Science Book

For Easter my mother-in-law gave me a journal - aka SCIENCE BOOK - to write down all the trials and tribulations!  Her thought was that I should write down what worked, what didn't, what to try next, what definitely needs to be skipped, etc...  My mother-in-law is wonderful.  She really is, and I'm not just saying that because she may read my blog. 

I married my husband, who is an only child - note to self - NEVER marry an only child again!  He had no children of his own and lived across the country from his mother - never really calling her.  What's that saying, a son is a son until he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter her whole life?  I think in this case he became a son when he got a wife.  Or something like that. 

Anyway, we had a child together and moved to Washington state.  His mother lived in Santa Monica.  We encouraged her to move closer so she could develop a relationship with the baby.  I had hoped she would be a grandmother to the other three but never really expecting it to happen.  Well, imagine my surprise when it did.  She loves each of my children as her own. 

Getting back to Easter.  I have to say with all that was going on this weekend, I completely forgot about getting her something for Easter.  Now I feel so bad!  (She's also very understanding) We went to her house for dinner and to celebrate my youngest daughter's birthday.  She had a little something for my oldest daughter, my youngest son, my youngest daughter and ME! 

In the bag was a stack of washcloths.  Umm I can explain.  We had a conversation once about washcloths and how not everyone uses one, even when they were brought up that way.  I made a comment that I am the only one, except my youngest child Avery, that uses washcloths and I use a new one everyday.  I hate it when I run out.  So, she has taken it upon herself to make sure I will never do that.  I've gotten three stacks of washcloths so far!  Along with the washcloths was a notebook to use as my baking journal.  Like she said, I probably wouldn't have bought one for myself - correct - but she thought I would need one with all the testing I would be doing.  How awesome is that?! 

For the first entry - let's start with thoughts on Strawberry Lemonade icing.  I need to figure that out.  It tasted wonderful, but too runny.  I need it light but strong.  That's why I thought about the cream cheese whipped cream icing.  I need a name for that one.  Then add fresh strawberries to it to give it the color and flavor.

Next entry - when using an extract such as Raspberry or Blackberry - do not use too much.  I got some from King Arthur to try.  It was like absinthe!  It tasted like alcohol!!  Whew!!! 


I will have to keep precise documentation for all my experiments!!

New Recipe!

You have to love baking if you just complete an order and then try a new recipe!!  I say I love baking.  What it is, what I feel is contentment, an inner peace - obviously not during the chaos.  Did you ever hear the phrase "in the zone"?  Thats where I go.  I love the smells, the feel, the taste.  I love watching what happens when you put together seemingly innocent ingredients and see what transpires.  More than that I love watching people eat what I've created.  Their whole beings change.  Unless of course it's not any good. 

My sister and I share a love of cookbooks.  I love reading new ones, she loves reading older ones and new ones.  Its like knitting for me, I love the yarn and all the different things you can do with it.  But I only have two hands and can really only do one project at a time.  Sure, I can have several projects going at the same time, but can only actually do one at a time.  I digress again.  Reading all the knitting books, or the cookbooks, I see all these items I want to make - baking or knitting actually.  I imagine how they will taste, how others will enjoy them, what they will 'bring to the table.'  This is what brought me to trying another new recipe (that and the fact that I will need a bigger pool of flavors to choose from).  While I was stuck in traffic on Friday, I happened to have a cookbook/magazine with me.  Well, I came across many to choose from and narrowed it down to a few.  After consulting with my husband, Jeff, it was decided to try the Bananas Foster cupcake!! 

Did you ever have Bananas Foster on vanilla ice cream?  Oh, that is soooooo good.  Well this recipe incorporated several different types of mixtures that I haven't done before.  I wasn't sure what the cake portion would taste like with rum in it.  Raw - not good - I am not a drinker (well some types of beer and tequilla for sure!) baked was delicous.

The bananas foster will need to cool completely before putting on top of the icing.  I cooked the bananas in the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and tried to flame the rum - which didn't work too well because I tried it my way - let that cool. 

