Success at Salem's

People have been kind enough to ask me how the open house event at Salem's went.  I feel like I've been moving from one busy week to the next and haven't found the time to blog about the lovely event.

Truth be told, it went smashingly.  There were so many people who visited over the course of the day.  Some faces were familiar to me, but the most exciting part of the day were all the new faces I had an opportunity to meet and talk to.  I was able to have a few conversations with people whom I've known for awhile in passing but never really had the opportunity to speak with for any length of time. Maybe I'm just starved for grown-up conversation after all my days at home with the girls!

The baked goods went over well.  I brought with me four batches of scones, three batches of cookies, 14 loaves of sweet bread, and two batches of cupcakes.  All but a dozen cupcakes were sold for charity by the end of the day.  I was so pleased.

Adelaide ran down the stairs as I was packing up the car that morning, asking if she could join me for the day.  I hesitated, knowing it would be a long day but agreed that she would be a great helper.  In the end, she really saved me!  She sat with the photographs that were for sale while I dealt with bakery customers.  She was a tremendous help.

I was pleased to run across a few folks who purchased a few of the photos for themselves to frame in their homes or even use as postcards and souvenirs of the time in Ethiopia.  One woman honored me with the proposal that if I sent her the original file of the photos she planned to print them out at her United Nations office to hang in their conference room.  Pretty exciting.  I can't wait to go look at the photos displayed.

 Helping Salem throw an open house like this was on my list of things to accomplish while I was in Ethiopia.  She really didn't end up needing much of my help but I was pleased to have been apart of it.

Salem's Ethiopia Fall Open House

Open House Brunch at Head to Toe Learning Center

I should rave about Bella's preschool more on the blog. It's the best preschool experience we've had.  I'm admittedly cheap when it comes to paying for preschool.  I kind of gawked at the $300/month price tag in Manila for Addie. But Head to Toe is the first preschool where I feel like we are getting our money's worth and that's the big difference.  It's the first time I gladly turn over a check and say thank you very much.  This preschool/learning center (and now kindergarten) is absolutely phenomenal.   Top notch teaching and such a well thought-out program.  Arabella loves it and we've seen such wonderful growth and development in her since she's started in this program.  I highly recommend it.

Jane is the owner of the preschool and she was nice enough to ask me (Ladytroupe Sweets) to cater brunch for the back to school open house.  I was a bit nervous hearing the 100 people number she was planning for.  But I decided to accept.  I figured if I never challenged myself how would I know if I was capable of doing it or not.  The fact that it was brunch made me feel better about the whole thing. I love brunch.

I cooked for a week straight and by the end of it I was exhausted.  But I did it!  I was mostly proud of my ability to organize everything and complete it all without a freak-out moment.  Yes!  I am so grateful to Jane and Head To Toe for asking me to do this.

The menu
Assorted scones (vanilla bean, caramel pecan, coffee chocolate chip, lemon blueberry, white chocolate cranberry almond, and sun dried tomato herb and cheese)
Assorted breads (coconut and orange pomegranate)
Assorted quiches
Green salad with honey mustard dressing
Crepes filled with the following
Maple roasted squash with hazelnuts and gorgonzola
Roasted red pepper humus with tomato, cucumber and olive salad
Minted strawberries wit salted dark chocolate ganache
Cinnamon apples with homemade caramel sauce

catering

I very excitedly accepted my first large-ish catering gig a month or so ago.  The order list was long and gave me a bit of anxiety to think about accomplishing.  When it came down to the week of the party (this past week) I relied on my grocery list and a detailed cooking/baking schedule.  I was pleased with the results.  I think my customer was too.

Hungry caterpillar cupcakes

birthday cake love

I love making birthday cakes.  I simply adore the fact that my job allows me to create beautiful birthday cakes for other people's kids too.  Please!  Ask me to make your child's birthday cake, I can't get enough of this!

This cake is a four layer, 8 inch round, vanilla butter cake with vanilla bean frosting.  Tinted pink of course! The birthday girl is turning 4!

Prices are over at Ladytroupe Sweets.  Everything is in Ethiopian Birr. If you're curious the exchange rate is 17 Birr/$1 US.

a week of baking

I feel like I've done little else but bake this week.  My feet are tired and I grated my fingers a few times but it was a lot of fun.

Whoever is attending this Thanksgiving feast next week is lucky enough to enjoy my pecan pie for dessert.  It's going to be a big gathering.  I made three pies for this customer.

The sweet little girl who is turning 5 next week (and we will sadly miss her birthday party), will have a delicious pink ice cream cake.  This cake has a graham cracker walnut crust and EIGHT alternating layers of vanilla cake that has been brushed with strawberry puree and strawberry ice cream.  The top is vanilla ice cream and the strawberries have been candied and frozen.  It almost didn't fit in my cake box. Seriously yum!

