Category Archives: baking

Will you buy my cupcakes?

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It’s always been one of my dreams to have a home-based business selling baked goodies (it’s on my list). It doesn’t have to be big — heck, it doesn’t even have to earn — I just want to bake beautiful, delicious stuff and have people buy from me. I just love the thought of making money while doing something I enjoy.

My brother Joe loves baking as much as I do. He bakes almost as well as I do (almost, but not quite, mwehehe). We’ve been baking a lot lately and we’re just giving all our goodies away that we think it’s high-time that we start selling our baked goods. The timing couldn’t be more perfect with the holidays drawing near. We already have one sure client: our mother, whom we’ll coerce sweet-talk into buying our products so she can give them away as gifts.

We already thought of a name and have drafted our logo. We’re now in the stage of product development. I’ll let my brother take care of the financial side of the business such as pricing and costing, he’s better at that. We’ll take classes under Heny Sison to learn more about being home bakers.

Hopefully we can kick this off in the next few weeks. We’ll be starting really small, no need to worry about business life insurance calculators for now. I won’t be quitting my day job just yet. This is going to be so much fun, I’m sure.

Gotta get back to the baking game

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My title as The Best Baker of this household is seriously being threatened. My youngest brother Joe, who’s always been fond of whipping up things in the kitchen, has now taken interest in the oven.

Last week, he made several batches of carrot cake, and while they were nowhere as good as mine (yes, we’re competetive), they turned out really well. After a few days, he moved on to sponge cake, something I haven’t attempted yet. He used the sponge cake to make a mango ice box cake. Who makes ice box cake from scratch???

I’m so envious that Joe gets to bake a lot while I haven’t touched my measuring spoons and spatulas in months. He’s at an advantage: he’s on break from school, while I’m juggling work, overtime, wedding-planning, and writing about trampolines new york. I don’ know when I’ll have the time to bake again.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll just enjoy my baby brother’s baked goodies. I bought him the Yummy Bake, Give, Sell recipe book yesterday, I’m looking forward to what sweet treat he’ll come up next.

Will you buy cake from me?

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I already mentioned this before, I dream of running a successful home based business one day. Aside from the additional income, it will be very fulfilling. I want to sell cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and other baked goodies in the prettiest packaging. My carrot cake looks promising, I’ll start with that. My other products aren’t too shabby, either.

Abet keeps pushing me to just go for it, to just start baking and selling. There are several homebakers at my office, I could very well go that route, especially since some of my officemates are asking when I’ll take orders for carrot cake. But of course, I wouldn’t want to start a business, albeit a small one, without learning more about it. I need formal baking and cake-decorating lessons, as well as lessons on costing, packaging, etc. At this point, baking is just a hobby.

Anyway, the reason I’m posting this is because Daphne Osena is featuring hobbies-turned-businesses on her blog, and she’s encouraging hobbyists-turned-businessmen to promote their products on this entry. Some of the comments are really inspiring. I hope I’ll have my own success story to tell someday.

If you have a hobby that turned into a business, hop on over to Daphne’s site to share about it.

Banana Crumb Muffins

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I made banana crumb muffins for the first time, and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.

I tried making them in a metal cupcake pan and a silicone pans to see which one works better, I prefer the metal one.

I finally got to use the blue gingham cupcake liners I bought more than a year ago.

I’ve been baking a lot the past few weeks and I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s my therapy session after a busy day or week at work. Being able to create something yummy out of flour and eggs and sugar is very fulfilling, and even more so when I get good feedback about my products. I was giddy when May’s friends and my friend Eliza found the muffins delicious.

I hope to sell my baked goodies one of these days, it’s on my bucket list. I need to enroll in formal baking lessons first, and learn about costing and packaging. I also hope for a big nice kitchen complete with modern baking tools and supplies (the ones that look like industrial products) and a kick-ass oven.

Someday, someday, I’ll have that kitchen. And someday, I’ll be able to sell my cupcakes and cakes and cookies. In the meantime, I’m sure my friends are happy that I bake for free.

My carrot cake

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My brother Mako turned 24 yesterday, so I made him my famous carrot cake:

Okay, I admit that my cake-decorating skills need major improvement, but I swear, my carrot cake is the best! Just ask my mom (she’ll say that it’s the best in the whole wide world), or if you think she’s biased, ask my officemates. Or even my brother Momon’s officemates.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting is my absolute favorite, so I just had to learn how to bake it myself. I’ve made it so many times already since we had an oven three years ago, I can bake a couple in record time (I always bake it in twos). I baked two last week for my parents’ anniversary (as requested by my mother), I made two yesterday, and I’ll make another two next week for a friend’s birthday celebration. I’ll probably need the best fat burning supplement since I can’t resist my own creations, but my carrot cake is definitely worth it.

I really should learn how to decorate my cakes properly (and how to make them round and pretty), so that they’ll look good as they taste. Good thing my family doesn’t really care how the cakes look as long as they taste good. And they are always, always made with love, that’s my secret ingredient.

Which reminds me of the cake Abet decorated for my 25th birthday. It looks hideous not pretty, but it was a labor of love. Best cake ever.

Baking High!

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I went on a baking spree last night. The last time I baked was New Year’s Eve, and I sure did make up for all those months that I didn’t touch the oven.

I made cookies for the first time, and they turned out very nicely, if I may say so myself. I started with oatmeal-raisin cookies, and understandably, my first batch didn’t turn out too well:

oatmeal-raisin cookies

I forgot the basic fact that dough expands upon baking. Epic cookie-sizing fail. Anyway, I learn quick, and just dropped rounded teaspoonfulls onto the cookie sheet. Perfect.

oatmeal-raisin cookies

Moist, sweet and cinnamon-spicy, crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside, just like how a nice oatmeal cookie should be. This recipe will be in my repertoire.

I also tried making the classic chocolate chip cookie. This was pretty simple to make, and the fun part was eating the dough itself. So good. No wonder they make ice cream flavors out of this.

cookie dough
chocolate chip cookie dough

Is this a chocolate chip cookie, or is this a chocolate chip cookie?

chocolate chip cookie

I also tried making chocolate cupcakes, just because I saw these pretty yellow silicone cupcake molds and floral cupcake liners at Bakers’ Depot:

chocolate cupcakes

I wasn’t too happy with the cupcakes, they’re not as moist and fluffy as I’d like them to be, but my mom and sister thought they were good. I forgot to take some to my officemate Cassie who’s an excellent baker for diagnosis and remedy. I want to keep making cupcakes, I really want to make pretty frosted ones in yummy flavors such as banana-walnut and red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I’ll try making these again next weekend, this time in blue gingham paper liners.

Of course, I made my famous carrot cake, my pride and joy. Mama asked me to make two:

carrot cakes

This cake turns out perfect each time and has been a constant hit among my friends and officemates. Mama texted me this morning to say that this was “d best krt kk ever n d hol wyd wrld” and Momon’s officemates said my cake was delicious–and that was without the cream cheese frosting yet (I was too tired last night to make the frosting).

Joe has always been a fan of my carrot cake, I’m sure he’ll like this, I hope he’ll like the other goodies as well. We’re going up to Baguio to visit, bus leaves in two hours.

See yah!