My latest baking adventure...

Thought it was time to check in and tell you what I am up to baking wise these days. I started a home based direct selling business for Dove Chocolate Discoveries. It is a division of Dove Chocolate like you find in the stores. However, that is really where the similarity ends. I personally do not like Dove Chocolate that much. To me it has a weird aftertaste. I will eat it, but it is not my favorite brand. I came across Dove Chocolate Discoveries while doing an online search for home based businesses for a holiday shopping bazaar I wanted to set up. I was intrigued by their party model of doing chocolate tasting parties in people's homes. I love chocolate. But the Dove name was a concern. I had to taste the product first before I committed. Well I found a Chocolatier in Huntsville who gave me some samples, some information, and it was all good. It is a new home based business venture, so there were no other Chocolatiers in my county/area. A brand new untapped market....great for starting out. The Dove Chocolate Discoveries chocolate was so much better than the grocery store bags and bars they sell. Plus the products DCD has are exclusive to their home based business. We carry beverage mixes, martini mixes, baking mixes, chai tea, ready to eat chocolates, and baking chocolate.

I am loving this new business because it allows me to work in a medium that I have a passion for...baking and chocolate. That enthusiasm plus their high quality products are a great match. I am slowly working outside my small circle of friends and acquaintances to get bookings for parties. Everyone loves the products. The only downside is probably the price. In this economy it is sometimes hard to get orders when the prices of your products before shipping and tax are about $14-25. But I must say, the baking mixes are all preservative free and very much like baking mixes I have put together myself. And our prices are very competitive to mixes you would find at Williams Sonoma, and even a bit cheaper. All the baking mixes are loaded with premium real chocolate. Their chocolate candies are very good and very fresh. The beverage mixes are all so versatile to use outside of beverage making. Their savory products have been a big big hit too. Plus a girls' night out eating chocolate, what could be better?

If anyone stumbling across this blog would like more info. on being a Chocolatier for Dove Chocolate Discoveries, our products or specials, please go to my business site. I would love to get in touch with you and tell you more.

My other baking inspiration these days that has me itching to get in the kitchen more are all the awesome food blogs I am discovering via Pinterest.com. I spend way to much time pinning stuff to my boards in Pinterest, but I have a whole bunch of yummy recipes just waiting to be tried. Now if I could just find time to devote to doing them.

Oh, I just made homemade croissants and chocolate croissants over Christmas break. Oh my goodness they were so good. It has been over 10 years since I made homemade croissant dough. It takes all day long to make it. I started at 8 am and had the first batch out of the oven at 4 pm. But they were so worth it. My youngest son says I have to make them again soon. When I have another whole day free I will. ; Totally reminded me why I love pastry arts. I am waiting a few more years before I jump back into a pastry business, but I am itching to do it. I just hope there will be a market for it here in my small town that is willing to pay the price for truly homemade, all natural, not from a cake mix cakes and pastries. I will be trying to save to get my boys through college. That is a prayer and plan for God to work out still.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!

Here is a cake I made for my mom for her birthday. It is her favorite cake that I have ever made. I got the recipe from an old issue of Chocolatier magazine. I don't make this cake often, but it is so good. The only problem I have ever had with this cake is the walnut genoise. The recipe seems like it is right, but every time I bake it, the cake sinks in the middle even while it is in the oven. About 2/3 rds of the way done, it sinks. The cake layer is supposed to be split into two layers for the cake, but since it sinks, you loose about 1/2 of the cake itself, and, therefore, you only get one layer. So frustrating. That means I have to make the cake recipe twice, which seems like a waste. I have researched all my other pastry cookbooks for alternate recipes, tips, tricks or other advice on genoise and nut genoise and have found nothing to explain or fix this. I make the recipe following all the directions, but alas, it always does this.

Anyone who might come across this, if you know how to fix this or have a walnut genoise recipe that never sinks on you, then please leave a comment. I would love to know what to do here.

