2009 May | My Sweet and Saucy

Archive for May, 2009

The three C’s…cupcakes, cookies, & cake

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

I hope all of you have a Happy Memorial Day tomorrow! These last few days have been pretty relaxing…hanging with the family, relaxing at the beach, and eating delicious food! This upcoming weekend is packed full of fun events so I will make sure document them all so I can share them with you! For now here are some pictures from recent events…enjoy!

This first photo is from a HUGE order I did for the corporate company, Workforce Software. They were coming to the Long Beach Convention Center for the big payroll association gathering and wanted to celebrate their 10th anniversary with lots of delicious goodies. They told me they wanted enough to serve around 500 people!!! Now, I do some larger events, but this one definitely takes the cake! My new assistant Louisa was there to help me all along the way though and I definitely couldn’t of made it without her! We made 300 mini cupcakes, 100 logo sugar cookies, and a 200 person cake. Overall I was really happy with how the order came out and the company was a pleasure to work with!

The cake had all different flavors: Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, buttermilk cake with lemon cream and fresh raspberries, chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and salted caramel, and chocolate cake with peanut butter cream cheese frosting.

As for cupcakes we did chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and chocolate cupcakes with espresso cream cheese frosting. We then topped them off with Valrhona chocolate crunchy pearls. Lastly we did red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Here’s a couple more photos from the event.

This next order was for a fun client who wanted to surprise his friend with a tiki inspired cake based off of the Disneyland tiki house. The cake was brown sugar cake with layers of milk chocolate ganache and salted caramel and frosted in chocolate mousse buttercream. This is the design we came up with for him…

This last order was for a little boy’s county fair themed birthday party…sadly I forgot to take a picture of the cake, but here are the cookies! We made tickets with his name and age on them, balloons, and ice cream cones.

Thanks for taking a look!

Tags: balloon sugar cookies, corporate cake long beach ca, corporate logo sugar cookies, ice cream cone sugar cookies, mini cupcakes long beach ca, specialty cake long beach ca, specialty decorated sugar cookies long beach ca, ticket sugar cookies, tiki cake long beach cak
Posted in Cakes, Children's Birthday Ideas, Cookies, Cupcakes, Desserts | 22 Comments »

Lots of Events!

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Well, sadly my blogging hasn’t been as often as I would like lately. Between baking, decorating, client calls, tasting, working on the store, and employee training I am barely finding time to sleep (which is my #1 priority if you know me!). Within the last 6 days I think I pulled three 15-20 hour days and the rest were at least 12 hours…talk about exhaustion! I do have to say that I am so thankful for my new assistant Louisa! She helped me out so much this past week and I am so excited to have her on my team! I also treated myself to some much needed pampering today and indulged in a one hour massage…can you say HEAVEN!!! I have to say that massages are one of my favorite things in the world and I think I will be scheduling many more in the upcoming future!

Well enough about me and my aches and pains, lets get to the good stuff…DESSERTS! This post is going to be a schmorgasboard of wonderful delights! This first photo is from my girlfriend’s recent 25th birthday party. When she called me to see if I could make the cake of course I said yes! I wanted to do more of a homespun look for the cake and used a simple fresh flower to decorate it.

The cake was chocolate cake with layers of espresso kahlua cream cheese frosting and chocolate ganache. I also thought I’d throw in a photo of my gorgeous girlfriends…I am so blessed!

And of course my lovely girlfriend Kate!

These second group of photos are from some recent events that I did with Courtney Toney from Joyful Weddings & Events. She is a fantastic wedding & event planner and I have been so privileged to work with her. She set up this whole candy bar and commissioned me to make the matching flower cookies.

This other event was a fun hawaiian-themed engagement party that Courtney threw. She asked me to do the desserts and this is what we came up with. Thanks to her hubby for the great photos.

Lastly I wanted to leave you with some photos from the update of the dessert studio! The wall is up, the plumbing done in the bakery part, and the construction sign is up too!

Thanks so much to my Uncle Dan at Instant Signs who made this for me!

Tags: cupcakes long beach ca, custom cakes long beach ca, instant signs and banners cypress ca, joyful wedding and events, logo sugar cookies long beach ca, mini desserts long beach ca, sweet and saucy shop ca, wedding cakes long beach ca
Posted in Desserts | 32 Comments »

Mermaid Barbie Birthday Cake

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Children’s birthday parties are like no other event I do…the reaction they give is priceless and they make me love the job I have even more. This little girl in particular really wanted a mermaid cake, but she let her mom know that the mermaid NEEDED to be a barbie doll. She knew exactly what she wanted and her sweet mother made her wish come true….I was just glad I could help them out!

The cake tiers were buttermilk cake with lemon cream and fresh raspberries and buttermilk cake with chocolate ganache, fresh strawberries, and white chocolate ganache. I then buttercreamed both tiers and covered them in colored fondant

The next job was to cover barbie’s you-know-what with cute little shells. I never thought I would be making a shell bra for barbie when I got into this business!

I then made some gray rocks for barbie to sit around and plunged her into the sea of cake. I know that you can buy barbies that only have the top half of their body for cakes, but since I had this new barbie already and she matched the blonde hair and blue eyes I needed I just used her. I did have to give her some nubs and cut her legs off below the knee, but thankfully I was smart enough to tell the mother not to pull Barbie out in front of the kids since I didn’t want them to experience a decapitated barbie!

