In the mood for mini pumpkin cheesecake

My husband and I were sick for Thanksgiving so we stayed home and had a family dinner just us and our daughter. We were in the mood for pumpkin cheese cake but did not want to end up with a whole cheesecake in the refrigerator. I decided to make mini pumpkin pie cheese cakes, I had come across Bakerella's website and decided to try her little mini cheesecake technique I used my own pumpkin cheese cake recipe and a store bought pie crust and followed the simple directions on how to create the little pumpkin shaped pie crust. They were so fun and easy to make they were yummy too! My husband could not keep his hands off of them : ) that lets me know they were amazing. I popped one in my mouth it was a little bite of heaven. My Thanksgiving was fun we made a turkey breast, Mac and cheese, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and collard greens it all turned out so yummy and cozy it was a Thanksgiving to remember I Love You J and Malia.
We had one day to get this all together, we were supposed to go to California but we couldn’t because of the tiny yucky germs we got, so the day before Thanksgiving we were at the store getting everything we needed and yes it was super packed at Wal-Mart but we got it all done and had a great Family meal.

                                      Mini pumpkin pies

                              Our Thanksgiving dinner

Malia enjoying pureed turkey

Holiday Flavors

I spent the day creating some holiday flavors I had a blast while trying to figure out what kind of ingredients I was going to use. I created peppermint, pumpkin and eggnog wow were these good! LTB got allot of compliments on the peppermint cake pop and cake ball, my personal favorite was the peppermint as well it was sooooo good. Overall they were all DELICIOUS, the cupcakes were so moist just like they should be.
I gave them away to my family and I got some great feedback which I love to get because it lets me know I’m doing it right especially if I get it right the first time. I have fun creating flavors that taste good, Kisha and I will be creating more flavors next week so we can have a huge Varity for our clients.

                                                        
                                                                                                              
                                                     

Peppermint cupcakes 

Peppermint cake pop

Eggnog cake pop

Craft Fair

We ended up doing the craft fair and it was nothing compared to what it was supposed to be. We did not get discouraged because it was not advertised as we were told it was going to be, but we sold more than any other vendor there. It was slow and not allot of foot traffic, this did not discourage us at all. It actually got us in gear to get our banner flyers and get our business rolling. Everyone loved our cake pops and cake balls they all kept asking how do you make these what’s the secret. We got to see so many different reactions and feedback on what flavors clients would love to sample. We are getting ready to do a dessert table this Friday I can’t Waite it's going t be so much fun. I am excited for January 2012 we will be hitting the town to launch the news about The Little Treat Boutique. I am so glad to be doing what I love! I can’t Waite until we are a huge success I have a great feeling it’s going to be very soon.

Love Jen

The day we got the banner

                                      

                                      
                                          Our Flyers

                                          The menu

So Excited!!!

I am so excited and I know Kisha is too! We are One week away from the big craft fair event. We have spent weeks late nights and weekends getting ready for this awesome event. We ordered all of our supplies and had a blast getting it all ready. We will be making 1,000 cake balls and cake pops plus all of the other goodies on the menu, we are ready for even longer days and nights to prepare and get ready for this 2month event.   

We will have so many yummy Cake pops, cake balls Chocolate covered Oreos and chocolate covered pretzels. We offer a lot more than just those yummy thing’s like special order mini cupcakes regular size cupcakes, mini cakes, big cakes, cookies and woopie pies. We hope to see all of our friends and family at this event to show their support and even to come by and say hi would be great. It will be so much fun I can’t wait to see you there : )

Love Jen

Loving Blueberry

I really enjoy making cake pops while others use frosting kisha and I get creative with using other yummy things and we put allot of fresh fruits and other goodies into our little treats, It is really fun getting creative with these yummy bite size surprises. Every time I bit into anything we make it feels like I’m being surrounded with LOVE We like to say we make everything with love and we do, thats another reason why our little treats are so super special to us and to all those that taste them : ) 

New Creation

The other day I was craving an almond joy; I live a long way from the store so I decided to make my own almond joy cake pop and what a wonderful idea it was! I had a blast making it and the taste was even better, it fulfilled my every craving I had for an almond joy! My husband really enjoyed this cake pop and so did Kisha. Here are some pictures of the finished product. It looks delicious but tastes even better YUMMY!

Love Jen

I'M Back Yay!

