Good-Bye to a ROTTEN 2009 - Hello to a BRIGHTER 2010

Why was this year so rotten? Where do I begin? I guess the start wasn't SO rotten. I got married in January 2009 - that wasn't rotten. Our store closed - that WAS rotten. I founded my Cake business shortly after - which wasn't rotten at all. Bumped heads with my family - which is mixed - rotten and not rotten. But the most rotten would be that we lost 100's of thousands of dollars.
I always thank my lucky stars that God gave me a strong head. And I always say, "If I didn't become crazy by now - I ain't EVER gonna be crazy." I refuse to dwell on negative things - ponder on all the horrible things in my life and feel sorry for myself. I am a firm believer of picking yourself up when something bad happens. NOT to become a victim, but rather learn from your mistakes and use it to make your life better and stronger. Yeah - you should sulk for a while and be depressed but do it and get it over with. I've come to the conclusion that life really is too short to be miserable. As always, I plan on looking at all the lovely things there are and IGNORE the un-lovely's. Surround myself with good people and good karma - the law of moral causation. Oh, and I am a FIRM believer of Karma. What goes around comes around people. Always remember that. Something you did 20 years ago will come and get you 30 years later.
ANYHOO, happy new year to everyone..
Onto other news. I am drafting things for my Cupcake Launch Party which I am oober excited about. I am looking at a couple of locations and figuring out what products I will be bringing to the event - along with the 4 different specialty cakes I will be making. I've also added another product in my line of sweet goodness. Starting 2010, Cakes by Christine NY will be selling Gourmet Breakfast Gift Baskets. Small and a large - filled with homemade jams, flavored butters, cookies, breads and all that other good stuff. 2010 will be a great year.
I made my first cupcake order and got such awesome feedback and PICTURES! I love pictures people! So if you have any, send them my way!!







I made cupcakes/mini cheesecakes for a co-worker of mine (A VERY picky Italian woman)and she tells me the next day that her and her family loved them. And then she went on to say: My daughter brought home this cupcake from a famous bakery in Manhattan and I didn't really like it. I thought yours tasted better. when I asked what the name of the bakery was, she said: MAGNOLIA.

What....

Then my friend who bought cupcakes for her family party told me that her cousins loved my cupcakes - that one of my them used to work as a baker at Buttercup Bake Shop(973 2 Avenue)and she thought my cupcakes were the best she's EVER had and that she wants to be my fan. HaHaHa!

Now THAT is an awesome compliment. When I hear things like this, it gives me such motivation to make more and more delicious things. Thanks guys <3

Thank You Sarah...

Don't I have the BEST friends? I gave my friend Sarah some of my cupcakes.. just because and she does photography on the side. She just emailed me a bunch of awesome pictures since my photos - - let's face it, SUCKS. I don't mean to put up sucky photos but long story short, I don't have a computer at home anymore and the computer I use at work - the USB port is disengaged so basically I take pictures on my cell phone and upload it that way. Hey - I gotta work with what I got right? But in any case, I LOVE the photos... I love the lighting, the angle, the clean-ness of the layout. These are pictures I would use as a book cover - if I ever wrote one... I just love it all. I know I keep saying this but I wish I knew she did photography before!! I would've hired her to do my wedding photos!

Cupcake-sized CHEESECAKES

So I've decided to do cheesecakes as well. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Cheesecakes - especially when they're made the right way. I'm doing a NY-Style Cheesecake with either a Spiced Apple, Blueberry or Cherry topping. I know I'm on a diet but I ALWAYS taste test all my products before putting them on my menu. I think I taste-tested the cheesecake like 5 times. With the crumb, without the crumb, with the topping, right after it was baked, after it cooled for 2 hours, after it was cooled for 8 hours... It tasted good each and every time. ( :





I have a 3-day weekend with no cake orders but I have a lot of orders in January so I have a lot of sketching and organizing to do - which I'll probably do over the X-mas weekend.

The weekend after that I celebrate my 1-year anniversary! Can't believe I've been married for a year already. Feels like just yesterday I was stressed over favors and invitations. Anyways, we're going to Ruth Chris to celebrate (Yumm...) and of course we're going to eat the top tier of our wedding cake we saved - Canoli cream filled. Omg. I can't wait!! I already know what I'm going to order...
For appetizer, either the Mushroom stuffed with Crabmeat



OR... the Sizzlin' Blue Crab Cakes.