I baked for Market Day tomorrow as well.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity to feature traditional Thanksgiving baked goods.  I made sixty mini pies.  Not kidding. Pecan and pumpkin.  Mini pies take THE. MOST. TIME.  All the butter grating and rolling and shaping. Phew! It's so time consuming. Making the big pecan pies are a piece of cake compared to all the tiny ones.

I adore pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top though. Don't you? It's so perfect for Thanksgiving and I never make it because I'm a good wife and make pecan pie instead since it's what my husband loves.  But you know what? I think I'm going to make a pumpkin pie just for myself from now on during the holidays  I love it that much.  I'm going to plead with my folks back at home to not buy their pumpkin pie at the grocery store this year but instead roll their own crust and make their own filling.  Please!  It's so much better from scratch.  But honestly, if I were in a pinch, store bought pumpkin pie is better than no pumpkin pie.

I also made ginger sandwich cookies with date filling because I loved them so much last week and had numerous people compliment them when we ran in to one another at the Marine Ball.  My favorite comment was from a friend's husband who was sick last week.  He said that he ate one of the ginger cookies and felt like he was at home.  I had a few people ask me if I am originally from the South (I guess that gives my pecan pie props) and a few others that said the ginger cookies were "off the chain".  Awesome huh?!  I love hearing stories about people eating my food.  One friend said that his wife "doesn't like scones" but she broke off a piece of the scone her husband took home that afternoon and a few minutes later came back to break off another piece.  That happened for awhile until she ate the whole thing.  People like talking about food and there isn't a whole lot of great food here in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia worthy of food conversation among friends.  I love that some of the things I'm creating is filling that gap.  

Of course I also made scones but I'm bracing myself because I just couldn't muster any more energy or time to bake my chocolate chip cookies.  People get a little touchy when these aren't available.  Some people are aghast when they get to the head of the line and see that their favorite whatever is already gone.  No lie.  

Did I mention I love doing this so much?  Ashlynn loves it when I make ice cream and her sisters are at school.  She's learning really quickly if she hangs around Mom in the kitchen she gets handed spatulas, spoons, and paddles covered in sweet delicious concoctions.  So she has her PJs on in this photo which means she's licking that ice cream paddle before her first nap this morning...which means Mama needs a vacation from the kitchen.  

And just because I can't help myself...Ashlynn with spaghetti face.  Adorable.

gory cupcakes

In honor of Halloween this week I made Gory Cupcakes for Ladytroupe Sweets Market Day.  They look like a disgusting stab wound oozing bloody flesh.  But I promise they taste delicious.  It's a moist almond flavored butter cake with vanilla bean butter cream frosting and a homemade strawberry sauce.  The "glass" is shards of hard candy.    When I initially looked at my perfectly frosted and sauced cakes I knew that they looked too pretty. I imagine that stab wounds are pretty messy so I drizzled extra blood (sauce) on the edges so it would drip a bit making them look more horrific.

I really loved people's reactions to these cupcakes at Market Day today.  Some people got the gory part right away.  Other's I had to explain a bit, but once they got the Halloween joke, they were thrilled.  I answered lots of questions about the candy glass.

 I had so much fun making these.  Don't you think they are disgusting and gorgeous all at the same time?

the ice cream cake experiement

A friend of mine here in Addis Ababa entrusted me with the important task of creating a cake for her son's tenth birthday party coming up this Saturday.  It was officially the first special order I received for Ladytroupe Sweets.  The request was for an ice cream cake!  I've never made one but that didn't stop me from taking on the challenge.  I figured, I make good ice cream and great cake, I'm certain I can combine the two.  What I found over the last few days of creating this masterpiece, is that ice cream cake is about planning and logistics...as well as good ingredients!

This cake used the following:
parchment paper
A 9 inch spring form pan
1 batch of homemade chocolate wafer cookies crumbled and frozen
1 batch of vanilla chocolate chip ice cream
1 batch of vanilla ice cream
1 9 inch chocolate cake sliced horizontally
candy for decorating

The spring form pan worked really well for the ice cream cake.  I lined it with parchment paper and pressed half the crumbled chocolate wafers into the bottom of the pan.  Then cover with foil and place a heavy plate on top and freeze overnight.

The ice cream has to be made a few hours in advance.  You want the ice cream to be spreadable but not too soft.  I layered half the ice cream onto the cookie crust, then a layer of my chocolate cake, ice cream again and cake on top.  After each layered addition I froze the cake for a few hours. This is not a cake to rush through.  Patience to let every layer freeze before the next addition is key.

 The sides and top of the cake were "frosted" with the vanilla ice cream just as I would frost a cake with frosting.  The remaining cookie crumbles were pressed into the sides and around the outer edge on top of the cake.  The birthday boy is turning ten so it only seemed appropriate to decorate the top in this fashion.

