50th Birthday Cake!

This past weekend my mom and I made a cake for her best friend's 50th birthday. We have been getting some practice making cakes which I like! We are really learning a lot about baking, filling, stacking, and decorating cakes.

The birthday girl, Mary Jo, wanted a cake to feed 40 people. So we made it a two-tier cake, a 6-inch tier on top of a 9-inch tier. She also wanted each tier to have a layer of chocolate and a layer of vanilla.

We filled the top tier with chocolate cream cheese frosting just like this cake.

And we filled the bottom tier with buttercream and strawberries. The buttercream recipe is the same as the one we used on this cake.

We covered the cake in buttercream and added fresh flower details.

Everyone loved the cake and thought it was delicious!

We also brought some petite sweets with us because we know everyone loves them!

Vietnamese Iced Coffee

Peter has become obsessed with vietnamese iced coffee! He loves it. He has tried every iced coffee that he can get his hands on recently. So today I tried making him some myself!

We went to Lee's Sandwiches to pick up this coffee filter that is traditionally use to make Vietnamese coffee. It was only $3.50! I think that's a pretty good deal. 

I put about 1 tablespoon of coffee grounds into the filter to make about 4 ounces of coffee. I think that was a good ratio, but next time I might run it through the filter an extra time to make it really strong. 

I put about 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk into the glass and filtered the coffee directly into it.

I stirred it up and then poured it over ice.

Peter liked it so I think it was a success!

Wedding Cake!

My mom and I got our first order for a wedding cake at Les Petites Sweets! The request is for a rustic wedding cake that the bride will provide flowers for. We have the cake next to a wine bottle for scale.

We made this cake as a practice run because we don't have much experience making cakes. It's good to know that we can make simple and uncomplicated cakes if that is what a customer is looking for. The cake we made is an 8 inch round on top of a 9 inch round. We would like it to look more balanced so when we do the final wedding cake we are going to do a 6 inch round on top of a 9 inch round.

Our first step was, of course, to make the cake batter! We used our super moist secret recipe!

We made a white cake filled with chocolate cream cheese frosting and coated in a luscious vanilla buttercream.

I found the chocolate cream cheese buttercream recipe on the blog "Cupcake Project". It was sooo good and everyone who tried it loved it. You can find the recipe here.

I found the vanilla buttercream buttercream recipe on the blog "i heart eating". It was so smooth and light. It didn't taste heavily of butter or sugar like the typical buttercream. You can find the recipe here.

We are excited to provide a cake and petite sweets for this upcoming wedding!

Paleo Petites

My mom and I have decided to try our hand at making Paleo Petites in addition to our normal sweet petites! The paleo diet is based on the premise that human genes have not changed much since the end of the Paleolithic era and humans are therefore adapted to eat the same way that "cavemen" did. So that excludes all grains, refined sugars, legumes, and dairy. 

This diet is embraced by the CrossFit community. My parents have been doing CrossFit for over 3 years and Peter and I joined about a year and a half ago. CrossFit Surf City, the gym (box) my parents go to has a competition coming up in February so my mom and I thought it would be a good idea to see if we could bring in some paleo samples along with our standard treats. 

The hard part about making a paleo dessert is making it look appealing, taste yummy, and using only paleo-approved ingredients. We found some recipes online and adapted and experimented until we liked the results!

We really wanted to include a few paleo versions of our populate Petites Sweets. So we chose Lemon Petites and Peanut Butter Chocolate Petites. Since peanuts are not paleo we went with cashew butter as a replacement. 

We also tried out a recipe for Carrot Cake bites. I think these are a truly healthy dessert! Not simply a paleo version of a dessert that should still be eaten in moderation. They are also our first vegan Petite Sweet.

This is our new Paleo Lemon Petite! It is tangy and sweet! I challenge you not to love it!

And this is our new Paleo Carrot Cake Petite! I think this is the best option for the serious paleo athlete who loves to have a sweet treat. It is a satisfying dessert that won't leave you feeling guilty.

