sweet pursuits

change of address

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:47:00 +0000

Happy 2012 everyone!

In an effort to simplify, streamline, and make life all together easier and better...I'm moving Sweet Pursuits over to Wordpress. I have found Blogger to be nearly impossible to blog from on the run (iPad and iPhone blogging should be easy and fun, and blogspot wasn't allowing that for me). Please head on over to sweetpursuits.wordpress.com from now on. (I haven't done much as far as formatting etc yet so it's a work in progress, but it seems like Wordpress has a lot more to offer as far as customization goes). Please follow me there!

Thanks all, in advance xox

The wedding season that wasn't.

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:36:00 +0000

The 2011 wedding season is behind us now. Known as "summer" to most people, it came with a sudden fury, and although I barely had time to blink, it vanished. It seems like the blossoms bloomed on the apricot trees just days ago, and already, the leaves have fallen. The valley is in hibernation for winter, just as it was when we arrived.

Wedding season, as it was, came and left without so much of a whisper. I was in a period of flux, and didn't really give much attention to all things bridal. We moved into our house in April, and I settled into my pastry kitchen job at the winery the same week that we unloaded the U-Haul. It was destined to be a summer of settlement. To get unpacked, to do some basic renos that would take our house from 'theirs' to 'ours'. To settle straight into a reliable job for the season....to not do cakes. It seemed kind of sad, especially with the momentum that I'd built up, but I just wasn't ready. Cakes take a lot of planning. Contracts have to be secured months in advance. Space to bake and to decorate needs to be allocated. Supplies need to be procured. This past summer just wasn't conducive to any of those things. We had a dishwasher sitting in the middle of our kitchen for over a month (difficulty with installation), and boxes in various stages of unpack all summer long.

Moving 500km away from my friends, family, and everything I knew took time to adjust to. Moving into a large house (2400square feet!) was quite the adjustment after living in a 600square foot box of an apartment for the past seven years. There is a lot to update on from the past number of months. But as I mentioned, all is not lost. I did manage to pull two cakes out of the abyss that was Summer 2011.

A friendly woman, Laura, came into the store back in the spring while I was still working in Vancouver. It was my last week of work, and we got to chatting as I helped her set up her registry. She lived here, in the Okanagan, and was madly trying to finalize wedding plans. A cake was still on her to-do list, as her baker had been non-responsive. I offered to contact her, and a plan was made.

Alternating tiers of red velvet and banana cake, iced with cream cheese frosting, and topped with fondant and roses. It was a simple cake, beautiful cake.

Simple and beautiful. Kind of what life here is like. This new life of mine is quiet, peaceful, fulfilling. As I sit here, in my office, I look out at my two walnut trees, my apple tree, my driveway. So much space to think, to breathe, to be. There have been a lot of adjustments, but so far, I'm loving this simple, beautiful life away from the city.

gosh, that looks delicious.

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:29:00 +0000

I'm back. After being gone for eight (eight!) months, I, and am logged on from a new home, in a new town, with hundreds of kilometers separating me away from my old life. I have plenty to share and plenty to catch up on - a whole summer's worth of cooking, projects, and delicious stories.

Since my last post, there has been a lot of excitement in my world. You know....moving, buying a house, getting engaged, planning a wedding, hosting countless visitors to our new home in wine country. As if he knew that life about to become to memorable, on my birthday last January, my (then) boyfriend spoiled me with an incredibly fancy new DSLR camera - a Canon EOS60D to be exact. It has features galore and somehow makes every photo I take look good (thanks, auto setting!). It's been such a treat having this beauty of a camera on hand to capture life's sweetest moments.

Before having this camera, my technique for shooting everything up until now was simply turn my point-and-shoot to macro, hold it as close (and still!) as possible, hold my breath, and click. Sometimes it worked, most of the time, it didn't. Here is a photo I took last December using this technique. Meh. Right? Well, that is about as good as it got.

Coincidentally, the client this (above) cake was for loved it so much that she asked me to bake her daughter's wedding cake in the same flavour, just two weeks later . This family adores lemon and super rich buttercream in equal amounts. And so, her birthday cake and wedding cake were simultaneously the last cake I shot with my point and shoot, and the first cake I shot with my new camera. I still get excited by how delicious this camera makes everything look.

I am ecstatic about the future full of such delicious looking photos!

changes

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:32:00 +0000

Spring is always a time for changes. The daffodils start to come out, everyone's mood lightens a little. It's such a beautiful time of year. Spring is bringing big changes to my world as well, which inadvertently affects the world of Buttercup Cake Design.

Up until now, my little condo, all 600square feet, has not only housed my boyfriend, my cat Karma and I, but it has been the only home for my budding little business. In the days of the Baker's Market, and the Christmas season, it meant total utter chaos. We had 50 large gift boxes for this order taking up our whole kitchen, our whole dining room table. It meant moving an extra dresser into our already crowded living room to accommodate all of the packaging needed for all the Baker's Market treats. It meant storing ugly styrofoam cake rounds on top of the pretty bulkheads in the kitchen instead of pretty cake stands, vases, or *gasp* some empty white space. Needless to say, we are maxed out. I need a separate space to run Buttercup Cake Design, and the ability to grow to what I want it to become cannot happen here. I also didn't want the expense of renting someone else's kitchen space, because that still doesn't solve the problem about where to store all the stuff. Renting kitchen space is great to cooking time, but it doesn't mean that I can get all this product out of our living room.