I hope he loves it!  It was a blast to make.

the one time sugar cookie event

I tend to pick one "creative project" every week for Market Day.  Something tasty that is also pretty and a bit more complicated to bake and decorate because it's fun and I enjoy creating beautiful edibles.  Two weeks ago it was the Icebox cupcakes, last week was the Orange Blossom cupcakes and this week it was Full Bloom Vanilla Bean sugar cookies.

Maybe it's something about the challenge of creating something beautiful, that tastes just as amazing as it looks, that lures me into these little projects.  Sugar cookies, like cupcakes are often gorgeous but bland or covered in shortening based frosting.  There is nothing more disappointing for me than to bite into a pretty sugar cookies and not taste real butter.

I spent way too many woman hours working on these pretty petal topped flower cookies.  The dough had to cool and in the end I was still cursing at the blobs sticking to my Silpats as I rolled it out.  I ended up freezing it awhile which helped as well as flouring my work surface.  I spent a significant amount of time rolling the dough and cutting out the pretty shapes.  Each flower is topped with eight little petals.  The recipe made 19 large cookies so you can do the math on how many little petals I cut and baked last night.

Then came the frosting.  It's a basic butter cream that I colored and smeared on each little piece.  The wonderful thing about this frosting is that it hardens and is delicious so it's perfect for these flower creations. I adore the yellow frosting stamens in the middle of each cookie.  I couldn't sleep until those little details were done. This is why these beautiful flower cookies will likely not be at Market Day again.  I will definitely make these cut out sugar cookies for Halloween and Christmas but they will not be elaborate as the flowers.  It was a fun creative project but my poor knuckles feel arthritic after all that work last night!

The girls were off of school Thursday and Friday this week for Meskel break and I thought the flower cookies would be a fun project for Addie and I.  In the end, it was I who did most of the work.  I think I didn't get to sleep until close to midnight last night.

I am most happy with the flavor and texture of the sugar cookie.  The vanilla bean flavoring added a nice depth of flavor. They were a tad crunchy on the very outer edge but soft and buttery everywhere else.  The cookie wasn't too sweet.  The trick is to add a tad more salt to the dough than called for so the cookie compliments the sweet icing on top.  I'm secretly elated that one cookie broke during transportation so I could eat it.  It's everything a frosted sugar cookie should be.

Part of my little ladytroupe.  Addie was a big help at the market and insisted on helping bag the goodies and seal everything with my stickers.  Bella on the other hand just ignored my reprimands to not stick her fingers in the baskets to try to get the little left behind bits of goodies.  

Ladytroupe Sweets first Market Day

I did it! Ladytroupe Sweets debuted at Market Day today and it was so much fun.  I have been planning and working on this for quite awhile so to have it all come together and see it as I imagined was so wonderful.

mini Bella nut pies (pecan pie)

Apple hand pies 

I detailed some of the baking over at Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice.  Please go check it out.  I really thought I was going to be running around like a crazy lady this morning but I wasn't and can I tell you how proud of myself I am?  Really proud because sometimes coordinating baking and running a house, cooking dinner, making kids school lunches, and basically being a Mom can be tough and I totally pulled all that and Ladytroupe Sweets off this week with style.  I think it helped that I tried to be super organized.  I had lists about what to make what day, how many the recipe would yield, how long to bake everything, what to put in the oven first, etc. and it all really helped.

People seemed thrilled that everything looked semi-professional with my little white pastry bags, stickers and business cards.  I was happy with how it all came together.  I love the baskets and the vintage table cloth and how all the pretty little pies, scones and cookies looked sitting there on the table.  For me, having everything look pretty means just as much as everything tasting delicious so it was a win-win for me today.  Maybe someone was looking down on me from above to have everything come together without a burnt batch or a forgotten ingredient, but I'd like to think it was all my preparations that helped it go well. Or maybe it was a bit of both.

the classic chocolate chip cookie

Can I tell you a secret about all this?  Today was the first dollar (well, Ethiopian Birr) that I have ever earned doing something that I enjoy.  Really!  I've had plenty of jobs and even the start of a career before I had our first child and never once have I felt the amount of joy as I did today when I accepted my first $1.50 for a beautiful little pecan pie that I had shaped and made with my very own hands.  I cannot tell you how much this makes me smile.  I thought I might be one of those people that just never really knows what they want to do with themselves as a grown-up (other than be a mother-I did know that).  I was OK with this.  I feel completely overjoyed, even energized by the realization that I just might have found my "thing".

It's tough not to receive any immediate feedback on what people think or how everything tasted.  Justin did pass on a few compliments from people who ate their purchases straight away at the office that afternoon.  I only hope people enjoyed everything enough to come back next time!

All in all it was a fantastic market day.

cranberry white chocolate almond scones