Hello I’m back I have been moving for the last 2 weeks and have missed blogging about all the fun I have baking, and starting a new business, the move is finally over. Thank you to my sister-in-laws husband David he was an AMAZING HELP!
Yesterday I went to Michaels to get a couple of things I needed and thought to myself there has to be a cheaper and more efficient way to dry my cake pops instead of spending so much money on Styrofoam DING! I remembered there was a Home Depot right next door so I decided to make my way over and get some wood, they were about 8-11 dollars for a whole plank, which was an awesome deal so a man came up to me and asked me if I needed any help, and of course I said yes, I said to him I need a thick piece of wood to hold lollipops he looked at me and said what’s that, DUH! Lollipops. So he took me down to the sale isle and I got a whole plank for 50 cents what a great find. He was awesome for showing me such a great deal, if you ever read this and remember me Thank You Sr.
So I rushed home so excited and put my husband to work he made me an awesome cake pop stand that holds 36 pop’s woohoo! I had it cut into 3 sections so that means it holds 108 pops how awesome is that! Thank You honey  ( I have one for you to Kisha)

Today my husband J helped me create some pretty awesome Halloween cake pops I had a blast in the kitchen with you honey, thank YOU for being so awesome and believing in me! I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH! My princess even jumped in to help a little bit; she kept the measuring spoons handy for me  : ) Love YOU Malia!

Tiny Pink Happiness

Today I noticed that people love tiny things; small dogs, babies, shot glasses.  So it’s only natural that we would love tiny desserts.  About a week ago I woke up from yet another dream about baking with a craving for tiny vanilla cupcakes topped with raspberry frosting.  It just sounded amazing.  Every day I went to work thinking about these tiny treats and finally yesterday I had the time to make them.  I have to say, they came out exactly how I had imagined them.  The first thing I love about these little babies is the fact that they are so darn cute! They are so small that if you don’t be very gentle while handling them you could easily crush them.  Secondly when you bite into them the flavor is moist and creamy, vanilla with a hit of berry, Perfect! And of course I love them because they are pink, need I say more?!  I brought them into work, excited to share them with my friends.  I walked all over the office handing one to each friend who had already arrived, the smiles on their faces made me love to bake even more.  I would take one tiny pink cake out of the box I had them resting in and quietly hand it to them one by one.  The first look on their faces was surprise, then when they realized this little ray of sunshine was for them, the surprise turned to happiness, then back to surprise after popping them into their mouths letting the delicious flavor work its magic.  One beautiful friend came back for seconds saying that the “afterglow” of the cupcake had faded and she needed another.  I happily shared the last cupcake with her.  She smiled and thanked me (even thought she didn’t need to say anything) and called me a cupcake goddess as she happily went back to work.  (Thanks Ann!) This is why I love to bake.

Love Kisha

Halloween cake pop sort-of-photoshoot

Jen and I decided it would be cute to take some pictures of our kids eating cake pops.  She had made some Halloween pops and dipped Oreos and I thought it would be cute to dress up my 18 month Zoe and 7 year old Donovan in their old costumes and let them run around in the backyard to get some real life action shots. So Saturday morning, before the hot Las Vegas sun was in full force I found a couple costumes, grabbed the cake pops, dragged the kids outside and told them to look happy.  Donovan is a camera hog and naturally started to vogue with his cake pop.  Zoe was not as happy to smile for the camera.  I ended up chasing her around singing songs from Sesame Street (in hopes of getting her to smile) and furiously snapping pictures whenever she decided she would glance at me.

I took a ton of really terrible pictures, but got a few good ones.  Her reward was to eat the prop cake pops and I wanted to get some messy faced shots of her gobbling them up.  The funny thing is that she had never had candy corn before so she kept throwing the candy corn covered Dipped Oreo on the ground and just looking at it.  I would pick it up again and hand it to her only to have her throw it on the ground and look up with my with a,  “what mom?!” look on her face.  I swear it is really delicious, you can’t really take a 1 year old's word for it.

                            

Bacon!!!

Bacon seems to be a recent fad that combats the health craze.  You either don’t eat bacon or you really eat bacon.  I am a bacon eater, and so is my family.  I try not to keep it in the house because we love it so much and I am really health conscious.  But for my husband, David, I agreed to make a bacon cake pop after Jen and I found a bacon cupcake at a local bakery that he fell in love with.  Last night after a long weekend helping Jen and my brother move, David declared that he wanted something sweet.  I had been itching all day to make cake pops so I jumped up and told him that I would make the bacon pop.  I already had the cake in the fridge and the bacon had been cooked earlier that morning so I just had to assemble them.  I was not very hopeful that they would taste very good.  My first attempt came up short (see pervious post).  But it was a new day and I had better quality bacon.  So we went to work and after 10 minutes we had 4 little chocolate balls covers in little chunks of bacon.  The first bite was a surprise.  It tasted exactly like I had imagined, a soft maple cake inside that was light and moist just like a pancake, with a delicious white chocolate coating that gave it it’s sweetness, and the salty crunchy bacon on the outside balanced it out for a yummy breakfast experience on a stick. Good thing I made 4 because 1 each wasn’t enough.  Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of one because we ate them before the chocolate even had a chance to fully harden.  Maybe next time ;)

Official Businees Owners Hurray!