And for our meal, the Porterhouse for 2..



And as sides, maybe I'll either get the onion rings or lyonnaise...



or maybe I'll just get both...



And cream of spinach... (Gotta have your vegies..)


Of course we'll wash it down with a bottle or two of wine.

Man oh man... I'm drooling... Do I have to ask hubby what he wants to eat?...

NY Storm of 09' = more cupcake tasting...

It snowed about 1 foot this past weekend. Being that I live in a 2-family house, I HATE the snow because I have to shovel. Now that I'm married, it's not AS bad b/c hubby does the shoveling but I do try and help b/c I feel selfish that I'm not doing anything.

I stole this pic off a friend on Facebook...


Not to sound totally random - and I promise this story will connect to what happened the rest of this weekend but I've been on a grueling and miserable diet since the end of October. I gained A LOOOOoot of weight since my wedding. I think it was a mixture of stress, depression, not caring anymore and just a whole bunch of things. I'm not normally an overweight person and I try to watch what I eat/go to the gym but I think I just didn't care anymore so I ate like a banchee. Anyway, I gained about 30 lbs in the process. It got so bad I would wear sweatshirts in the middle of July. I finally couldn't stand to look at myself anymore so I took charge and went on a diet monitored by an internist, which did WONDERS b/c I lost almost 30 lbs to date. I wasn't going to but decided I've been doing SO well, if I hit a certain weight by this past weekend, I would treat myself to ONE cheat meal. Not only did looking forward to that cheat meal make me REACH my goal weight (for the weekend) but I SURPASSED that weight and went even lower! So kudos to me. As my cheat meal, I chose to get an AWESOME cheeseburger @ Tavern 18, located in New Hyde Park on Union Tpke. They serve warm brioche bread they bake on the premises (forgot to take a picture. The cheeseburger is also served on a toasted brioche bun with a choice of whatever cheese you want. I chose a Swiss Gruyere Cheese and got sweet potato fries instead of regular fries.


We also got lobster/crab springs rolls for appetizer but again, I totally forgot to take a picture b/c I was sidetracked by how delicious it looked. And of course we got a bottle of wine and got totally crocked. I haven't had a meal that good in a looooooong time and I didn't regret a split second of it. Of course I couldn't even finish my meal. I swear I tried to eat all of it but if I took another bite, I probably would've thrown up.

Onto cupcake news... This storm trapped me in my home so I decided to bake cupcakes! I made a batch of devil'd chocolate chip cupcakes. I personally don't like it when I bite into a moist chocolate cupcake and all of a sudden feel the hard chips inside the moistness so I decided to just add a just a thin layer of chips on the very top of the cupcake.


I think I have the frostings down - so now I'm just trying to see which frostings go good with which cupcakes. This one is the chocolate-chocolate fudge frosting with the devil'd chocolate chip cupcake. I changed the receipe a bit b/c taste testers were telling me it was too sweet and a bit dense.

Devil'd Chocolate Chip Cupcake with Cookies & Cream



Devil'd Chocolate Chip Cupcake with Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting



This one's new on my cupcake list. I usually use this filling for my cakes but since all my customers love it, I've decided to use it for my cupcakes too. It's a devil'd chocolate chip cupcake with "Sseng Cream." It's a korean cream - basically a lightly whipped pastry cream.



I've updated my website with my NEW CUPCAKE Menu/Pricing and Cupcake Gallery - although I won't be taking orders until the new year begins. Check it out!!

http://www.cakesbychristineny.com/Gallery_~__Capcakes.html

I'm still looking for a location for my CUPCAKE LAUNCH PARTY. I must say I'm pretty excited to do this and I hope it turns out well.

More Cupcake Testing...

I wanted to try out different frosting flavors with my butter-vanilla cupcake recipe so I made a batch of the cupcakes, along with a bunch of flavors.

