Wedding Season!

I’ve forgotten to post about it this year, but we’re taking appointments for tastings for 2012 weddings.  Tastings are free for weddings of more than 45 guests. We do tastings for gluten free too! We got to do some gorgeous and fun weddings last year and are looking forward to another fun summer of weddings. Call 503-477-5916.

Wedding season approacheth

Our last wedding of 2010 was merely a week ago, and here we are, jumping in to weddings of 2011. June and July are already filling up, so call soon and book a free tasting. I’ve updated our wedding page with all of the current info.

We still deliver within Portland for free, and to all McMenamins locations.

We definitely accommodate food allergies, just let us know when you call. Gluten free, soy free, and nut free are all available options.

SOS!

Hey everyone! (And Mom!, Hi Mom!) It’s that time of year again. You know, the time when you thought that maybe the economy was looking up and that you might BUY holiday gifts this year instead of making them all out of newspaper and popsicle sticks like you had to last year because you have $20 in your bank account until next payday (when your rent is due)?

Uh-huh, I’m there too. In fact, most of us are. You may or may not know this, but all of us business owners here at the mini-mall donated more money (gift certificates, food donations, our time, and straight up cash money) than we took home as paychecks this year. I’ve tried to be as honest as I can on this blog about what it’s like to run an ethical small business without boring you to death. And let me tell you, spending 3 straight days trying to source vegan, gluten free, possibly soy free pie crusts in large quantities is BOOOORING when you type it all out. But the truth of the matter is, we are all struggling right now. The last couple of years have made it difficult to scrape by on savings that barely exist anymore, and a couple of super slow weeks can really take a toll on the stability of our businesses. We all try really hard not to ask for help, because we know that when it comes down to it, we are “for profit” businesses, but we give back as much as we can to our community, and the animals, and our friends that need help.

The point of this rambling is, we’re not asking for anything special, just PLEASE COME TO THE MINI MALL AND BUY SOMETHING! Stop by Food Fight for a snack, or a Tofurky pizza for an after work quick dinner so Chad will stop having all those worried wrinkles on his forehead! Buy someone you love a cookbook from Herbivore instead of buying it on Amazon so Josh and Michelle can buy that house in the Hamptons they have always dreamed of! (kidding, haha, right?!) Come to the bakery and order a pie, or just order a latte so I can keep providing jobs for 13 AWESOME vegan people! Buy someone you know without a tattoo a gift certificate to Scapegoat and tell them it’s finally time to step up and FIT IN in Portland! (kidding again, i love you non-tattooed people, your skin is so naked looking!)

I really do know it’s tough for everyone right now, and every vegan business owner I know is struggling to hold it all together. We all love Portland, and we love our supportive, welcoming, proud to be so awesome community. Hopefully this is a gentle reminder that where you spend your hard earned $$ DOES matter, and when you spend it with us, it goes to vegan employees, our vegan families, and back into our vegan products. And we recycle it back into donations as much as we can.

OK! Thanks for reading this, if you made it all the way. Now, go, have a SouthEast PDX Vegan day! Eat lunch at Blossoming Lotus, get a milkshake at Sip, eat dinner at Portobello, swing by the mini-mall for some coffee, treats, shirts and things, then pass out on the couch at Scapegoat, where they will let you sleep off the food coma.

And for fun, and to make you feel nostalgic, and because this was a long blog post without pictures, here are some old pictures of fun times!

wedding season 2010: The End

As another wedding season (read: summer) wraps up, I’m realizing that I can’t seem to run our wedding business, and keep up with blogging. The good news is, I’ve signed the bakery blog up for Vegan MOFO, so I’ll be blogging like crazy through November, and it will be all about food! We’ve already started planning our holiday offerings, and we have some new items this year that I’m hoping you will all be excited about, because they are delicious, and will make your holidays a little less work. A lot of our ingredient prices went up this year (stupid recession – we all have less money but prices keep going up?) so I’m doing my best to keep our prices the same as last year, and working on some package deals with a discount too. We are all excited about holidays and holiday food, and we are READY! Katie’s so excited she’s been making halloween cookies and wearing halloween socks for like a month already.