And so, it is with much excitement that I announce, officially, that we are relocating. We are buying a home in the Okanagan, with a separate kitchen suite downstairs that I can set up and use exclusively for my business. It will take some time and money to get it organized as needed (and as required to actually become certified by the health department, which is an exciting stage!). I hope to not only offer wedding cakes, but perhaps sell retail products (macarons? marshmallows?) to some of the local cafes and winery restaurants, and then, come the holiday season, actually run an efficient selection of mail-order gift boxes and holiday treats. There were so many orders this past season, but just the space that these boxes and packaging supplies took up nearly killed us. Once we have a space to co-exist in peace alongside Buttercup Cake Design, all will be right in the world.

And so, it goes without saying that I am not going to be accepting orders for Vancouver wedding cakes for this season. By next summer, it's a possibility, but not yet. I am, of course, accepting orders for anything Okanagan based, but most likely, this will all be starting up next summer.

My first 7 months of business has been exciting and rewarding, and I look forward to establishing my little business in the fresh-fruit centre of the Okanagan. How great do peach macarons filled with house-made peach preserves sound? I can't wait to start offering these fresh-from-the-orchard products to you!

Holiday Baking, come and gone

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:15:00 +0000

What a year. Christmas 2010 was a whirlwind of holiday baking, chocolates, cookies, and yes, even birthday cakes. The Baker's Market finished up on December 11 with a bang, with seemingly hundreds upon hundreds of guests in search of treats to serve for the holidays. We all sold out, and even the 8x batch of stollen I made was gone. What a feeling that was! The end of the Christmas Baker's Market signaled the start of custom orders. Here was my first, and largest order....

40 boxes of whipped hazelnut shortbread

80 bags of peppermint, mocha and vanilla bean marshmallows

120 ornate sugar cookie snowflakes

40 boxes of hand-tempered chocolates: chocolate ginger ganache truffles, sea salt caramels, caramel pecan chews, and hazelnut clusters.

The 40 large boxes were packed up assembly line style and delivered. What motivation to one day have a commercial space of my own!

a stollen tradition

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:46:00 +0000

I'll admit it. One of my favourite holiday traditional treat recipes doesn't go back for countless generations. It wasn't brought to my family on the Mayflower, wasn't safeguarded for years, and doesn't exist on a sole dog-eared scrap of paper written by my great, great great Grandmother. To be honest, my #1 holiday recipe came from a 2001 Better Homes and Gardens holiday season magazine. Over the years, I have tweaked it to become even better, but it goes to show that traditions start somewhere.

We didn't eat stollen, growing up. Actually, we didn't really even have a Christmas breakfast.... we would snack on shortbread cookies and wedges of our Terry's Chocolate Oranges after we would fish them out from the toes of our stockings. Sometimes, after a few hours of opening gifts around the tree on Christmas morning, we would have a quick scrambled egg + toast breakfast before dressing up and heading to the city for Christmas Day celebrations with our family. Christmas breakfast never really became a tradition.

In 2001, when I was in my third year at university, something changed. We were to host the extended family celebration at our home (which happened very very rarely since we lived out in the country), and this hosting anticipation caused the start of my holiday need to bake. I I bought Christmas magazines, I candied orange peel, and yes, I baked stollen. The recipe sounded so wonderful - a brioche-like bread, full of toasted almonds, cherries, raisins, and of course, plenty of butter, eggs and milk to make it decadent enough for Christmas. That first year, I baked it as an experiment. It was received with rave reviews, and I was told in no uncertain terms that this stollen was to appear every year at Christmas. That no dessert table would be acceptable without it. Not to mention, my family soon realized that it made the perfect light breakfast with coffee while opening gifts. The soft, doughy bread, speckled with plenty of fruits and nuts, the richness of the marzipan centre, the luxurious butter and icing sugar topping. It was light yet rich, and easy to juggle a slice of stollen and a coffee cup at once while unwrapping presents and taking photos. It was the perfect, decadent solution to the Christmas morning breakfast dilemma.

Years have passed, and every year, I bake the stollen for my family. I always bake enough to bring some along to our family Christmas gatherings, but mostly, I bake it because my family loves it and has come to expect it. The smell of the dough is intoxicating, and the baking bread aromas fill the condo with a rich scent that I wish could be bottled. I've tweaked the recipe to make it my own - adding candied ginger, soaking the raisins in brandy or rum, and making my own marzipan. But it is now a tradition, and I can't imagine Christmas without it. We made stollen in pastry school too, but I've still kept at my own recipe. It's perfect and I won't change a thing.