I made her a green fondant tale and used the sharp part of a round cookie cutter to make the grooves in her tale.

Then to finish off the cake I made little sea life creatures and plants to make it more interesting. To make the cake shimmer I used my airbrush gun to spray pearl luster dust on the whole cake. For the sand I mixed together brown sugar, short bread crumbs, and demerara sugar crystals.

Here are some photos of the cake when I dropped it off and the adorable little girl who got to have it!

This was such a fun cake to make and the family I brought it to couldn’t have been sweeter!

Well, I couldn’t leave you without showing you some more photos of the process of my dessert studio, so here they are! This one is me in my very own soon-to-be office. It is small, but at least it is all mine!

The middle wall has has been constructed, the plumbing in the kitchen finished, the cement poured, and the electrical passed! This happened all in a week and a half…isn’t my dad AMAZING! Thanks to my uncle too for the electrical!

Now onto gutting and re-doing the bathroom…you can do it dad!

And lastly here is the hubby and I one night when we came to check out the work that had been done…boy are we excited!!!

Tags: barbie birthday cake, children's birthday cakes long beach ca, dessert studio long beach ca, kids birthday cakes long beach ca, mermaid barbie cake, mermaid birthday cake, sweet and saucy shop long beach ca
Posted in Cakes, Children's Birthday Ideas, Dessert Studio, Desserts | 28 Comments »

Photo Shoot!!!

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

Well, I have to say that I never thought when I headed into the pastry field that I would be posing for photo shoots, but these kind of unexpected surprises are what makes going out on my own totally worth it! I was a little hesitant at first to pose by myself…I thought the shoot was just for the desserts, but when Ryel said she wanted to shoot some of just me I said okay thinking it would only be head shots. To my surprise I was posing and all..blush blush! Once I relaxed a little and stopped thinking about how funny I probably looked I had a great time and really loved how the photos turned out. Ryel, from RyelJ Photography, is one talented lady and so much fun to work with. If you are getting married anytime soon I would definitely recommend contacting her! Well, enough talk…lets get on to the pictures!

The shoot first started off in my Aunt’s kitchen…I know, so sad…you all thought it was my gorgeous kitchen but alas all my money has gone to buying cake plates so I decided to ask my Aunt if I could use her house since it is perfectly done in everyway.

Then we headed outdoors to shoot in front of the gazebo that my uncle custom built…how cute is it?!?

Lastly we went to a part of the garden that was a little unkept (which normally never happens since my aunt is a fabulous gardener), but lucky for us it was and it was perfect for this last cake.

The last photo I leave you with gives you a little insight into my new branding from Karrie Pyke Designs! I absolutely love my new logo and a new website and blog design are on their way too!

I would love to hear what photo you like the best! Happy weekend!

Tags: cupcakes long beach ca, custom cakes long beach ca, karrie pyke designs, ryelj photography, specialty sugar cookies long beach ca, sweet and saucy shop long beach ca, wedding cakes long beach ca
Posted in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes, Dessert Studio, Desserts, Wedding Ideas | 49 Comments »

Guess who’s getting a dessert studio…ME!!!

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Well, I have kept the secret long enough…I have been trying not to spill the beans for a while since I wanted to make sure everything was set before I made the announcement, but once my dad started tearing up the floor I knew there wasn’t going to be any turning back!

When I started in the pastry field I knew I always wanted one day to have my own bakery, but I never thought at the age of 25 my dream would come true! I have been out on my own for about two years now and my little dessert studio, Sweet & Saucy Shop, has grown in ways I never imagined. I have been incredibly blessed by God to have so many people help me along the way and I know without a shadow of a doubt if it weren’t for their help I wouldn’t be where I am at today. For example, it was my husband who made me get a blog (something I knew nothing about) and he is the one who made my first website along with one of my best girlfriend’s, Karrie, who designed the site….without the internet I know my business would’ve never made it and it is because of them I got on the web. Another blessing along the way was the fact that my sister, who had never even dabbled in baking or decorating, ended up starting to work with me and now I don’t know what I would do without her. She has amazed me more than any person I have ever worked with in this field and she never even had formal training! And lastly my family in general has stepped up to help me in every way possible…from my in-laws who made me aprons and bought me my first work computer, to my uncle who made me my first professional stickers and signs, to my other uncle who spent countless hours working on electrical plans just to save me money during the planning and inspection process….as you can see I am one lucky girl! Of course, the two people I have to thank the most for helping me make this dream come true are my parents! Besides helping me through pastry school and encouraging me along every step of the way, they were the ones that really believed in my dream of starting a bakery and have invested not only all the money I needed, but also all their time and energy. My dad is a plumbing contractor and so of course he said he would do the work on my bakery to save me money…this job turned out to be SO much work, but he never once complained, but rather said he would do anything for his girl! The other day when I went to write him a thank you card I couldn’t help, but cry as I wrote how thankful I am for him. He is the best dad a girl could ask for and I really don’t know how to say THANK YOU enough! I was also blessed with a mother that far surpasses anyone I know…she inspires, encourages, and helps me with everything and I seriously don’t know what I’d do without her. I know I wrote probably the longest blog post I have ever written before, but I just had to express my appreciation to the people that have helped me along the way.

So without further ado here are some photos of the progress so far!

Here is a picture of my daddy and I!

And this one is of Karrie and I…Karrie came down this past weekend to help me go shopping for my office and we had SO much fun! Can’t wait to show you the photos!