffin, but the word freedom has been so ruined by things like “freedom fries” or “freedom dressing”, that we didn’t want you to think we were making french muffins and get all confused. So, it was renamed Nothin’ Muffin, because there is nothing in it! Yet it still exists! (here it is)

nothin' never tasted so good!

This one is almond poppyseed, my personal favorite muffin flavor. This is a Gluten-Free, Soy-Free, Sugar-Free masterpiece. The texture is lovely – moist, light and fluffy, so soft and not crumbly! Sweetened with agave, it should be suitable for diabetics, and as always we remind you that we are not a Gluten-Free facility, so there is a chance of cross-contamination with wheat, but we do our best to be careful about that.  Katie has been making new flavors daily, stop by and try one and be amazed.

-lisa