Whew!

FYI - long post ahead. Grab yourself a cup of coffee first. It's worth it!

I’ve been absent from this blog for the past week for two very good reasons….
1) I baked 7 desserts for a party I had last night.
2) It took most of my free time to do so.

But I’m glad I did it for three very good reasons……
1) I now have experience planning for a heavy order volume,
2) I got a chance to take some K-I-L-L-E-R pictures for you, and for my website. (Can anyone out there believe that I actually took these pictures?? They look amazing if I do say so myself. Three cheers to Shawn at work, who taught me everything I know!)
3) I broadened my marketing base by 20 people (I know, not much but it’s a start. I envision it being like the old Wella Balsam shampoo commercials – You tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on….)
4) I have already received 2 orders based on this event!

To set the scene, my purpose was to invite the neighbor ladies over to taste a variety of desserts. There aren’t too many people, especially neighbors, who know I am doing this so I thought it would be a good way to introduce my business, allow me to practice, and get some good social time with the women who live around me.

So….I spent many hours over the past week baking. I even took yesterday off and spent all day in the kitchen. Here’s an overview of the menu:

Tiramisu Temptation
White cake flavored with Kaluah, filled with tiramisu cream and fresh raspberries, topped with Kaluah buttercream and chocolate shavings.

Lemon Crème Fantasy
Light lemon cake layers, lemon curd filling and lemon mascarpone mousse frosting. This cake is light, not too sweet, and has just the right balance of lemon flavor.

Inside-out German Chocolate Cake
Moist, fudgy chocolate cake with sweet, creamy coconut-pecan filling topped with smooth, dark chocolate ganache. Beautifully topped with a pile of chocolate leaves. Everyone asks how I make the leaves. Ancient Chinese Secret.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake
Ooh and Ahh-inspiring. Comes with a surprise inside - another raspberry!

Chocolate-Peanut butter Cheesecake
A crowd favorite. Filled with a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup!

Devilsfood Cupcakes with Vanilla buttercream and chocolate ganache
This is the unique packaging idea I've been working on....so Shhhhhhh! The key is that you get a bigger cupcake when you bake them the way I devised - which means more to eat and more to hold wonderful fillings. They're individually wrapped with vellum and hand-tied with ribbon.

Mini Double-chocolate Cupcakes
Just a little bite-sized something.

To legitimize myself a bit I made a bunch of marketing materials – a list of ingredients, menus for people to take, and surveys. I received 14 survey responses, but I know that more than 14 women came…..more like 20. I'll have to spend some time tallying the votes and will, of course, share with you.

I learned a few things through the course of this event:

• There's tweaking to be done on some of the recipes.
• I should probably '86' the Lemon Creme Fantasy cake since it got low ratings across the board.
• Working ahead is key. Spreading the work out across several days makes it far less daunting than baking for 2 straight days.
• When making several desserts, compiling an overall ingredient list and checking against 'stock' is VERY important. I thought I had enough eggs and heavy cream on hand, but fell short on both of those items.
• I am married to a dish-washing, house-cleaning, grocery store-running saint! Dave proves over and over again that he is my biggest fan – and I cannot thank him enough for that. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a husband like mine. (Hi, Sweetie!)
• My feet hurt after standing on them for 12 hours in the kitchen. Maybe I should invest in some chef’s clogs.
• Flat Key Lime cheesecake still tastes good – it just looks pathetic. I always have trouble knowing how long to bake mini cheesecakes. Typically I use cheesecake recipes that call for a regular 9” pan – but when you make mini cheesecakes out of it you can’t bake them as long as you bake a 9” version. So sometimes I pull the minis out of the oven too soon – as was the case here – and they deflate. Dave and the kids still ate them though.
• Key Limes are a bitch to juice. Try juicing a Brussels Sprout, because that’s about the same size.
• People do not RSVP anymore. Why is that?
• If you advertise free sugar and chocolate to a bunch of women, most of them will come - even the size 2 soccer moms.
• The ladies of my neighborhood need to loosen up a bit. I had 3 bottles of champagne chilled (because what goes better with dessert than champagne?) and only one was opened. And actually, I think I drank most of it!
• Putting yourself ‘out there’ for public scrutiny can be very stressful. I felt very vulnerable opening up something I love (something I put great care, thought, time, money and heart into) to direct feedback/criticism. All in all I think the risk was worth it.

Thanks for hanging with me through this long post. Now, aren't you jonesing for some chocolate??