This year, for the first time ever, I am making stollen not just for my own family, but for the public. I brought it to last weekend's Baker's Market, unsure what to expect. Would people want it? Have they had it before? Do they even know what it is? Apparently, the answer was yes. I only brought 8 loaves, and sold out right away. For the final market on December 11, I'm bringing plenty. Over 20 loaves. Traditions have to start somewhere, and I'm happy to have found mine in this humble little German loaf of deliciousness.

baby, it's snowy outside!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:11:00 +0000

It's cold outside, too. Blustery snow falling outside, making it the perfect day to be in baking gingerbread. I will be at the ESN Tradeshow (Entrepreneur Success Network) at the RiverRock Resort in Richmond tomorrow (Thursday, Nov 25) with our holiday gift boxes ready to order, and then at the Baker's Market's NEW location, located at the Creekside Community Centre at the Athlete's Village site in False Creek every Saturday from 11am-3pm until Dec.11!

Here is a preview of our Holiday 2010 line up table!

gift boxes, order now! Perfect for your co-workers and clients.

sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies: snowflakes, trees, doves and reindeer

fruitcake: an old family recipe, with house-candied lemon and orange zests, dried cherries, dates, and plenty of good French brandy and orange liqueur.

seasonal macaron flavours

winterspice with candied ginger, and peppermint ganache

marshmallow lollipops - perfect stocking stuffers!

tricks and treats

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:36:00 +0000

Saturday's market fell on October 30th, so the Halloween theme was in the air all day. Kids in costume trick or treated at each of the vendors' booths, and parents were shopping for goodies of all types for their Halloween parties. It was a great day and I had a great time meeting all sorts of new people and their cute little costumed bundles. Sorry about the sugar highs that we induced!

Here is a sampling of what Buttercup Cake Design showcased last weekend:

vanilla bean sugar cookies in spiderweb designs...

and in pumpkins, of course.

a new orange and white display cake

"Trick or Treat" macarons - flavours included all the best trick or treat favourites:

PB cup, Bounty, Molasses Kiss, and Candy Corn!

(this is the first week I sold out of macarons! Although I don't like disappointing customers by

being sold out, it sure beats coming home with product!)

sugar cookies all dressed up

promo materials

artisan marshmallows: orange cream, and rocky road (vanilla bean marshmallow with candied walnuts and chocolate cookie chunks!)

there were also some really moist pumpkin/roasted carrot/roasted yam breakfast loaves. Mmmm!

This photo just cut them off, though.

hard at work! It was a great market day - looking forward to the Christmas themed ones soon!

small steps!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:20:00 +0000

Years ago one Christmas morning, my Mom gave me a magnet that says "Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures". She knows that I'm a dreamer, as big as they come. I have been since I was young. I come by it honestly - my Dad is the same way. A schemer. An idealist. The perfect type to be entrepreneurs - to take an idea, a skill, and turn it into something tangible. I get an idea and run with it. It's this trait that I thank for my choosing to move to London alone for a year, to write for magazines, to drop everything and enroll in pastry school. And now, to launch my own business. It's a dream, and dreaming is good. The only tough part is taking the dream, the ideas, and combining them with a hefty dose of perseverance to actually make that dream become something tangible.

Every night, I go to sleep with swirling ideas of the next dessert table, the next treats to make for the market, and how on earth can I kick this up a notch to get those bigger contracts needed to actually succeed. I dream of the corporate accounts, the fancy weddings, the sweet and whimsical birthday parties, and I know it will come. I dream of one day having as much success and beauty on a table as Shauna Younge and Amy Atlas, the queens of the dessert tables and my personal role models. It'll happen, I think. Everything takes time, and I have to remind myself constantly that this is just the beginning.

As sweet as it is to dream big, it's important to live in the present. To celebrate every small achievement. To appreciate every customer who buys my macarons and marshmallows. To everyone who comments on my blog. To every friend who entrusts their wedding cake to me. It's a tough road, self-employement. But it's also incredibly rewarding. To know that every dollar earned, every smile made has come as a direct result of my idea, my effort, my work. I'm so excited for the successes of the present, and I'm excited for the road ahead. And so, speaking of small steps, this week I get to do a happy-dance at my first piece of media coverage! I am over the moon excited that my little dessert table from my sister's wedding has a photo in a current glossy wedding magazine!

I have Connie at the Baker's Market to thank for choosing to send Real Weddings MY table photo instead of anyone else. I am super, 100% appreciative and am so happy to see this little photo of mine in a legitamite publication.

Thanks to everyone who has "liked" me on facebook, followed me on twitter, bought my treats, asked me to make them a cake, and sent me such encouraging messages. I appreciate it all, and I can't thank you enough. It helps me look forward to the road ahead and remember that good things will happen if you let them.

a weekly tradition

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:49:00 +0000

Having signed up for the entire 11-week session of Baker's Markets, it has turned into a weekly frenzy of production. I try to buy all of my ingredients by Wednesday -- Thursday is spent baking, as is Friday morning if I didn't finish the night before. The rest of Friday is spent wrapping everything individually in cello bags, tying with satin ribbons and a label. I also have to decide on my pricing, make up my signage, and type up an ingredient list (required by the Department of Health). (Sunday-Wednesday is spent working at Williams Sonoma, doing my marketing/computer catch up, planning upcoming orders/markets, and trying to have an outside life!)