Chocolate-Chocolate on Butter-Vanilla Cupcake



Mocha on Butter-Vanilla Cupcake



Cookies & Cream (made with Oreos) on Butter-Vanilla Cupcake



And then you have your standard Vanilla on Butter-Vanilla Cupcake



Then I made a lemon cupcake with a citrus frosting



I gotta go back to the drawing board on this one. I was aiming for a slightly lemony flavor'd cupcake and a REAL tart frosting but it ended up being the other way around. I love lemon so I like it but other people might not...

Ah~ ~ the sexy red velvet...



And I left the best for last... My Pumpkin Cupcake with spiced cream cheese frosting. I am SO proud of this cupcake. I love pumpkin anything so this one took me a while. I think the pumpkin muffin from Dunkin' Donuts is REALLY good so I had to put it on the standards of that. Let me tell you...I took a bite of this cupcake and my eyes rolled back. I don't know if I'm being biased b/c I love pumpkin flavored things but it just reminded me of Thanksgiving/Christmas, the winter. Uck... So friggin' good. It may not look as sexy as the Red Velvet but it tastes REALLY REALLY good.

Cheeseburger Cake

Got an order from an old high school buddy of mine for her brother's birthday. Apparently, he's living a healthy lifestyle so his wife thought it would be a cute idea to make him a cheeseburger cake (b/c he loves it and hasn't had it in a while) I've been DYING to make a cheeseburger cake ironically so of course I jumped at it. I bought lettuce, tomatoes and cheese at the supermarket - sliced it and studied it.




The cheeseburger is chocolate cake with a mocha filling. My High School buddy always talks about red velvet and how much she loves it so I thought I'd make her a cake too. The cheeseburger looked lonely anyways. So I decided to make fries with red velvet and cream cheese filling. Of course EVERYTHING has to be edible so I made the fries out of a butter pound cake.


I always love when people send me photos. ( :


I wish I had more time... I wanted to make a soda too. Oh well. Next time.

On to cupcake news. I gave away all the cupcakes to my friends and they all loved it! I noticed that the girls liked the strawberry and carrot cupcakes and the men liked the chocolate-chocolate-chocolate and peanut butter/chocolate cupcakes. Weird... Yesterday I made pumpkin cupcakes - which was a TOTAL SUCCESS. Smelled and reminded me of dunkin donuts pumpkin muffins, which was totally what I was going for b/c I love love love them. My hubby ate THREE - that is SUCH a compliment b/c for all of you who know, he's a bodybuilder and a total health freak - doesn't eat anything unless it's grilled chicken or vegetables.
Tonight I will aim to make the lemon, red velvet, vanilla and oreo. I'm re-thinking the pecan. By the time I launch my new cupcake menu, the season will be over for pecan anyways... we'll see.

It's starting to smell a lot like... Cupcakes... I mean CHRISTMAS!

Finished testing 4 cupcakes: Chocolate- chocolate-chocolate fudge cupcake, Chocolate peanut butter cupcake, strawberry shortcake cupcake and carrot cupcake.

This one is good for someone who LOVES chocolate. It is very rich - yet moist. I loved it. I garnished it with white chocolate shaving just to give the eyes a little pop.



This one was my favorite as well as everyone else. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake. If you like Reese's peanut butter cup, you'll love this one. I even put a Reese's peanut butter cup as a garnish. Hubby ate THREE.



I really liked the taste of the Strawberry Shortcake Cupcake but I have to re-do this one. The vanilla frosting was good but a little dense. I wait something light and airy - creamier. And I have to re-think the chocolate covered strawberry on top. Maybe just a plain strawberry or cover it in white chocolate. Back to the drawing board with this one.



The Carrot Cupcake turned out very very yummy. I just couldn't decide with the garnish. I made two - a caramelized walnut and a candied walnut. Both looked and tasted so good, I might just put both on the menu and have the customers choose!





Now I have to test the lemon, vanilla, maybe another chocolate with oreo cream, pumpkin and pecan. So much work - these cupcakes.

On CAKE news, I just made an Xmas Cake. The customer wanted something for her Xmas party - I asked her what kind and she said something "fun" - maybe ornamets, but that she'll leave it up to me. So - I thought HEY! Why not an Oranment box!









I didn't realize how much time it would take me to decorate this cake. I think I started at 5PM the night before and I ended up finishing at 5AM. I loved the end product. So colorful - so Christmas-like and festive and I love love loved the ornaments!