Why I Make a Tiny Cake Every Day

I have made a tiny cake every day since the beginning of the COVID-19 quarantine. For my family, that started on March 17th, which happened to also be my 36th birthday. Each day I make a 6-inch version of an old favorite recipe, something new inspired by a cookbook or the internet, or something my brain just sprouted. There is no real purpose for these cakes- no friends to share them with or dinner parties to wow. Most of the cakes don’t even make it to social media. I just keep baking while it seems like the world is going belly-up.

The cakes are tiny because, like far too many people, I don’t have a lot right now. Groceries are limited and risky to obtain; money has all but dried up with my COVID-induced unemployment. Luckily, I’m no stranger to rationing and making things work on a budget. Sometimes, I treat it like a fun project, an opportunity to exercise my creativity. But, there are other holes in daily life that hurt and don’t seem easily patchable. I miss social interaction and going places with other people. Without work, it’s not just money I miss, but also the feeling of being useful and productive.  

I find myself thinking about what jobs I still have while technically unemployed. I have an 18-month-old baby and a dog to feed, bathe, house, and keep safe. In addition to the death of life as we know it due to a pandemic, I am two months into grieving the death of my mother. This, too, is work. There are bills to pay, emotional baggage to unpack, and logistics to organize. Another responsibility I’ve identified is this: I need to make moments of joy every day for my daughter and for myself. 

She and I appreciate the moments of joy that come to us, like the sun streaming through the window just right so it looks like a twinkling rainbow, the daffodil that graciously opens its petals for us to sniff, the bird that cheerily chirps in our backyard. We are thankful for the dog that walks past our house giving Hazel someone to wave to and greet from afar. The serendipitous things that just happen on their own and make us smile are great. But, we need more. I am not willing to ration joy. 

I look to my community for hints about how to make more of this essential joy bubble up. My sister brings her kids out to the backyard for animal cracker happy hour and makes bird feeders with them out of seeds and gelatin. My friend in Colorado bundles her kids up and pulls them around her snowy yard in a wagon. My friend in California hikes her toddler up to the top of the State Park behind her house so they can gaze at the San Francisco skyline together. My friend here on the island uses her daughter’s nap time to make homemade dyes so they can decorate Easter eggs together. It’s not always easy. But I’m learning that strong, creative people put in the effort to make these sweet moments because this is important work, now perhaps more than ever.

What do I have to work with to this end? I have an egg. And a cup of flour. And a good stockpile of sugar. Hazel and I crack an egg together and marvel at the golden, yolky interior. We watch the stand mixer spin round and round as it creams butter and sugar together into a fluffy nest. Hazel’s eyes widen as I plop the batter into the pan. We both wave and say “ciao!” as the cake goes into the oven. When the sweet smells of baking cake start wafting from the kitchen to our living room, we break from our game to scrunch up our noses and inhale the perfume. When the cake is ready to come out of the oven, Hazel excitedly squawks “hot! hot! hot!” She grins when I confirm that she is correct. When the cake is cooled and final touches made, Hazel sits down at our tiny toddler table, and I do my best to coax my big body into the child-size chair next to her. We say “cheers” as we clink our forks together and we dive into our tiny slices of cake. Hazel looks at me with her 8-tooth-smile, raises her eyebrows, and nods- her way of saying, “it’s good.” And it really is good in that moment. 

So, yeah, I make a lot of cakes, not because I want to drown in decadence, but because I need more good moments with my girl. A tiny cake a day has brought us a huge amount of joy. 

I’m compiling my recipes into a tiny cookbook of tiny cakes using mostly pantry staples. I don’t know when it will be ready and I don’t know how fancy it will be. But let me know if you want a copy. It feels good to put something sweet on the horizon, no matter how distant. :)

Flash forward to 2019

A lot has happened in the years since I last posted. To name a few of the milestones... I went to culinary school in NYC, moved to Italy, moved to Boston, got my dream job making recipes at America’s Test Kitchen, and had a baby! I’m going to try to “back fill” some posts with stories about my adventures in butter, sugar, and flour. Stay tuned for some cakes I made for Cook’s Country magazine. Good to be back!

The Twins Turn Two

When their first birthday came around last year, Shea & Mirren each got "smasher" cakes. Yes, that's right, I made an intricately decorated cake for each baby to smash to pieces of crumbly, frosted mess while family and friends sang "Happy Birthday" to the guests of honor in their high chairs. Ridiculous, yes. But babies giggling through cake-covered grins, cute.

This year, I stacked the two toddlers' cakes on top of each other. And voila, a two-tiered fondant decorated cake for the two 2-year olds. I hope this one got eaten instead of smashed.

Ps: Here's a picture of the 1st birthday party last year...

My New Pet

I have a new pet. It lives on my kitchen counter and is named after my favorite pasta shape: "Bucatini." Though made of water and flour, the two main ingredients of its namesake, my Bucatini is not a long, tubular shaped pasta. It is a living thing that I need to feed every day, take care of, and watch attentively for mood swings and unsavory personality shifts. Bucatini is my sourdough bread starter.