Speaking of the health department, it is a pretty slick system they have as far as authorizing production for these sorts of things. Technically, you aren't allowed to sell foods prepared in un-certified kitchens. However, a second tier of rules exists for those who want to sell foods at markets (farmers markets, christmas fairs, and yes, Baker's Markets) provided that the foods are all considered 'low risk'. Low Risk foods involve foods where the risk of contamination, spoilage, and bacterial growth is low. Baked goods represent the majority of these allowed foods, which is the reason that we do in fact have the OK to sell home-prepared foods. We had to submit a LOT of information to be certified: a list of all intended products, including all ingredients, preparation methods, ingredient labels, intended packaging, etc. Vendors are then issued a letter, once approved, of the items that are pre-approved. And as a result, I have the okay to make marshmallows, cakes, macarons, cookies, and madeleines. Every week, I come up with new products within my 'allowed' boundaries - it keeps our offerings consistent, and most importantly, safe.

Here is what I made for this past week's market:

peanut butter marshmallows

flourless chocolate peanut butter s'mores

fleur de sel butter caramel macarons

earl grey macarons

dark chocolate ganache macarons

gluten-free orange pistachio cakes (made with rice flour, semolina and ground almonds)

sticky toffee puddings, soaked in whisky butterscotch and topped with butter caramel

Have an idea for me? I know you do! Please leave me a comment if
you have any fun ideas of (approved) items for my future markets!

Friday top 10: Must-have Kitchen Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:29:00 +0000

Last week, while patiently waiting for my macarons to form skins over their tops so they can be popped in the oven, I took a moment to look around my kitchen and take stock. I had a sudden moment of realization (or perhaps, utter gratefulness? It was Thanksgiving weekend, after all) and noticed how much more pleasant life is with good tools. Quality beats quantity in pretty much every area of our lives, and it couldn't be more true than in the kitchen. After all, these tools take constant beating: getting spilled on, wiped clean, disinfected, plunged into boiling sugar, hot ovens, cold freezers. The list is endless, and I've had my share of enough kitchen junk to know that buying good stuff makes it all better. Partially thanks to Williams Sonoma agreeing to hire me part time (staff discount = ease of acquiring quality kitchen goods!), and also thanks to baking for a living, it's good to know what tools can really make the cut. But, there is also a lot of unnecessary fluff that clutters up cupboards and drawers.

So without further ado, this is my Top 10 List of Must-Have Kitchen Tools.

#1: A good digital scale. I love this one, as there is a button on the bottom to switch between metric and imperial. (Pro pastry recipes are always metric, which is best since it is 7x more exact than Imperial. Why is it best? 1/4oz is the smallest Imperial measurement on scales, which is 7 grams. What if the recipe calls for 3g? Super important for chemical reactions for leaveners, spices, etc, so a good scale is key. But every now and then I find an American recipe online that I want to try in Imperial, but more for cookies and things than can take a bit more experimentation in quantities, so it's nice to be able to measure in both. (And yes, sometimes there are good cookies/cakes/etc measured in cups, but not real pastry recipes....the variation in weight is just too risky for real pastry recipes).

This scale also has a flat glass top - perfect for easy cleaning. The scales we used in school had push buttons, and the little crevices around those buttons were a pain to clean. Flour and kitchen gunk was attracted to those crevices like no other....and a skewer was pretty much the only way around it. Needless to say, I love my Salter scale. Get yourself a scale and then you can start to really bake like the pros.

#2: My Kitchenaid. This thing is the workhorse of my kitchen, and I wouldn't be able to do a LOT of things without it. This is the pro-600 model, which has a huge motor and can whip for hours on end without tiring. I don't think my marshmallows would be very good without it. (I also love that it has a stainless bowl for pouring in molten sugar, AND has an ice cream maker than attaches on.)

#3: Kitchen clogs. Yes, those are my dirty shoes. But, these dirty shoes save my back and legs day after day. I learned my lesson when making my sister's wedding cake and dessert table: not used to wearing shoes in the house, I cooked for 3 long days straight, and upon waking up on wedding day, I couldn't move. Wearing good shoes is crucial for keeping your back safe! (Sneakers are totally ok as well, really just anything with a good sole!). Plus, you only need to spill liquid hot sugar once and you'll remember. (Also great for when I spill blobs of buttercream on the floor, which totally happens, at least I don't bail! Nonslip sole = life saver).

#4: Half sheets: Throw away your cookie sheets, people. These industrial 1/2 sheets are the only baking sheets you need. Large enough for cookies, raised rim for cakes, marshmallows. Heck, throw some foil in there and roast your veggies on it too. I have 4 of them and somedays it is still not enough. These are made by Chicago Metallic - heavy grade, won't warp. Oh, and they're cheap: about $25 for two.