There are more treats to come! As well as a post on our adventures at the 2014 CrossFit Surf City Civil War Competition.

Holiday Baking

My mom and I have been working so much for our business! We've been baking treats, filling orders, and taking samples out to people who we think might be interested in ordering from us in the future. We're really excited about the direction we're going in. 

We've been working out issues that we've had with a couple of our desserts. Some of that involves changing our recipes slightly or baking in different types of pans. 

We're hoping that we'll be able to be a food vendor at Surf City Nights in downtown Huntington Beach. It's like a street fair and farmer's market that the city puts on every Tuesday night. I think that will get us some exposure. Maybe we'll even sell enough product to turn a profit.

So this is how we've been spending most of our weekends and any days that we have off from work!

Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year I made a pumpkin pie out of the pumpkins that Peter and I bought for Halloween. I thought this recipe was really good! Everyone loved the pie. My grandma even liked it and she doesn't like pumpkin pie.

The first thing I had to do was peel the writing off of the pumpkins because I wasn't sure how the ink would do in the oven. It probably isn't healthy to eat pumpkin cooked with sharpie drawings on it.

Then, I chopped, seeded, and baked the pumpkin halves until they were soft and mushy. The best way to do it is to wrap them in foil so they steam in the oven. 

This is my mixing bowl with the butter, whipping cream, brown sugar, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. I used a full cup of brown sugar, a full cup of whipping cream, and 1/2 teaspoon each of nutmeg and cinnamon. I wanted to be able to really taste the spices. 

The pie crust I used was the same one that my mom and I use for our business. 

My pie pre-baking...

And post-baking!

It was pretty sweet so if you would like it not too sweet I would recommend adding half of the brown sugar and then tasting and adjusting after it is mixed. 

Banana Bread Muffins

Yesterday, I made banana bread muffins at work with the girls. We were watching Cupcake Wars when we decided we needed to make something sweet. Since it was the day before Halloween I tried to make it as healthy a cupcake/muffin as I could. So we used up some very ripe bananas we had in the freezer and whole wheat flour. 

These are the ingredients that we used, except the butter that didn't make it into the picture. It was a quick and easy recipe that my 6-year-old was able to help a lot with.

The first thing we did was mix the milk and lemon juice because we didn't have buttermilk. Then we creamed the butter and sugar.

Next, we added the thawed bananas. We mushed them up mixed them in.

Then, we added the eggs and my helper mixed them in. 

This is the dry ingredients we mixed in, just until they were combined. 

This is what it should look like after the sou milk is mixed in. 

I like to make banana bread into muffins because it makes them portable and I can pack them in lunches or take them to the park for a snack.

Our finished muffins! They are soft and delicious.

Banana Bread Muffins:

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 overripe bananas

2 eggs

2 cups flour (I used whole wheat)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk plus 2 tsp lemon juice)

The first step, if you don't have buttermilk, is to milk the milk and lemon juice to make sour milk. Then, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the bananas and mix. If you prefer, you can mash the bananas first, but I like to just add them in and and mash them that way. Next, add the eggs and stir in. Mix the dry ingredients separately and add to the wet mixture. Once the dry ingredients are just combined add the buttermilk or sour milk. Bake at 325 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes for muffins or 40-45 mins for loaves. This recipe made 20 muffins for me.

Les Petites Sweets

Yesterday I was at my parents' house working on making some petite sweets because my mom and I got an order! It's so exciting to be getting jobs doing what we love to do. I stayed the night so that the cat wouldn't get lonely and so that I could work on these. 

The first thing I did was make the crust for Lemon Petites. 

It needs to be par-baked before adding the filling.

While it was baking I made the filling.

Ready for the final trip to the oven.

Next, I made Peanut Butter Chocolate Petites. This is the chocolate part. 

This is the peanut butter part. I love chocolate and peanut butter together!

Ready to bake! My brother says that they melt in your mouth.

This is my kitchen scale. It is a necessity for anyone who like to bake or cook. It measures so much more accurately than spoons or cups and it really saves you time. 

And that's it! For final pictures and more information check out our website.