I went down to the city today and did all the paper work for us to finally be an official business, all we need now it to get our kitchen space inspected and our health cards. It is getting easier thank GOD!
It feels good to finally get this all done, and be able to work for myself something I always wanted. It's allot of hard work and restless hours, coming up with the best recipes, and having a 5 month old Princess(she loves to watch me bake and cook) but it will all be worth it in the end : )
When you are this passionate about something you get it done! I wanted a great husband check, a Yorkie check, a house check, and a beautiful daughter I waited 6 years for, and now I'm well on my way to owning a wonderful fun business with Kisha we have been working really hard, late hours Thru the night nonstop, and guess what is paid off, we have orders rolling in, and they will just keep on coming. I come from a family of hard worker's it would be a shame if I didn't follow their path, so here I am well on my way, I can’t Wait!

Now I'm working on a gingersnap Carmel cheesecake cake pop MMMMMM! I'll post pix when there done.

Discouraged...

I don't understand my need to always be first and perfect.  Yesterday I googled the word "cake pops".  I was looking for any companies that sold cake pops locally and online.  I thought it would help me feel better about what we were doing, but instead it made me feel discouraged.  I got worried that we couldn't cut it and that there was already people somewhere in the world doing what we want to do so what was the point.  Well all of that reflected in my baking last night. 

I went home after 10 hours at work, tired and starving and started to bake.  I thought about all the flavors that are offered by other bakeries and thought "what if there was another bakery in Vegas who had the same idea that we have".  My dad came over for dinner and added to my pity party by saying that somewhere in Las Vegas there were two girls rolling up some cake pops hoping to be the first cake pop shop.  As if he could hear what I was obsessing about.  But I kept baking, even thought the kids were screaming and some financial issues presented themselves, even through my dad telling me that Bacon was a terrible idea for a cake pop...I kept baking.  I was frustrated and it came out in the food.  The cakes pops were terrible.  They looked and tasted as terrible as I felt.  I went to bed angry at my dad, my job, my husband, and my cake pops. When I woke up, I was still mad.  I thought about telling my husband that I was going to quit, and keep my office job.  That I was going to trade in my dream of having a bakery for peaceful nights after work and the financial "security" of a regular paycheck.  I went to work and right as I was about to text him a tiny voice way in the back of my head told me to stop.  It told me that I would regret it for the rest of my life like all the other times I followed the pack and didn't think outside the box.  I had a bad night, why should I give up because of that?  Then I remembered a quote that I have been repeating for the past month.." you haven't failed until you give up".  So I decided not to fail.  I choose to do what it takes to get this thing going for myself, for my family and for Jenn.   This will work, we will have a successful bakery and our cake pops and cookie pops will be tasted all across America!

Love Kisha

On Our Way To Living The American Dream

Yay we got our Domain Name. I am so super excited for Kisha and Me, I can’t Wait until we are up and running!
Tomorrow will be a fun filled day, I will register our name and go get our business license, can't wait : )
As I told my friends and family, I have to live the American dream, If I don't It would feel like I had unfinished business in my life, so here we go we are well on our way.


"life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. All things are possible with a little bit of hard work."

Love Jen

Whoohooo

We purchased our domain name last night.  I am sooooo excited.  Now on the Internet we own "the Little Treat Boutique" I am so happy.  I can't express enough how excited I am to embark on this journey with Jennifer.  I know it will be hard and scary.  There will be late nights and money lost but I have never been so committed and excited about anything in my life.  Since I was a kid I imagined having a bakery or an ice cream shop.  I used to draw pictures of what it would look like and imagine how good it would feel to see the smiles on peoples faces when they tasted one of the unique flavors that I came up with.  I love to feed people and I have a monster sweet tooth so this incorporates two things that I love.  Now that is one thing  to check off our list of a million things to do! Whooohooo

Love Kisha

Some of our flavors

Mint

Orange

Strawberry

Oreo cupcake bites

Strawberry Sundae cupcake bites

Yummy!!!

