I found another dog almost as cute as mine. This dog, Harley the English Bulldog was just plain amazing. If ever I get the chance to get another dog, this would be it. Katie doesn't know it but this is my ultimately favorite breed next to Shelties...LOVE EM! 

I was just cleaning up after finishing Harley's birthday cake and I caught a glimpse of this big 1 year old baby romping across our lawn to greet my dad. Dad is the ultimate employee. He is like the face of Honeybark lately. He's been delivering the cake, presenting the cakes, really representing the company. It's cool. I'm really like the baker anyhow. I don't enjoy PR but it's fun to do on occasion. The cake was really cute...photos to come...and Katie loved the frosting. She spent a good ten minutes licking frosting off the roof of her mouth. My fault really, I gave her a piece of cake with the frosting on top and she womped it and then got the cake stuck to the roof of her mouth,  like how peanut butter does that to your mouth? So she was trying to get the stuff off by licking and was making these really hysterical lopping noises. Gotta love that. 

I am excited to try out some new colors for Fall. I really really want to change the B day cake writing to something a little more natural for the fall, like brown? orange? Yellow would be great but it does not show up on camera and most dog owners like to photograph the dog with their birthday cake. 

I gotta go finish some changes to the website. Ugh...I hate these crazy details but my treat menu will be changing for the Fall season. I am again trying to put that pumpkin treat out there and also I'm thinking of doing some other new flavors but apple pie, pearlicious and pumpkin pie are my top 3. Oh, and everything nice, my gingerbread treat is going to be featured at some upcoming events so keep your eyes out for them!

The top sellers of recent fame are beef snaps, ruffy road, and well of course, cake. Every dog loves the cake. I'd post the recipe but I really don't know if anyone would want to make it at home. It's really so much easier for me to do it. You tell me.

I'm on a break coming Labor Day weekend so nobody better be asking for any treats. Katie is in charge...no, NOT really. She would definitely eat all the profits. She's such a lurker. She lurks outside the bakery area, she stalks me when I'm putting cakes together and she's really very belligerent whenever I give away a cake to the customer. She's NOT a good PR dog. Only when we are at parties, she's social to some extent but really, no...she's JUST the taste tester. 

But that cinnamon cream cheese frosting is amazing. I am NOT changing that.

I AM adding a cake flavor soon. More to come...

Guess the new flavor?

Strange coincidences

I was just looking at New York Magazine's website and I noticed that both of my bosses have been listed in New York Magazine as being the best at something. My previous boss, Saud A. Sadiq, M.D., specialist in neuroimmunologic diseases and specifically Multiple Sclerosis and my current internship mentor/boss is Pastry Chef at Jean-Georges, chef Johnny Iuzzini. It's interesting to note the parallels between the two fields and being aware of the fact that though it seems they are not similar at all, they have many similarities...art, science...treating people with medical care versus treating people with an experience like none other in a dessert. Both extremely rigorous, physically demanding, mentally challenging, not for the faint of heart type careers. Both professions are extremely taxing on the mind and body. Both require creative and intelligent individuals to push their minds to the limits and create a solution to a problem or solve a puzzle really, whether it is with flavors or finding a treatment pathway. 

I loved my career before and I love my current profession. It's not easy but I do it because I have to because I cannot see myself doing anything else but this. 

A humbling experience

I realize that the hierarchy of the kitchen exists and I've been through this militaristic peckdown order from my medical career. I don't condone it, I just live through it because it is necessary. I don't believe in being disrespectful to people who have much more experience in the field BUT I do believe that everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion at the appropriate time. I also believe that everyone should be allowed to defend their position if it is not a time crunching situation. I don't believe in face to face combat but I do believe that a healthy argument, voicing each person's concerns is the right way to address a problem or conflict. I also believe that American Gladiator is an excellent way to let out one's aggressions and I strongly believe that if everyone were allowed to take their company retreat to a hand to hand combat situation like paintball or an American Gladiator arena or even a padded boxing ring, well...we might all get all of our aggressions and harbored resentments out in a much healthier or health promoting manner. 

Katie's cake

She loves it. She has been getting a slice every day after dinner. I'm so happy that she loves it. I also love my new decorations for the birthday cakes. It's adorable!

It's getting hot in here

This morning I discovered that my new carob ganache recipe was not going to work out. It actually took me 3 hours to keep working with this stuff. It's definitely not chocolate. It melts in a strange way and it smells better when it is warm than when it is just in the container. Personally, I like chocolate a lot better than carob but since dogs cannot eat chocolate, I'm stuck with this to work with and it is not fun. It's a little bit cleaner than chocolate and the color is a gorgeous almost black brown color. I love that. I hate that I couldn't make a carob ganache this morning. I was really hoping to make a carob ganache cake for Katie so I could add it to the menu. I guess I have to hit the books and figure it out. 

Back in the saddle again

I baked a gorgeous Barkday cake for a little dog named Cujo. So excited. I loved it. It came out great! I had help today for the very first time. My family pitched in because I had worked late last night. It was one of the best cakes I've made. I think that my pastry education is really paying off because I did something a little different from the past cakes in terms of the recipe procedure and this cake came out NICE. I mean really really nice. Yah! Katie is staring at the counter where the other cakes are cooling. I actually made three since the batter was so...nice. I have to make some baking notes but the cake was perfect. More perfect than before, it had a nice texture, dense and heavy but dry inside. The carrots were perfectly throughout, and the peanut butter was really creamed in good. Yup. I'm really happy with this cake. I hope the pawty goes well! I also did my usual barkday presents because I just like throwing in stuff as comps. I am such a sucker for pawties. Presents are my favorite part about celebrating barkdays for dogs. 

Playtime 

I am really trying to find a nice organic toy line to go with my treats so I can really push it up a notch. But, I have to fix my website first and then I have to graduate from pastry school and I have my other life-stuffs going on...whew. I went to the doggie fashion week convention last year and found a great stuffed toy line made with organic cotton. So...soft and so...nice. I loved it. I think that they are selling those in the maternity stores and for babies. It's really a cute line of fluffy lambs and it's a great all natural color, not bleached white but closer to the natural color of wool. I liked it a lot. Now, it's just a matter of finding that company...filing system needs updating...check.

Coloring

I decided to try to change up my decorating techniques and discovered that I make a cute bone. My little squirt bottle works great for brief stints of writing. I love it. But it's a really hard bottle to fill because the opening is so...narrow. Now that I know how to make cornets, it makes life so...much easier BUT I need to get parchment. Get parchment...check.

Uh oh...Katie's barking again...gotta go;)

Plus I gotta make the cake for her that I promised. Such a spoiled little dog:))