Sourdough bread starter is just flour and water mixed together. When combined and hydrated, the microorganisms present in the flour and the air (bacteria and wild yeast) start to ferment. This fermentation contributes to the flavor of the bread, as well as producing carbon dioxide gas which makes the bread rise. It is the special nature of the wild yeast found in the air surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area that makes "San Francisco Sourdough" so noteworthy and difficult to reproduce in other parts of the country. No commercial yeast from a package is needed to make bread when you have a starter -- and if you care for a starter diligently -- feeding it daily and making adjustments to control for its environment -- you can keep a starter for years. Bucatini is already 4 years old.

When in Rome, right? And here I am in the sourdough capital of the country -- it's time to make my own! But first things first. Bucatini's feeding schedule is kept on a dry-erase board in my foyer. I will keep feeding it (with new flour and water) each day and soon... oh, so soon... it will be time to turn some of Bucatini into a loaf of true San Francisco Sourdough.

Patent Leather Glazed

I live in a studio apartment, so needless to say, space is limited and precious. I have only one baby blue shelving unit and it must be meticulously organized at all times: the top shelf holds my 12 favorite cake stands, the next down is home to records of past pastry orders, cake portfolios and marketing materials, and the third shelf is the library. After 4 years at an Ivy League institution and 28 years of receiving books for holidays gifts from my very educated and well-read parents, you'd think my library might be an eclectic mix of heady non-fiction and classic literature. You would be wrong. There is not one book in my library that contains anything but recipes and photos... of food, of course. 

I love spending time gazing at my cookbook collection which holds everything from the pamphlet the local egg-roll lady printed up to sell at the West Tisbury Farmer's Market to Pastry School text books. A recent addition to my library is the "Miette" cookbook which shares the secrets to making this delicious Bay Area pastry shop's specialties. Flipping through the scalloped pages of this gem of a book is a pleasure on its own. To actually pick something out and make it in my own kitchen -- fantastic! Then the question arises: How do you choose when everything looks so tempting? I started reading the notes about each cake and then immediately stopped my search when I read the following description of the Bittersweet Ganache Cake: The glaze of this cake is so glossy it rivals the sheen of patent leather.

OK. No further searching necessary. You had me at "patent leather."

Before and After

Cherry Pie. I spend so long making sure it's ready for the world ahead of it. Thoughtfully mixing the dough, gently laying the thin crust into the pie tin, ever-so-carefully cutting the top crust's lattice pattern, and then slowly and methodically crimping the two crusts together to make sure all the cherries are safely tucked inside. And then, it's time for the oven. "Good luck in there," I whisper as I shut the oven door. 

An hour later, I open the oven with excitement and an ounce of anxiety... Did it burn? Did the berries explode out of the crust and form nothing but a bubbly jam puddle on the bottom of the oven? But out comes my pie -- still beautiful, just a little hotter and shinier than it started.

Eating through Thailand

This summer I took my first, but certainly not my last, trip to Southeast Asia. My travel buddy and I picked Thailand as our destination because of its reputation for beautiful beaches, sacred temples, kind people, bustling markets, lush jungles and $5 hour-long massages. But mostly, I went to Thailand to EAT.

And eat I did... I sun-bathed on hammocks and spooned the "pet-pet" (very spicy) coconut milk curries into my mouth while lounging on the shores of the southern islands. I gobbled up "street-food" in Bangkok while standing in the steady stream of people coursing down Khao San Road, ordering plate after plate of pad thai noodles (for less than $0.50 each) from cooks with portable wok carts. I devoured the Chiang Mai regional specialty, kow soi -- a chicken soup with aromatic spices and crunchy noodles -- while traveling through the northern cities of Thailand.

Deep-fried bananas with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk. Green papaya salad with lime and peanuts. Mango sticky rice. Green curry for breakfast. Savory bundles of chicken stuffed into balls of rice and wrapped up in banana leaves. Sweet. Sour. Salty. Spicy. I did it all.

And then, I learned how to make it myself. My travel buddy and I enrolled in 2 different cooking schools: one school in downtown Chiang Mai and one located on "Sammy's" organic farm. Our cooking teachers took us on tours of the markets explaining why the rice vendor's 12 seemingly identical buckets of rice had drastically different price tags (based on the age and location of the harvest), how a certain Thai fruit (the durian) smells so foul it is illegal to open one up on public transit, why the kaffir lime is superior to all other limes because of its bumpy fragrant skin and flavorful leaves, which varieties of basil should be used to optimize the taste of each dish, and how the production of coconut milk has evolved from squishing the coconut meat between your fingers to using modern machinery to quickly produce liters and liters of this Thai cooking staple.

And now, I dream of Thailand and stir up curries and memories in my Oakland kitchen.