For the LOVE of baking

I am a huge fan of sweets, when I say huge I mean huge! I am a baker at heart it's what I Love besides being a great mom, and wife. I am super excited that I get to share this adventure with my Sister-in-law Kisha, she is my sister. We have more in common than most biological sisters. And yes like most sister's we shared our up's and down's, more up's than down's that for sure, but no matter how big the hill we had to climb to get where we are, we are family and always will be! We had so much fun this past weekend making and practicing our new cake pop recipes. She mentioned to me we are going to get fat eating all these yummy pop's it's like Pringles once you pop you can’t stop : ) So I said to her it's ok we will just have to work out harder, we just laughed and kept eating LOL!!!! Kish and I are super ready to be a part of the baking world and we know you will love what we have to offer, we are 2 mom's that want to be with their kids as much as possible and watch them grow up, because we all know they grow up to fast. My family is the reason I want to be a success so my daughter can say thanks mom and dad for giving me the best life possible. I am all about family!

I remember as a young girl I loved to watch my mom cook and bake I loved being in the kitchen. My brother and I learned most of our skills we share today thanks to our AMAZING MOM! We would watch her cook and bake she made all of our birthday cakes, they were pretty awsome : ) She passed down her awsome cake pans to me(wooohoo-score)!!!! She even made all the yummy food. My husband love's when my mom come's over because me and her get down in the kitchen together and the food just tastes better She has her old school cooking tricks and I mix in a little of my new school tricks and whala we get an amazing meal. 

One of the main reason's I love baking and cooking is the expressions on peoples faces when they take that first bite that bite tells me everything, I am all about taste and presentation, if I dont like it I dont serve it. Here we go Kish we are well on our way to SUCCESS... We are both so excited and we know you will be to : ) 

Love Jen

My BEAUTIFUL Princess trying to dive into a packaged cake pop, to her it tasted yummy LOL... Love you

What we did over the weekend...

This past weekend we had a ton of fun experimenting with new flavors.  Friday night we made a strawberry flavored pop. Then sunday we made Mint Chocolate, and an Orange Sugar Cookie pops.  They all taste amazing. I can't wait until we can share these with everyone.  So far my friends and family who have tried them love the flavors we have come out with and we have recieved our first order.  Ok, so it is from my mother in law but it is our first order none the less.  We are super excited and planning on creating a cute floral bouquet for her.  Also on the agenda this week is to test out at least two more flavors.  Our mission is to get the menu created, and what a menu it will be!  Another, not so fun item on our to do list is to register our name, purchase a domain and figure out how to create a website.  If anyone has a clue how to accomplish this, we could really use the help. I know how to do simple things like create a blog or a facebook profile, but when it comes to websites I am clueless.  We might have to get some proffesional help with this one.  Wish us luck!


Love Kisha



An ah ha moment

Three weeks ago my mom and I were talking about cake.  I told her that if I had more time I would love to bake more and that I really enjoyed making cakes and working with fondant. I mentioned that some day, in the future I wanted to open a bakery, it had been a goal of mine since I was a kid.  That's when she told me that my sister in law Jenn was starting a "home based" bakery.  Then she said something so simple, I can't believe I didn't think of it myself.  She said, "why don't the two of you start a business together".  DUH! We both like to bake, we are driven, we have been talking about starting business' for years and we hang out weekly.  What a great idea...or was it.  After my mom left Jenn and I talked and decided that we have similar goals and close to the same skill level (Jenn is more skilled than I am at baking...so far ;) So the last three weeks we have been working hard to figure out how to start this thing up.  There are licences and health inspections, we need to register a name and decide what will be on our menu.  So many things to think about.

Last week we drove all over town tasting cupcakes from our competition so far my favorite is still Gigi's cupcakes..I am a huge fan of the frosting.  I had the worse stomach ache that night from tasting 15 different cupcakes from around town including  our own.  Today was even more fun, we got together and made cake balls, Jenn made an incredible ball out of cookies, I cant say much more because it was seriously amazing and you will just have to wait until we roll it out to the public.  Cake balls are harder than I thought they were, and they take a long time, first you have to bake the cake then after it cools and you form the balls they have to set in the fridge then comes the tricky part, I think that I destroyed 5 or 6 of them attempting to dip them in the chocolate...don't worry they didn't go to waist! Even destroyed they tasted amazing.  Tomorrow I am going to make some cake pops and experiment with some different flavors...wish me luck!


Love Kisha