I’m getting ahead of myself though, so back to the wedding thing. We made a record number of wedding cakes this year, and it felt really good. Like we finally really hit our stride and knew what we were doing. Should I admit that? This was the first year that I let someone else drive the car with the cake in the back. I’m working on a wedding book, with fancy photos for us to have at the bakery, so hopefully you can peruse that soon while you wait for your latte. For now though, here are some of my favorites from this year. We had such a great variety! Quite a few of the pictures are taken with my cell phone camera in the bakery, because location lighting often sucks unless you are a real photographer. If one of these cakes is yours and you are willing to pass along one of your professional photos for our book, I’d be so excited, I feel sad when a great cake gets a mediocre picture.

As a side note, for all of you prospective brides and grooms, I’m already booking for next year, so feel free to call and set up a tasting. July fills up fast, and September.

-Lisa

You’re getting married!

It seems like last year couples were a little timid about getting married. Fears about the economy perhaps? Less love and excitement about saying I do after you’ve just lost your job? Well, NOT THIS YEAR! Wedding season is in full swing, and for the first time ever, we are completely booked through September. That means I don’t have a Saturday off for 4 months, and I honestly couldn’t be more excited. I’ve met some wonderful couples, some demanding mother-in-laws, and this year more than ever lots of non-vegans who are just excited about our cake. And I’m kidding about that mother-in-law thing, you’re all laid back and wonderful.

We started off the season right, with a cake in my favorite colors. Turquoise? Orange? Yes!

Yellow bird, up high in banana tree... Anyone? Anyone?

This one was an adorable DIY wedding that I wish I could have stayed for! Sometimes the flowers really make it all come together.

dainty roses

And a groom’s cake for the man who loves basketball! This one was at McMenamins, and I have to say they know how to handle weddings. They take care of everything.

go blazies!

If your wedding is after September of this year, call to set up a tasting soon, and for those of you thinking about next year, we start booking out in January, so pick a date, and call early!

Monthly Cookbook Series

Michelle from Herbivore and I are doing a new FREE cooking demo series! Here’s the spiel:

Over here at the Vegan Mini Mall, we are always thinking about ways to get folks to go vegan, stay vegan, and make veganism attractive to others. It’s just another type of outreach or activism, right? There are also a LOT of new vegans in Portland, and we are here for you! We want to help keep your transition to compassionate eating fun and educational and, well, delicious. And keep you coming around our “mini-mall!”

Introducing the Monthly Cookbook Series! On the last Wednesday of every month, Starting June 30 at 7pm, Lisa Higgins of Sweetpea Baking Company, and myself (Michelle of Herbivore) will host a fun educational event to promote vegan cooking, vegan cookbooks, and learning new skills in the kitchen. Events will be at Sweetpea, 1205 SE Stark St. in Portland. Woo!

Sexy Plaintains!

Our first book and demo is the awesome new Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero. Don’t know what sopes are? Fear not. Interested in an empanada? So are we! Lisa and I will choose 3 or so recipes from the book, demonstrate new techniques and ingredients, demystify them, get you involved and doing something new too, and then we can all chow down. These events are limited to 20 people,and it’s now full. We look forward to seeing you there!

!!! I can’t tell you how much I LOVE this cookbook. I grew up in Miami, and I miss Cuban/Latin food like crazy! This will be a really fun event, email Michelle and sign up fast.

Spring, we’ve been waiting for you

I’m sitting in the bakery enjoying one of my favorite times here – It’s 6am and the sun is just coming up. I have a cup of french pressed coffee in my favorite mug (Stumptown, Indonesia Sulawesi Toarco, for you coffee nerds). Aaron did all the work, so I didn’t even have to get up to make it, one of the joys of having great employees. It’s quiet except for the soothing sounds of food prep coming from the kitchen; refrigeration humming, knives chopping, pans clanging, oven doors being open and shut. Every once in awhile Jesse and Katie laugh at something as they work and I can’t help but smile. Outside traffic is starting to pick up, and when the wind blows the air is full of pink petals, flying like snowflakes, from the blossoming trees lining the opposite side of the street. I know in an hour it’s going to get hectic, and I’ll forget this moment.

by now i should probably know what kind of trees these are

It’s finally spring, and after all of the impatient waiting, the tulips are blooming, and we’ve had our first warm sunny days. It’s already getting too warm in the kitchen, and we’re started wearing shorts. We’ve been thinking about fresh local fruit coming soon, and all of the new things we’ll bake. As much as I love fall holidays, I think this time of year is my favorite. It’s like a fresh start.