I didn't like the icing recipe that came with the cupcake recipe because I thought it wouldn't hold the bananas foster well.  I found another recipe that used heavy cream and cream cheese. 

After the cupcakes cooled, I applied the cream cheese whip cream icing, then the bananas foster, then finished it with a dollop of icing.  separately and combined this was absolutely delicious.  KEEPER!!

The cupcakes are in the center - surrounding the cupcakes are some of the extras we had at home.

Cupcake Order

This Saturday I filled an order for 200 cupcakes for a woman who was having a birthday party for her father.  He LOVES desserts!!  I also made a cheesecake as well.  Now, I've made cupcakes for this woman before but just as a potluck feature.  Her family had some of my cupcakes as well so they knew what was in store!!

I wanted to share with you what happened to get these cupcakes completed and delivered by 2:00 p.m. Saturday.  First you need to understand that I work 3 hours from home from Monday thru Friday and go home after work on Fridays, return on Sunday to do it all over again.  I only bake on the weekends at my home.  I left work at 2:15 on Friday, had to get gas so I drove to Costco, then had to meet my real estate agent to sign some paperwork, that was at 3:00, I left his office at 3:15ish.  I hit traffic halfway home, it took me almost 3 hours to drive 10 miles!!  I didn't get home until 8:30. 

After eating dinner, changing and putting my stuff away I didn't really get started baking until 9:30 p.m.  Oy this is going to be tough.  And WHEN am I going to find time to make the cheesecake? 

I started with the easy ones, Salted Caramel - I had made the caramel ahead of time.  I also asked my husband to take everything out of the oven - eggs, butter, cream cheese, sour cream etc...  Next up - Chocolate Peanut Butter.  First SNAFU - I asked my husband to sift the flour, then I asked him to measure the flour in a separate bowl.  After that I asked him to measure the sugar and put it in the bowl with the measured flour.  Whoops!  He put 4 cups of sugar in the large bowl of sifted (not measured) flour.  Ummm, okay - toss that one.  Start over. 

Next up - Lemon Meringue and Lemon Coconut!  I asked my husband to help and make the lemon curd.  When I was ready for it, whoops, wasn't congealed properly.  I tried to save it but couldn't.  Had to start over.  Now, mind you - I'm tired.  I've been up since 5:30, worked an 8 hour day, drove for 6 hours and had been baking about 4.5 hours and boy I was cranky!!  I tried my hardest not to take it out on my husband, but finally had to say - I've got this, you can go to bed.  Thankfully (love you honey) he went to bed.  On top of all of these issues - I was running out of some ingredients - sugar, butter, eggs.  Great.  No stores are open now. 

I had enough for the cheesecake.  Perfect!  I get that in the oven, finish filling the lemon cakes, ice them, put them in the boxes.  Meanwhile, the cheesecake will bake and then I'll go to bed, it can sit in the oven for the required time.  BEDTIME!! 

I got in bed, but had so much on my mind - I couldn't get to sleep.  When I did finally sleep I could not sleep well and woke up around 8:00 and couldn't get back to sleep.  I got up and started to get dressed to run to the store, but by this time my husband was up and went to the store for me.  Back to baking.

Next up - Strawberry Lemonade.  I thought the perfect icing for this would be a cream cheese icing.  We mixed fresh strawberries into the batter and into the icing.  My husband cut the strawberries up for me and created the garnish.  The icing was too runny and I didn't want to add a lot of powdered sugar, it would ruin the taste.  But it was also too late to try something else.  I had to do the best I could with what I had. 

Last - Raspberry Chocolate.  Whew!  I'm cutting it close.  Final touch - drizzle of white chocolate.  Finished - 1:00 p.m.  I have GOT to get in the shower!!!  While I was doing that the boys were loading the truck.  Would you believe during all of this....9-10 hours of baking, not one picture?  UGH!!!!