#5: Silpats and parchment. What do you put on your wonderful 1/2 sheets to get those cookies etc. to not stick? I use both parchment and silpats, depending on the use. Silpats are amazing - silicone, made in France, and you can freeze, boil, cook and do anything else to these guys. Here, we have some cinnamon ganache that I spread on hot, let cool, then cut rings out with a biscuit cutter and froze the whole sheet to allow easy removal. (I don't use it for everything though, because it has a somewhat 'greasy' feel). Parchment is the regular standby, and if you've used waxed paper for baking, get a roll of parchment and allow your life to be changed.

#6, 7, and 8: A good spatula, whisk, and offset. The holy trilogy of tools, these 3 are the must-haves. A good, wide rubber spatula with a wide handle and big scraping surface will make scraping, folding and stirring easy. (These industrial ones are about $10 and are lightyears better than the home-cook ones sold in kitchen stores. If you can find one, pick up one.). A good whisk is solid and has a thick handle to hold - it'll save your forearms! And lastly, an offset is all you need to ice cakes like a pro (great for spreading batters out evenly in a pan, as well).

#9: Digital thermometer: This cheapo model has lasted me over 4 years, and I use it for everything. Cooking sugar to 118' celcius for Italian meringue buttercream. Roasting chicken to 165' (I'm a lousy cook when it comes to roasting, and rely heavily on the thermometer to make sure I'm not overcooking that roast beef!). The probe can dangle in a pot of cooking sugar, or you can shove it into a turkey, close the oven door entireally, and let that bird roast while keeping you informed of the current temperature. Not bad for $12.

#10: Piping bag, couplers and tips: Not just for decorating cakes/cookies/cupcakes, piping bags are pretty heavily used around here. A good quality reuseable piping bag fitted with a coupler allows you to change tips easily, as the tip gets fitted on the outside of the bag and is then screwed on, rather than inserting the tip into the bag (messy cleanup!). I use it for everything: portioning and filling macarons, decorating everything, and yes, piping mashed potatoes on Sheperd's Pie.

So there you have it: my top 10 everyday kitchen tools. What are some of your must-haves?

pumpkin, spice, and everything nice

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:56:00 +0000

Autumn is my favourite time of year for baking - after all, when it's pouring rain outside, what better place to be than the kitchen, wafting delicious sweet and spicy aromas through the house.

The second Baker's Market fell on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend - and so, the flavours of pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon and the other trilogy of fall spices (nutmeg, cloves and allspice) were in attendance. On the menu this week was pumpkin s'mores (handmade graham cracker, cinnamon chocolate, pumpkin spice marshmallow), artisan marshmallows in two flavours, chestnut madeleines, and 5 autumnal macarons.

pumpkin s'mores, ready for packaging

pumpkin spice marshmallows, rolled in handmade graham cracker crumbs and cinnamon sugar

apple cinnamon, maple pecan, pistachio, pumpkin, and chestnut macarons

the aforementioned pumpkin spice marshmallows, and maple pecan marshmallows.

These were really quite popular - there are a lot of vendors at the market who use a lot of extracts, flavouring oils, and colour. These are the real deal - organic maple syrup in the marshmallow, real pumpkin puree, no colour. (Sometimes I'll use colour - for cookies, etc. But I really don't like to unless it's really necessary. Natural colour is more beautiful!)

chestnut madeleines - spongy, not too sweet, and made with chestnut puree from France.

Perfect for a cup of hot tea!

Table #2. This next week, it's time to sort out a backdrop and make it prettier!

baker's market grand debut!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 02:27:00 +0000

As the weather cools down and people look for indoor activities to keep them occupied on weekends, it was the perfect time to start up the Baker's Market for the 2010 season. Although I didn't get a chance to participate (or even visit!) the market last year, I have signed up for the full 11-week fall session. Week #1 brought a pale yellow and white dessert table, to really emphasize the new logo. I just picked up my cards the day before, and they looked so lovely as tags on all of the treats! There were an estimated 500 customers, and it made for an exciting day full of new faces and treats galore.

display cake

macarons of the week: banana, vanilla rose, lavender earl grey, coconut rum, lemon

attached to the cardamon orange butter cookies

love my new mini-cards (that double as perfect tags!)

These were also attached to mini packs of honey and lemon meringue marshmallows, as well as lemon thyme madeleines. So yummy!

Next week I will have to remember to take pictures of everything before they sell out. Let's hope that happens again!

Lindsay and Ian: 'do it yourself' wedding cake

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 19:19:00 +0000

Turns out, there is no wrong was to get business. While the other cakes from this year have been for friends, or friends of friends, last weekend's cake was procured while sitting in the dentist chair, of all places. I was chatting with my hygienist, Lindsay, about her upcoming wedding and asked what she was planning for her cake. Just out of curiosity, you know. Turns out that this was one of her biggest stresses, as her cake baker was being unresponsive and unreliable. I asked her if it would help if I could do her cake, and although the wedding was about 6 hours out of town, I could arrange the cake to be delivered up in individual tiers, to be stacked on site.