In the theme of working on new things, we’ve been featuring more savory items lately, my favorite of which has been this roasted garlic and tomato tart. It looks fairly unassuming, but the intensity of flavors are incredible.

waves of tomatoes

Easter came and went already, so quickly that we barely had time to take any pictures. My Mom made a big deal of Easter when I was a kid, so I have more of a sense of excitement about it that the rest of my staff. I know it’s only because my Mom put money in our Easter eggs instead of candy, but I think that’s just because she’s a smart Mom – it kept me and my sisters interested in egg hunts well into our teens. Julie always seemed to get all of the money and I would get the eggs that had notes in them like “Empty the trash” and “wash the dishes”. Here at the bakery we made some cupcakes that were so fun and adorable that they sold out in minutes. And no chicken eggs were used in the process!

he's too fat to fit in the hole. too many cupcakes for breakfast.

It’s 8am now,and time to get to work. Hope your Spring starts as well as ours has, and we hope to see you in the bakery soon, wearing a tank top and shorts! Maye you can show us all the new tattoos you got this winter.

-Lisa

Welcome to the future

In a few weeks it will be 2010, how weird is that? I thought things would be all futuristic and flying cars by now, but technology just hasn’t kept up with my imagination. Except for the part where I can flip a coin on my phone (without an actual coin), and use satellites to give me directions when I am lost (which is constantly). Oh, and that OHSU tram is pretty futuristic too. Aside from all of their archaic and useless animal testing at least OHSU is moving us into the future.

get outta my dreams, get into my pod

(I stole this photo from portlandground.com.)

Anyway, the point is, I feel like it’s time for us to get with it, embrace the fact that the future has arrived, and start serving you fresh, made-to-order sandwiches at the bakery. Usually I would just make it happen, and hope you like it, but this time I’m asking for your suggestions. Remember all of those times you have walked in the bakery and said “You know what you should make? You should make [insert your favorite item here] and I will come in every day and buy it.”  Well now, here’s your chance to get what you want. Tell me this: what kind of sandwich would you want? What kind of bread, hot or cold, what veggie fixings, condiments, and sides to go with it. My choice would be this, which will most likely make it onto the menu:

fake meat, i love you so much

This is a vegan Italian Sub that my friend Ed made for me once, I think about it several times a week, with great longing and joy. Please leave you feedback in the comments section and I will start working on our new sandwich menu!

Get in our kitchen, learn cool stuff

You know you want to learn how to make a seitan roast and decorate a kick ass cake for Thanksgiving! Sign up for these amazingly fun classes that I will be teaching at the bakery, through Portland Community College (PCC).

Vegan Holiday Baking Series click this link, then scroll down a bit.

I found it a bit difficult to understand the classes and how it all works on the PCC website, but I’m also not the best at computers. I’m giving you all the info here just in case, but you should sign up through the PCC page. You can take the entire series, or just one of the classes.

Vegan Holiday Baking Series

Sweetpea Baking Company owner, Lisa Higgins, invites you into their top notch kitchen to share secrets for yummy, (I would have said delicious, or extremely pleasing to your palate) professional looking Holiday treats! Celebrate the Holidays (why do they keep capitalizing holiday?) vegan style without animal products and wow your guests with creations from your home kitchen. Includes bonus tips and suggestions for allergy-free (gluten free, soy free, nut free!) cooking. This series should not be missed! (that’s right!)

Ice Box Cookies: Easy Treats!

Wednesday October 14th 6:00-8:00 pm

Get a jumpstart on holiday baking this year, with simple recipes that can be baked-as-needed for great gifts and holiday treats! Step-by-step instructions includes tips for successful vegan baking.

Modern Cake Decorating

Wednesday October 21st 6:00-8:00 pm

Give your cakes a new look! Learn the latest and greatest creative techniques to decorate holiday layer cakes and cupcakes like a professional. Includes pastry bag basics, working with ganache and writing with icing – no animal products!

Perfect Pie Secrets

Wednesday October 28th 6:00-8:00 pm

Your friends and family will be amazed by your perfect pies! Learn the secrets of a flaky crust, how to build a lattice top, and the basics of holiday pumpkin pie. This class will be very hands-on!

Savory Seitan

Wednesday November 4th 6:00-8:00 pm

Unveil the mystery behind homemade Seitan! Class covers new ways to make and cook Seitan, including pepperoni style, chick’n fried, and a holiday roast. It’s easier than you think!

I am most excited about the cake decorating class – it is my favorite thing to teach and I have been wanting to do a class for a long time. Each class will be very hands on (wear clothes that can get dirty!) and you will take recipes and treats home with you.

Sign up! Sign up a friend! Come hang out with me. I’ll even take your picture standing in our giant oven.

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