We made it to Barbara's father's house by 2:06.  Not bad at all.  Last glitch of all this?  While we were loading up the cupcake trays on the table, my husband, sweet as he is, kept messing up the cupcakes then finally dropped one.  That's it - OUT!!  But Barbara and her sister got to try that one - a Lemon Meringue - and loved it!! 

Caramel

I don't know if I've ever said this but I love baking.  Quality baking comes from making everything from scratch with quality ingredients.  If you use store bought products you can taste the chemicals in the products giving it a bitter or artificial sweetened flavor.  After eating quality products you will taste the difference.  If you're going to take the time to bake something from scratch don't ruin it by cutting corners and using a store bought product that you will use as a compliment to your cupcake.  Let's clarify this a little.  Store bought products that are easy to make at home.  Obviously, jelly isn't the easiest to do and especially not the easiest to do when all the right fruit are out of season, peanut butter, while easy, has quality brands easily available out there.  

Caramel - I love love love caramel!  My favorite chocolate product is chocolate covered caramels!  Yum yum yum!!  At first when I started making the salted caramel cupcakes I used a store bought caramel and added the sea salt.  I thought, eh whatever.  Well, while the cupcake tasted good - it wasn't WOW!                                                                          

One of the best things to invest in when making a 'salted' product is the salt.  There are so many different types of salt and salt processing to choose from.  Go to a gourmet shop that contains a lot of different Fleur de sel products.  Taste them!  You would be surprised at how delicious they are.  SALT!  Of all things that could possibly be delicious plain.  The salt we found is a Hervey kind from Brittany.  There are processes that takes the salt from different seas and extract it under water (which is s gray color - while good - could cause people to wonder why there is a gray colored salt on a product)  It really does make a difference.  This salt is $15 a jar.  Well worth it.

  There are a lot of caramel recipes that you can use. The one I found uses both heavy cream and sour cream. This is one thing my husband and I like making together which makes it much easier to pour and whisk at the same time!!

With a quality heavy cream add the salt to the pan on med-low heat stir the two ingredients until the salt dissolves. 

With the mixture of water, sugar, corn syrup in a pan, turn on high heat and bring to a boil while stirring continuously (I found that out this weekend too!!) or it can burn quite easily.

Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan.

Boil boil boil.  Stir stir stir.  It takes approximately 10 minutes to reach the appropriate temperature.

 Still boiling.  My husband and I take turns, usually I'm doing other things and he helps me keep an eye on the caramel.  We made this three times this weekend!  The second time he wasn't around and that's when it burned when I wasn't looking!

 When I make the caramel I find it best to use three different pans.  The reason is because the pans hold the heat so well it has a tendency to burn even though you've taken it off the heat.  What I've done here is heat the cream in one, make the caramel in the other, and warm the empty pan so it doesn't shock the caramel when you pour it into a cold pan.  It stops it from continuing to cook. 

 According the recipe you're suppose to cook the sugar mixture to 350 degrees, but that is such a fine fine line that even the slightest degree over could start to develop a burnt taste.  Nothing more frustrating than that! 

Here we are pouring the sugar mixture into the warmed empty pan.

After the sugar syrup cools a minute you want to very gently pour the salted cream into the sugar mixture SLOWLY while whisking.  It will bubble up and if you're not careful it will bubble over.  This is where my husband and I work so well as a team.

After the cream and sugar mixture are whisked together, the next step is adding the sour cream. 

Delicious!

I have a wonderful pan that fits 24 cupcakes at a time.  Otherwise it wouldn't really be practical to only bake 12 at a time. 

After I pour the caramel into a squeeze container similar to a ketchup bottle, I inject the caramel into the center of the cupcakes.  I tried cutting the center out of each cupcake but I don't know if that really adds anything more to the cupcake than doing it this way.  Squeeze enough to just before the cupcake cracks.

Wait until the cupcake is cool enough, otherwise the caramel will stay heated and flow over top.  Yum yum yum!!