This worked perfectly. Her wedding had over 200 guests, but because the dinner venue already included dessert, she only wanted a small amount of cake - fifty servings or so. She wanted a large, impressive multi-tiered cake, so I did two tiers of styrofoam (13" and 11" diameter, 4" tall - a very large cake!) and then three tiers of white chocolate/raspberry and devil's food/peanut butter. The cake board was finished, the styrofoam tiers stacked and glued, and the cake tiers were all decorated, doweled, and packed into boxes carefully along with extra ribbon and pins and anything else they may need. The cake survived the drive up, and was stacked masterfully. Perhaps these 'assemble-it-yourself' cake kits are the next new thing?

Baker's Market

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:12:00 +0000

The first Baker's Market is tomorrow! My kitchen smells heavenly right now - orange cardamom cookies are baking, five (count em, FIVE!) types of macarons are done and packaged: vanilla rose, banana, lemon, coconut rum, and lavender earl grey.

I also have decadent honey marshmallows, layered lemon meringue marshmallows, as well as lemon thyme madeleines. I have no idea how busy it will be, or how much product I will sell - I guess we will find out soon! Still have to print out all my ingredient labels haul all the plates, tablecloths, etc down to the car, and pop downtown to pick up my business cards - it's going to be a long day but I'm so looking forward to tomorrow! Please come out to support us - lots of treats to be had! It is located at 408 East Kent Avenue South, near South West Marine in Vancouver.

jess + roland: whistler love story

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:42:00 +0000

He was a small town farm boy, who grew up in Switzerland and eventually moved with his family to the fertile farmland of the Pemberton Valley. She was a blond haired, blue eyed ski bum with a penchant for ballet dancing. They grew up only a half hour apart, but because of their several-school-grade age gap, sadly, never met. But they had one thing in common - he: a schoolmate named Amanda, to distract him during math class, barrel race their ponies in junior gymkhana games, go skidooing on their birthdays, and years and years later, go to football games and pub nights. And she? A friend, also named Amanda, who she met while travelling abroad on semester at sea. (They shared the same coincidence, growing up minutes apart, but never becoming fast friends until sailing across the Pacific ocean). World's grew smaller, and as luck would have, this friend would eventually introduce the boy, and the girl.

Two of my best friends in the world were married on September 4, and I was honoured to not only stand with Jess as a bridesmaid, but also, to make their wedding cake. (Roland is also a trained chef, which left me intimidated and honoured in equal parts!) They had specific flavour requests (for her, vanilla with lemon, the same as at my sister's August wedding, because she loved it so much! And for him, dark chocolate and caramel). But, the creative license was mine. Their colours were silver and purple, and their icon, a beautiful, swirly, whimsical twirl that was equally modern and classic. I used that swirl as inspiration, and along with two very steady hands, some very dark tinted royal icing, and a pair of needlenose tweezers, produced their wedding cake. It was a beautiful day, and we are still all close friends, so this story has a very happy ending.

pamela + ken: au natural woodsy wedding

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:56:00 +0000

August 14th, in my parents' backyard, my sister got married. Her wedding was shades of green and brown, and the theme was outdoorsy, natural, woodsy wonderfulness. In the few weeks before the wedding, I asked her if she *would mind* if I did a whole dessert table rather than just a cake. Not surprisingly, she was just fine with that.

Because the wedding was during the afternoon in August, few cake recipes (or buttercreams!) would be able to successfully hold up to that kind of heat. And wow, what weather we had. During the ceremony, the mercury hit 35 degrees celcius. Luckily, assuming it would be that hot, I made her actual wedding cake out of styrofoam. Just the top tier was real, for the cake cutting, placed just before the reception. The cake we served were sheet cakes, portioned and garnished in the kitchen. Vanilla bean butter cake with tangy lemon curd (garnished with housemade candied lemon zest) and dark chocolate butter cake with chocolate cherry ganache, served with amarena cherries.

(photo credit: Lee Halliday photography)

the dessert table - cake plates made of birch rounds, cut by the Groom and the

Father of the Bride from our backyard the day before.

key lime tarts (photo credit: Lee Halliday photography)

earl grey madeleines (photo credit: Lee Halliday photography)

vanilla cheesecake lollipops (photo credit: Lee Halliday photography)

toasted coconut marshmallows (photo credit: Lee Halliday photography)

There was also an assortment of macarons: lime with coconut buttercream; coconut with chocolate ganache, and vanilla with pistachio buttercream. (photo credit: Lee Halliday photography)

baker's market

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:14:00 +0000

Last fall in cake decorating class, I met a lovely lady who owns a wedding accessory store and a passion for baking. She was in the midst of organizing a "baker's market" - a farmer's market of sorts offering all types of pastry and baked goods. I wanted to have a table, but sadly, always had to work on Saturday. My dreams of setting up my own table at the Baker's Market would not yet be realized.

