Let's Celebrate!!

We had a fabulous time this weekend at the market & also creating some wonderful celebration cakes! It's so great to have the opportunity to help someone celebrate a special occasion with a delicious & beautiful cake!

This week we created a lovely gluten & dairy free banana cake (pictured above) for a special wedding anniversary as well as a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. We also had so much fun making a large square banana cake with pastry cream & banana filling (pictured below) for a little boy's birthday party. We had a great time with the bright colors that our client requested! We love the combination! We certainly enjoy days where we can be creative with our pastry skills & this was one of those wonderful weeks!


We also had an incredibly busy Saturday at the Oregon City Farmer's Market! We made some new items this week including some hazelnut honey sticky buns (pictured below), a pumpkin cheesecake pie & a lovely spiced pumpkin pie! We also featured some hazelnut butter tarts! Yum! Just about all of our yummy pastries were gone by the end of the day! Wow!

I think that when the cold weather comes we all crave some delicious treats to keep us going! It was a bit blustery on Saturday & the cold of fall has set in so everyone was in the mood for a cup of our hot organic coffee or tea & a sweet treat to top it all off! We had the best time talking to customers & enjoying the day! We also enjoyed shopping at the market for our honey & potatoes that we need for next week's delicacies.

This week I'll be making some gluten free pumpkin pies as well as some mini Christmas Cookie Trays that we will display on Saturday. We'll give out some samples of our Christmas goodies for people to try so that they can experience our amazing holiday treats! These trays will be available for purchase during the holiday season. More to come.....enjoy the Fall!

Free At Last!! Gluten & Dairy Free Cakes!!

Last week I had a request to create three flavors of gluten free & dairy free cakes for an anniversary cake coming up in October. Tomorrow our client is coming over the try the cakes!

Today I successfully met the challenge of creating three delicious flavors of cakes that are both gluten free & dairy free. I am so pleased with the results & may even proclaim that these cakes have better texture & flavor than some traditional flour cakes I have made & tasted. Above is a photo of the carrot cakes I made with a pineapple & coconut icing & topped with light macaroon coconut & a coconut slice.

The second photo above is of my second gluten & dairy free creation: banana cake with a creamy banana pudding filling topped with vanilla buttercream & a sweetened banana chip! Wow! These are good! They are super moist & delicious!! I am so happy with the results of my experiments!I took the various gluten free & dairy free recipes I have and I was able to create a marriage of the two! I'd say they are a match made in heaven! The banana & carrot cakes are also egg-free for those who cannot or do not eat eggs.

The third cupcake photo is of my final gluten free & dairy free creation: a light lemon cake with raspberry jam filling & topped with a lemon buttercream. Some of the cakes are topped with crushed lemon candies & some are simply garnished with lemon rind slices. These are so amazingly good! They have a very light crumb & incredible lemon flavor! My next challenge will be to create these cakes using agave nectar as the sweetener.

Later this week (after I get my kitchen cleaned up) I'll be back to write about cooking fresh sugar pumpkins that we bought at the farmer's market on Saturday for the pies that we are going to make this Friday for the market! Fall is here! Happy days to you all!