  After the icing is applied, drizzle with caramel and sprinkle with more of that delicious salt!!

Lemon Meringue (Coconut)

One of the cupcakes for the upcoming order was for a lemon coconut cupcake.  Ok, I hate coconut (except in the Zagnut candy bar!!), but that doesn't stop me from making delicious food.  I've made ham hocks and collard greens.  I like the ham hocks, but the collard greens?  Blah.  But that doesn't stop me from making it.  Oh and chicken livers - make the best!!  Never ate them!!  Know your cooking ability.



Anyway, I digress.  Time to come up with the BEST lemon meringue cupcake, sans coconut - which will be added for the order.  If you know what works in a cake recipe and the general structure you can search recipes that you know have potential and those that will be too dry.  Fresh ingredients and the highest quality ingredients you can afford are essential to a fabulous cake.  I found an absolutely awesome recipe that turned out better than I could have imagined.  I'll still look for others but in the meantime...



After the cupcakes finish instead of cutting the cupcake in half (to simulate a layered cake) I used an apple corer and took out the center of each cupcake and filled with lemon curd, filling it over the top. 

 According to my husband there was too much lemon curd.  Okay, maybe not filling it over the top.  The way the meringue frosting was laid out, doesn't make much sense.  You're placing everything, cream of tarter, sugar, egg whites and water in all at once.  Everything you read states you don't do this.  Then place the bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Didn't work too well, maybe it was something we did wrong, oh did I mention my husband was helping me?  Anyway, we got it.  Not sure what it was.  I learned so much about egg whites this weekend.  Not only about the reason to use a copper bowl but about the protein function in the egg white and what happens when you're mixing and why you stop when you do.  Research it.  It's interesting. 

After applying the meringue, it looked.....boring.  Okay, maybe needing some coconut.  NOT!  Sprinkle with different kinds of sprinkles.  Since I do not have a, for lack of a better word right now, blow torch, we broiled them.  We didn't want to cook them too much because it will just dry out the cupcake.  The rack was moved up (too high I think) broiled, just a little too long.  Some look burnt, but it wasn't quite burnt.  Tasted good despite the look.  However, with the coconut applied broiling won't be necessary.

 Oh I should have taken a picture of the cupcake cut in half!  Ah well, next time.

Trials!!

I have my first big order coming up this weekend.  She was very open to a variety of flavors so I thought I would try different combinations to see what would work and what wouldn't.  So, I whipped up a batch of my chocolate cake recipe then insert....anything. 

First I want to say, my daughter had us over for dinner a couple weekends ago.  She asked us to stop and pick up a few things, one of them being Zane and Zack's Honey Chipotle sauce.  YUM!  That was the first product I used in the batter.

Now one of my big problems is that I go by sight on a lot of the ingredients.  How much did I put in?  Ummm, I don't know?  To taste, raw, it was great.  When it was baked?  OMG!  It was delicious but hot!! 

Next, my husband pulled chipotle peppers out of the cupboard and said, "here, try this."  Okay.  I added a few to a separate bowl with batter, looking at it thinking, o  It wash that's not enough.  I added a little more.  Well the pepper flakes floated to the top.  Problem.  Couldn't really taste it too well in the raw form.  Baked?  OMG!  Even hotter!!  Then the flakes were chewy.  Not good.  If I were to use that one again I would need to grind that up to a finer texture and definitely use less. 

Now what?  Let me think.  Oh...I had some Pumpkin Maple Butter.  I swirled some into another bowl with batter.  After it was baked it was moist and you could tell there was pumpkin and maple in the cupcake.  Not bad.  Note to self... keep for future ideas.  Maybe a light ginger buttercream!  Hmmm.

Oh well I have a great peanut butter filling, how good would that be to have peanut butter swirled into the delicious chocolate batter?  My son flipped for this one!!  AND it was my youngest daughter's favorite.  She ate two of the cupcakes WITHOUT icing.  My daughter is an icing F.R.E.A.K!!  This is saying something.  Keeper!