Now that I make my own schedule, I've cleared Saturday's from Oct 2 through Christmas, and will be found at the Baker's Market with my dessert table display, selling macarons, marshmallows, and other treats! So excited, especially for designing various themed seasonal treats!

winds of change

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 01:51:00 +0000

Three weeks ago, at the end of a long day of wedding prep yard work, I certainly was hungry and not up for cooking. We had the good fortune of discovering a cheap and cheerful local Chinese restaurant two blocks from home. It hit all the marks - satisfying, cheap food, friendly service, endless tea. Check, check, check. After our feast of sweet and sour pork, dry garlic chicken wings, and black bean beef chow mein, the best part of the meal arrived. The fortune cookie. I don't usually heed the advice of these too carefully, but this one seemed eerily accurate:

"This coming month shall bring winds of change in your life".

Oh dear fortune cookie, if only you knew how true this is.

Some of my friends know this already, but for those who don't, I have big news.

#1 - I left my job.

I certainly learned a lot and made some wonderful friends and happy memories during my time in yaletownl. It was a definite learning experience, for someone who had never worked much in restaurants before. Going from graduating pastry school last year, to now running the pastry line of two restaurants, I felt very blessed to have been entrusted with so much responsibility. When I was in pastry school, I thought I wanted to go into the cake business, but didn't want to pigeon-hole myself, so into the restaurant kitchens I went. What a world! But, with a lot of requests for cakes on weekends and only so many hours in the day...

#2 - I started a company!

I had dreamed of having my own cake company for a long time now, and finally, the timing felt right. Way to go, Amanda, to choose to quit your job and start your own company in the busy summer season where you're already swamped already! When it rains, it pours, as they say. Like most things, the timing wasn't ideal but it felt right, so it was time. The big challenge was deciding what to do that I can do well. There are a lot of cake companies out there with designers who are very talented and experienced, so I needed to do something different.

Reading a lot of my sister's bridal magazines for cake inspiration, I found myself being drawn to the gorgeous coordinated dessert tables where the cake, desserts and favours are designed to complement one another. I found Amy Atlas's tables to be especially inspiring. While there are countless cake designers here, I find that most of them specialize just in the cakes themselves, and not in the full dessert-table realm. And so, without further ado, I introduce Buttercup Cake Design! A full service cake design company that can do not only cakes, but fully coordinated dessert tables, edible favours, and more. May as well take advantage of all that sugar work/chocolate work/pastry background that I was lucky enough to learn!

And so, that is the big news that I have been holding out on for a few months. In May, I spent a day baking macarons just so my sister could photograph them for my future website. And now, my business cards are in the works. I'm excited to see where this may go!

peace, quiet, and a really big T-bone

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:21:00 +0000

In two short weeks, my sister will get married in our parent's backyard. There will be caterers, a dance floor, portable washroom trailer, a dj, and a lot of friends and family. It will be a lot of fun, a lot of excitement, and certainly, a lot of chaos.

The first weekend of July found Bernard and I with no plans - a rarity considering that we have 7 weddings this summer between the two of us! We decided to sneak home for a night of relaxation - likely the last chance before the wedding madness ensues. There is nothing better than a place with no cell phone reception when you want to just escape. My parents were motorcycling through Yellowstone, so it was just us, the dogs, and the rest of the roost. The sun was fighting the clouds, and so while it wasn't shaping up to be a great weekend for pooltime, we were looking forward to firing up the grill, cooking a nice dinner, and best of all, eating outside without typical city accompaniments of sirens and traffic.

On the way up, we stopped at North Arm Farm to pick up some dinner ingredients.

honey whole wheat bread

dandelion greens for a bitter salad

our alfresco dinner setting, overlooking where the massive tent will be erected

T-bone steaks from my parents beef they bought last year from a farmer up north - food always tastes better when you know where it came from, and that seems to apply to meat as well. The salad of dandelion greens, grilled grapefruit, goat cheese, hazelnuts and roasted golden and red beets was also a clear winner, and was also all local product (except for the grapefruit).

bon appetit!

the sweet fruits of hard labour

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:52:00 +0000

Growing up in fertile farm country, summer vacation always involved a few days every July where we would head to the strawberry fields armed with those big 4L ice cream buckets, covered in a hefty dose of sunscreen and wearing a baseball hat and flipflops. Sometimes Mom came with us, and we would ride in the air conditioned backseat, our legs sticking to the leather seats in the summer heat on the drive to the farm. Other times, we would ride our bikes, our buckets dangling off the handlebars like the balancing pole of a tightrope walker. We spent what felt like hours in the rows upon rows of berries - if you got there early enough you could fill a whole bucket just picking one row, skipping over the small berries in favour of the largest, juiciest ones. Other times, the rows have already been picked over and you have to pick every red berry in sight....and it seemed to take forever.

There was one summer where my sister and I picked the berries for the farm and were paid for our weight of berries.... but for the many years before and the many that followed, we picked and we ate. We made jam. And we ate some more. Fresh from the bucket, in mounds of whipped cream over angelfood cake. In pies, muffins, cakes, over waffles. Whatever we couldn't eat in time, we froze. Once the two or three weeks of fresh berry season ended, we feasted from our freezer stash over the rest of the year, until the next summer arrived.

