Valentine's Day 2018

So, just wanted to share a bit about Valentine's Day.

You see... Valentine's Day is like the Olympics of bakery life. We spend all year talking about it, getting ready for it ('training', if you will), ~~anticipating~~ dreading it, and psyching ourselves up for several days of craziness.

We partnered with Yazel's Flowers & Gifts here in Lima and offered fresh roses at the bakery!

Last year, I was completely blindsided by how busy we would be. We sold out of goodies (for the first time) by 10:30am! At one point during the day last year, we ran completely out of butter and powdered sugar. I might have found myself out back crying in the woods - no shame.

I had a much better plan in place this year, and things went sooo much more smoothly. We advance prepped like crazy and that helped so much! Little things - cutting out heart cookies, dicing strawberries, pureeing strawberries, and stocking the freezer with strawberry mousse frosting - saved us so much time.

Line outside the door at 8:40am... we open at 9am!

Our best-selling product for Valentine's Day is the Chocolate-covered Strawberry cupcake. It's a fresh strawberry cupcake, topped with a strawberry mousse and then double-dipped in chocolate coating. It's a tricky one to crank out fast, because the mousse requires about 2 hours to make start-to-finish. The cupcakes also have to rest in the freezer for 20-30 minutes before you can dip them in the chocolate coating. I meant to keep track of how many of these we sold this year, but that stopped after February 2. I know we usually made at least 2 batches of 15-20 dozen each day the week leading up to Valentine's Day.

Our other NEW product this year was Chocolate-dipped Fresh Strawberries! I was able to get the fancy long stem strawberries from my supplier and they were SOOO good. We dipped them in Ghirardelli dark & white chocolate. Pretty sure I ate at least one per day during the ten days or so that we had them around.

IRRESISTIBLE

As far as how the actual Valentine's Day ended up?! We cranked our ovens ALL DAY LONG and managed to keep a nice supply the ENTIRE day from 9am-7pm. Between Tuesday & Wednesday, we sold close to 7000 cupcakes, 2200+ cookies, 1500+ fresh-dipped strawberries, and 30+ cakes. Almost 1000 customers between the 2 days!

SO MANY HEART COOKIES!

My team hustled their little booties off and worked so well together. So proud of them!

Even Ben got in on the action :-P

However, by Thursday morning, we were all pretty much walking zombies. Valentine's recovery is a real thing. It has taken me until TODAY (5 days later) to feel halfway back to normal. And that's with a 2-hour nap Sunday and a 3-hour nap today. I also think being 23 weeks pregnant might have something to do with that.

So what's next for the bakery??! We've got our very own UNICORN DAY planned for this Friday. Unicorn goodies will be taking over our display.... and we are SO excited about it. Who doesn't love unicorns??!

The Arrival of Something New...

Woo hoo for the last Friday of the school year! And only one more day of school next week. (And then a couple teacher workshops...) Another reason to be excited? Our fridge came today!! Isn't she a beauty? It is so nice to have a fridge again. You don't realize how much you miss a full-size refrigerator until you go a couple weeks without it. A bit bare... but that can be solved easily. Bottom-drawer freezer, containing the essentials: moose tracks & Diet Dew trying to get cold asap. Anyways, I'm just popping in to share my beautiful new appliance. The baking monster has taken over, and I'm in the midst of making 150 cupcakes for a graduation party tomorrow. First big baking project in the new kitchen! I'm loving all the counter space. Mmm... chocolate buttercream! Making good use of the baking nook! :) Adios!

The Essential Summer Dessert

Last weekend, my Business Man and I hosted a fiesta for some of our friends in the Bean Town. While everyone enjoyed the food, I think dessert was the biggest hit. (Surprise, surprise.) We had brownies (from a box, the horror!) topped with chocolate ganache, and fruit pizza . Fruit pizza is most definitely my "go-to" summer dessert. Since it's the official 1st day of summer, I thought I'd share the recipe! It's delicious without being too heavy or rich. And it's most definitely healthy, because you are eating fruit, right? The recipe I use is my mom's... she's been using it for years. It starts with a basic sugar cookie base, topped with a cream cheese-whipped topping, and then all the fruit your little heart desires! I usually go with strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, pineapple, and mandarin oranges. But raspberries are really good, too. Even better when you pick the fruit yourself! (Picking berries on our honeymoon last July.) ...

2011 Flying Pig Marathon Race Recap

Marathons are hard. But before we get to the actual marathon, let's rewind a bit to Saturday afternoon. We arrived in Cincy around 2pm, and hit up marathon expo. Goodness sakes, I had never seen a room so large filled with so many runners. Everyone was so excited, you could almost feel the energy. We weaved our way through the exhibitors and what they had to offer. (Think free dark chocolate almond granola samples! Yum! I also might have snagged some info on the Disney Half & Marathon in January... we shall see.) We also stopped for a few fun photo ops. Posing with a balloon flying pig. These were everywhere! Flying pigs with all sorts of themes. They were so cute! After the expo, we headed to our early-bird dinner. We had the luxury of dining at Maggiano's Little Italy (major carb-loading!), and it was a fantastic dining experience. The service was great , and the food was delicious as well. None of us had ever eaten there, befo...

Livin' the Dream in Lima

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