Follow the Yellow Brick Road to Business!

Whew! It has been a busy few weeks! We moved clear across the country. California coast to Virginia coast. We have settled into our new home quite easily, and I have begun the process of getting legal. Storybook Bakery is now a registered LLC with the state of Virginia. I now have my EIN and today got my business telephone turned on. Next step, send my paperwork to the VDACS for my kitchen inspection and start the "hopefully stress-free" process of getting my business license. I will be spending hours over the next few days perfecting my paperwork skills!

I hope to have everything done by the middle of April, but will not be accepting orders that need to be fulfilled before May 7th, just to give myself a little wiggle room in case I hit a snag. I have gotten a few inquiries already so I am excited to get started. Wish me luck!

Do You Mouth, Take Thee Chocolate? Heck, Yes!

I tried frosting a cake for the first time with white chocolate ganache, and I must say, I hope to use it more in the future! It is very sweet when used as a frosting, and milk chocolate or dark chocolate would taste wonderful, too. I hand-crafted a chocolate rose, leaves, and swirls to decorate. I love how it turned out! Cake is red velvet with cream cheese filling.
The nice sharp edges around the cake are always nice to see!

Happiness is a path, not a destination.

-Unknown

Frosty the Snowman Chocolate Covered Oreo..

Countdown to Christmas is beginning the final stretch. For our edible Christmas family gifts this year I went with chocolate covered oreos. I wanted to make a large amount to see how long it would take so each box contains 6 cookies. 20 boxes = 120 cookies. I made 140 just in case a few were duds. It took me just over 3 days. I really enjoy doing large amounts of things. It reminds me of my pastry classes. We boxed them up and mailed them across the country this morning. Hope everyone enjoys them!

I made orange and blue drizzled cookies as well. Here are the finished boxes.

It's always nice to see a bunch of smiling faces!

There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
- Erma Bombeck

Cake for Breakfast and Dessert!

A couple weekends ago, I found myself awake a lot earlier than usual, so I decided to make the best of my time before the rest of the house woke up and make a coffee cake. Now I don't usually get up early enough to make this wonderful yummy because it takes around 25-30 minutes to get it into the oven and an hour to bake it, so coffee cake is more or less a special treat around here. This one was a cinnamon coffee cake. It was wonderful! Coffee cake is definitely best straight out of the oven and still warm. We ate it for breakfast 3 days straight. I look forward to making it again the morning that we open Christmas presents.

It was already half-eaten the morning it was made. My family does not skimp on cake, even for breakfast.
I have been meaning to try out this cake/filling/frosting combination and finally got around to it. It's my version of a Boston cream cake. The cake is butter yellow and filled with Bavarian cream. Then, I made a chocolate ganache and poured it over. This same combination will make an awesome dessert cup!
The holiday season is in full swing and Christmas will be here before you know it. These are hard times for us all, but if you are able, please take the time to help bring some cheer to children who without it, may not have a gift to open on Christmas. Donate to Toys for Tots. Involve your children in donating this holiday season and teach them to appreciate their blessings and how to help bring blessings to others. We all share this beautiful world. Take care of your neighbors and remember, we are all in this together.

Seek joy in what you give, and not what you get.

-Unknown

Black Hole Sun Cake

Hand-painted and airbrushed. Sizes: 8, 10, 10, 14. Serves 178. I think now that I should have made the top tier a little smaller. It makes it look "squat" with the tiers so close in size.

Cake with sketch.

Chocolate fudge with peanut buttercream filling. Frosted in Swiss meringue buttercream and covered in fondant.
Butter yellow cake with fresh strawberry buttercream filling. Frosted in Swiss meringue buttercream and covered in fondant.

"Don't lose hope. When the sun goes down, the stars come out."

-Unknown

Halloween Dessert Buffet Table

Here is the finished dessert buffet.

The cookie tray.
Cakepops and brownies.
Layered vanilla pudding shooters.
Caramel and chocolate dipped apples.
Shoe box cake and chocolate shoe.

Stressed spelled backwards is desserts. Coincidence? I think not!

-Unknown

Buffet Table Prep

I have spent the past 4 days preparing a dessert buffet table for Halloween. Here are some shots of the "work in progress".

The shoe box cake. Completely edible. I used frosting sheets and designed my own little shoe logo.

The chocolate shoe.Apples on sticks, ready for dipping.

My apple dipping station.

Apples dipped in caramel.

And after being dipped again, this time in chocolate.

Cake crumbs and swiss meringue buttercream for the cakepops.

Cake pops rolled into balls.

The dipping station.

Cookies before going into the oven.And after baking.
Decorated.
Everything took about 4 days from start to finish. I love making a variety of desserts and don't want to get burnt out by just doing cakes all the time.

Today's progress was yesterday's plan.

-Unknown

Like Sand Between My Toes...

So about three weekends ago, I drove about an hour up to Murrieta, California, to the Cake Cottage for their huge chocolate mold sale. I came home with over 30 molds. I bought a sea shell mold and wanted to try it out, except I used fondant instead of chocolate. The starfish are hand molded and dusted with cocoa powder. The shells were marbled with cocoa powder as well. I hated to cover the sides of this cake after getting it so smooth and the corners so sharp but it was good practice. I look forward to making many beach themed wedding cakes in the future since we will be living at the coast.

It isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

-Unknown

Could You Hold My Cake Purse? Without Eating It?

I have been meaning to make these for a while but always get distracted with something else. After looking at several tutorials and pictures of other purse cakes, I figured I'd give it a try. I had some left over red velvet cake and cut out some mini purses. They are frosted in cream cheese frosting and covered in fondant. I airbrushed one pink and the other blue. There were originally four purses, but two of them looked so delicious that my 3 year old daughter decided to sample them. *Sigh* They were for practice anyway and my kids are just like their mother, nobody can take sugar from these babies!

Here is a size comparison so you can really see how small they are.

A heavy purse makes a light heart.

-Unknown

Lego my Logo!

While trying out my edible ink printer, I decided to give making chocolates a try. Practically anything can be printed on chocolates with use of frosting sheets and edible inks in all sizes and shapes. Here is a variety set of several different sizes, all with my bakery logo on them. I plan to get a business card mold as well to make life size business card chocolates.

Large suckers in both milk and white chocolate.
A smaller maybe 2-bite size chocolate.

There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.

-Unknown