Last year, my mom and I spent a few very hot but very successful hours picking berries under the scorching summer sun. This year, with the craziness that is the summer, all I could manage was to pick up a flat of local berries from the market. Someone else slaved over the rows of berries, swatting away the bees, wiping the sunscreen out of their eyes, peaty soil clinging to their knees and embedding under their nails. These berries were tasty, it wasn't the sweet taste of summer I remembered. The fruits of your labour always tastes better than you could imagine. But they sure beat the clamshells of california berries that stock the shelves year round.

My old boss and her husband invited me over for a BBQ dinner in the heart of strawberry season a few weeks ago. I brought along these almond cream tarts, topped with local berries and crushed pistachios, served with a crisp bottle of La Frenz '09 viognier, brought right from the winery. Local, simple, seasonal eating at it's best. And next year, come strawberry season, I'll pick my own berries once again. And then, only then, will it be perfectly delicious.

cake trio

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:30:00 +0000

The last few weeks have been pretty busy, cakewise. Three friends, three occasions, three cakes.

Cake #1:

Our friends' son Jordan turned four last weekend, and because he is enrolled in kiddy acting classes at the local children's theatre, his mom arranged his party to be held at the theatre, complete with acting games. She requested a 'comedy and tragedy mask' cake for 40, and that is what they received.

Four layers of dense chocolate butter cake, layered with vanilla bean buttercream. Boring but hey, they are four-year-olds. I wanted them to eat it! Lesson learned....I really need to buy the airbrush gun I have been eyeing. The only real way to get a rich red (kneading red food colouring into fondant yields pink. Whoops.)

Cake #2:

My sister's wedding is next month, and I will be doing her cake. Her wedding is going to be a beautiful backyard, outdoor, 'casual' (but not really....) affair. She has planted all her own flowers to use for bouquets, is having Dad make all of the centrepieces out of rounds of wood cut from home. It is outdoorsy, to say the least, but not in a granola-crunching hippy kind of way. I'm so excited for her big day!

As for the cake, she requested a four tier, white cake with blades of 'grass' poking out. I wanted to do a mock-up of her cake, so we could both wrap our minds around what would work best. I made up a dummy cake (covered styrofoam in fondant) and made the blades of grass out of pastillage, a very rigid, very fast drying sugar paste. For the green grass, I just used coloured royal icing, painted on by hand. But for the wedding, it's airbrush colour all the way. It was a rough job (didn't make the ends of the grass super perfect) but we just wanted a basic visual.

(just topped with a few gum paste calla lilies, so that the cake wouldn't be unadorned. On the real cake, we will place blooms of dahlias on top, or whatever other white blossoms from her wedding garden look best!

Cake #3:

Jess's bachelorette weekend happened a few weekends ago (post coming soon!) and I baked her the cake traditional (?!?!) for this event. Let's just say it turned out really good, and it was a pretty funny occassion presenting this cake. But it was delicious - coconut cake, filled with vanilla buttercream and fresh strawberries. No, I will not post a photo of it (come on, girls!) but can email it!

cakes galore!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:34:00 +0000

wedding cakes. bachelorette cakes. birthday cakes. I have discovered our new style of home decor. If it's edible, covered in fondant, or contains food colouring gel, it is likely in our home, in our fridge, or in a corner desperately needing to find a permanent home in a closet or cupboard.

Photos coming soon!

sex and the (city) macarons

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Mon, 31 May 2010 05:25:00 +0000

Success. Apparently a bit of patience and getting the simple-but-critical steps down is all that is needed for macaron success. They turned out great and are now a staple on my dessert platter at work.

Other culinary appearances at our Sex and the City 2 launch party menu included:

*Mini fudge cupcakes with cream cheese buttercream.

(Other two items are provided from Coast, my old stomping ground. This photo was taken off a foodie blog of the event).

*Tuna tartare sliders on my housemade brioche slider buns.

i (heart) macarons

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda) — Fri, 21 May 2010 04:19:00 +0000

what isn't to heart about macarons?

Crispy shell, soft interior, slightly chewy, plus any variety of flavours and fillings? I am smitten.

My first attempt at macarons was at work last month, where I made those hazelnut lemon ones to accompany a lemon mascarpone mousse. They were fantastic. My next attempt, however, was dismal. Three batches, three failures. I blame it on the red liquid food colouring I used. We are doing a Sex and the City media launch party on Tuesday, and I was instructed to make pink everything. Pink (raspberry) macarons! Lesson learned, liquid food colouring is NOT a macarons friend. Three batches ended up too thin, cracked, not developing their signature 'foot', and who knows what else. Utter failure. So, no macarons appeared at the launch party tasting, but for the party itself on Tuesday, I will succeed!

Enter Hisaka Ogita, Japanese pastry chef, author. I saw this book at my favourite bookstore yesterday, and instantly purchased. Photo step-by-step of how to make these simple yet finicky treats. But better yet, endless suggestions for flavours, colours, combinations. Raspberry? Rose? Purple yam? Ganache filling? Buttercream? Toppings? So much to decide. So much fun. So in love.

(these will be made on monday. Stat holiday, but I am relishing the chance to go into the kitchen on my own to just bake. No dirty dishes that aren't mine, no jostling for counter space. Just me and my macarons.)