Anyway, the recipe is for a Mocha Orange Walnut Torte. You have two layers of walnut orange genoise, which get brushed with a Grand Marnier sugar syrup. They are layered with a wonderfully smooth and creamy white chocolate mocha orange ganache/mousse. I make this by boiling heavy cream with whole coffee beans and orange zest. Once it comes to a boil, you take it off heat, cover the cream and let it steep for 10 min. Then you bring it back up to a boil and pour it over your chopped white chocolate. You chill this mixture for 6 hours or overnight then whip it to soft peaks. When you chill it, you leave some of the coffee beans and zest in it to concentrate their flavor. What you get is this lovely mocha and orange flavor to the white chocolate ganache. It is heavenly. So you layer that in between and on top of the walnut genoise. You chill that, then the cake gets a coating of chopped toasted walnuts around the sides. You pipe some rosettes of ganache on the top, and I usually put a piece of orange and a chocolate covered coffee bean on those to make it pretty.

I wish I was a good photographer so I could take food pictures to really do the cakes justice. My black countertops don't make for a good backdrop. But alas, here is the cake. Yumm!!

Yikes, it's been a long time....

since I had something I made to post on here. I have made a few desserts for folks in our new hometown, but with homeschooling and life in general being what it is (blissfully right and what God wants it to be right now), I just don't do a lot of baking still. And it's amazing how absence may not make the skills go away, but they make them dull and taker longer to execute, if you know what i mean.

I did do a beautiful birthday cake for my husband's grandmother this Summer. It turned out so pretty and it was sooo super yummy. It was a little confidence builder that I haven't totally lost my gifts. It was the first time I made a stacked tier cake in a long time. It was a little nerve racking, but it turned out great. I love the bright and colorful flowers. This is how I like to make a celebration cake. You can have your icing decorations and keep them. To me this is the height of simplicity, celebration and beautiful when it comes to a cake. Okay, i have to admit, it might also have something to do with the fact that I hate icing flowers. I don't use the kind of icing that holds shapes like that well, and I am just not willing to sacrifice taste in that way. Also, icing flowers and decorations take toooooo much time, of which I don't have, never mind the patience factor. :) I just love natural flowers. You just can't recreate their delicate brilliance. What do you think?

Anyway, had to share this creation to document it and to say, I am still here. I still bake.

A tower of cakes

This cake was the biggest cake I have ever done, for 300 people. Plus, I transported the cake layers to northern Kentucky (just below Cincinnati), for the wedding. My husband's cousin was getting married, and I volunteered to do her cake. I made all the cakes and froze them, carried them up to their house the week of the wedding. Then I spent two days making icing and putting the cakes together. What was worse, my oldest son was only about 1 yr. old and he got his first and only ear infection while we were there. So the day I was supposed to get started icing the cakes we had to take him to the doctor. It was a nightmare. It took me two days to frost the cakes, put on the fondant, and then decorate the layers. Truly the last time I attempt a cake that big long distance. But it was a success, and they were happy with it. I think it turned out pretty. It leaned a little with all the columns and cakes, but it didn't fall and it was pretty.

Nathan's birthday planet cakes

My son loves space and the planets. For his third birthday he had two cakes. One we made together of the planet Mercury, with all its craters, and the other of Saturn. Totally homey looking, but he loved them.

New Year's wedding cake.. that almost landed on the pavement

I made this for the lady who so wonderfully helped us find our house. She is a wonderful realtor, and a good friend. She got married about a year after we moved in, and 2 months after I had our second child. Yes, I am a crazy lady, but I have always found it hard to say no to a friend. I am getting better at it these days. She got married on New Year's Eve. So cool. This cake is wrapped with silver and black ribbons. Nothing fancy, just simple and elegant. Well, when we took the cake to the reception site, as I was carrying it in in it's box, I tripped on a piece of pavement that was sticking up and almost lost the whole cake. As it was, the top layers of the cake slid on the bottom layer (reminder to self, even though it is a small cake, do not prestack cake before delivery, no matter what). I had to push it back in place. Fortunately it had slid towards the back of the cake and the marks I couldn't quite touch up perfectly from pushing it back into place were in the back of the cake. No one knew, but I tell you I was a nervous wreck.
Delivering the cake is always the riskiest part. You never know what will happen: a sudden stop, a trip carrying the thing in, who knows.

More Calla Lilies

I made this cake just before we moved into our first house here, about 5 yrs. ago. Can't believe it's been that long. I again, made the calla lilies out of gum paste. It was a simple cake based on a magazine pictures.