Running out of ideas.... Bananas!  Mashed up some bananas, mixed into batter.  Eh just ok.  Not a keeper. 

Bananas and peanut butter in the chocolate!!  How could that go wrong?  Again, eh, just ok.

Orange extract!!  Orange and chocolate.  Well, let me say the extract that I have was soooo strong.  What this one taught me was I need to use an orange zest with natural orange flavoring from juice.  Maybe a little extract for a boost. 

Next up....Raspberry chocolate.  Not bad.  Just need to add fresh raspberries into the chocolate, puree some, maybe a little extract.  Keeper. 

You can see the flakes of pepper in the one cupcake about middle of the picture on the right.  HOT!  I used different colored cupcake liners to tell the difference.  What I really needed was a notepad to write down everything I did and MEASURE everything!!  Oh well, next time.

Business stickers and cards

YAY me!  I finally ordered the business stickers I will need to put on the product boxes








AND business cards!! 

Starting

Opening a bakery has been in the making for a long time.  While my husband and I took our morning walks we discussed what we wanted to do - sharing our dreams with each other.  Both of our dreams compliment each other - well eventually they will.  I get lost in the process of the baking.  Then seeing the final product and watching others enjoy what my hands have created just fills my heart. 

I would tell my children they should do what they love to do and don't worry about the money, that will come.  So why then am I not doing what I've told them to do? 

I tried this before, why would it work again?  What I did before was bake - to orders - market to local espresso stands, eBay and local consumers - package - deliver.  I cannot do everything.  Not only that but people would order a dozen cookies.  How do you make just one dozen cookies?  Why would you make just one dozen cookies?  It took me the same amount of time to make one dozen as it would to make 4 or 5 or more.  Then I didn't sell them for enough money to make it worth my time.  Okay, learn from your mistakes.

This time the plan was to develop a following.  My daughter wanted a lemonade stand last summer.  Perfect time to bake and create.  She did good.  We sold cheap, just to let people know what we had.  A couple months later we did another lemonade stand.  This time I had more products and the delicious homemade lemonade.  Never, NEVER use a mix.  We did well again.  Still thinking and developing the idea.

Now I need a name and a name that isn't taken by a website.  This was something that took a long time.  Just need to find the perfect name.  Well, once we finally did come up with the name (when I looked previously the name was available for a website) I attempted to register the name for a website, you wouldn't believe it - taken!  Only a week prior!!  Back to the drawing board.

We settled on Lion's Heart Bakery.  Why?  I'm a Leo, my favorite animal is the lion (beautiful creatures!) and I love baking, pouring my heart into each product.  (My husband didn't care for '7 Purple Lions')  I went to GoDaddy.com to register the name.  Even now it's waiting for me to create a website.  (Did I mention I work fulltime too?)

Next I applied for a business license with the state.  During the Christmas season I got orders for cupcakes.  I had taken some in to where I worked and let people try them.  Needless to say, they were hooked. 

I also made some for my husband to take into his classes (he was student teaching at the time) to celebrate his final days of student teaching!  He knew I wanted feedback from the kids on how they tasted!  Oh boy did I get some.  I got their phone numbers, their birthdays, offers to let me bring cupcakes in more often!  "Best cupcakes EVER!!" 

Now, I am at a new job in a new location - while commuting back to where I used to live and still working on the business.  I just got an order for 200 cupcakes!!  Fabulous.  Uh, I'm still working on a logo.  I put 'status' on my facebook about needing someone to help me create a logo.  Believe it or not, the one I chose was from my oldest daughter.  We finalized it this week!  I love it!!!  Now I can order stickers to go on the boxes I also ordered and make business cards for this order. 

And today I just got an order to do a wedding cake as well as cater the wedding!!  175 guests!!  I'm so happy!!!! 

Before I could order the stickers and business cards (and because my webpage isn't up and running yet) I needed an email account specifically for the business and a blog.  So here we are.   Stay tuned for the next steps!!