Showering the Bride with Sweets

My good friends, Nora and Shawn, have been dating for almost a decade now. This month, they are going to Michigan to tie the knot in what I'm sure will be a magical lake-side wedding. Unfortunately, I cannot make it out to the Mid-Western ceremony, so I've been doing my very best to celebrate this gorgeous (inside and out) bride here in Oakland before the Big Day, showing my affection in the best way I know how -- baking her lots and lots of sweets!

Nora's Wedding Shower Dessert Menu:

Cacao Nib Cake with layers of Fresh Berries

Lemon Mini-Cucpakes

Mango-Passion Fruit Mousse with Raspberries

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Strawberries

Christmas in April

When I took on this order for my favorite vintage apron design company, Jessie Steele, I felt ready to bake up anything they needed for their product photo shoot. This meant navigating a different kind of "seasonal" work. While I'm just starting to dig up my summer recipes in anticipation of the first berries of the season, Jessie Steele is staging pages for their winter holiday catalog. To sit beside their festive winter-themed aprons in the photo shoot, they ordered this little fondant-covered, holly-adorned cake and a dozen decorated gingerbread men cookies. All together, it was quite a jolly delivery this morning.

Last night, though, the mood in my kitchen was less merry and more frustrating. I went through three batches of cookie dough, tweaking each one with slightly different ratios of cinnamon, nutmeg, all-spice and cloves. Somehow, nothing tasted quite right. When the smell of these Christmas cookies started wafting out of my oven and mixed into the the warm, flower-scented California air, my senses became flustered. Is it possible that gingerbread cookies actually taste different when eaten on a snowy day?

Happy Valentine's Day

In years past, I've been known to make a wedding cake each Valentine's Day. February 14th is, in fact, my favorite and most anticipated day of the year. But this year I thought about how to optimize my enjoyment of this most wonderful holiday. Did I really want to spend weeks leading up to the Big Day with my neck craned over the careful work of sculpting roses out of gum paste? Did I want my fingers to cramp up at each knuckle from holding those tiny paintbrushes meticulously dusting edible glitter onto the edges of sugar flower petals? Did I want to stay up, alone in my kitchen, on the 13th of February shuttling pans of batter in and plumped up cakes out of my single oven all night?

I decided the answer to all these questions was, well... "no." Instead, I invited two dear girlfriends over to my apartment to decorate cookies. Granted, I had the whole evening prepared -- I had already made the cookie dough and organized upwards of 25 different sprinkle options for decorating. But all in all, the operation was smooth, easy and full of laughter.

I woke up this morning with a hacking cough, sniffly nose and kitchen counters crusty with dried icing from last night. Though not religious in the traditional fashion, I am a firm and devout believer in the Cake Gods -- and this was a sign. Next year, ValenWedding Cake production will be in full swing again!

Selling Candy in a Barn

It's that time of year again -- the White Barn Winter Fair is next weekend! Just imagine the scene: you drive out of the crazy Bay Area traffic and down highway 29 through a tunnel of towering eucalyptus trees. Vineyards and fields of yellow mustard surround you on both sides as you continue through the Napa Valley. Then, you take a turn down a dirt road thinking, "am Ireally allowed here?" But you keep driving around the curves and past the family-run wineries until you reach the end of the road. There it is. The White Barn -- alone in an otherwise empty and vast field. And inside? Jewelers, painters, glass-blowers, screen-printers, potters... all displaying and selling their art. And then there's me, selling candy in a barn.

Simplicity meets Hydrangeas

This cake was so satisfying. Three tiers of pure, milky white, smooth, fondant-covered cake balanced like a yogi comfortable and confident in her standing tree pose. I felt content shaping my hands gently around the curves of the round cake forms over and over until the fondant surfaces were so smooth they started to glow like well-moisturized skin around taut muscles. I placed the cake out on my patio and just let it sit and breathe outside in the garden.

Then those hydrangeas I bought at the Farmer's Market earlier in the morning beckoned from their twine-tied bouquet. I added one purple blossom to the edge of the cake, like a sparkly brooch on a black dress. The splash of color was exciting. I brought the cake back into my kitchen. I added another blossom... and another...

Happy Spring!

Easter couldn't come and go without some sweet pastel indulgence. This year the festive desserts of choice were Robin's Nest cupcakes. Each little (gluten-free!) chocolate cake had a selection of malted candy eggs nestled into a nest of toasted coconut.

Check this out: I have my very own Easter Bunny! A tiny 3-pound rabbit named Charlie was in fine spirits on this special bunny-centric day -- and as always, very curious about all the sweet treats around my (sorry, I mean our) kitchen...

Trucks and Trains at Tutu

When the director of a pinker-than-pink children's ballet school decides to have her 2-year-old son's birthday party at the studio, some pretty major construction is required to transform the space into a "boy-friendly" zone for a birthday bash. Luckily, the director/mom was up for the challenge! Yellow plastic hard hats were hung over the pointe shoes mounted on the wall, train track decals were temporarily stuck on to the dance floor, and giant colorful paper lanterns were taped up and over the life-size tutus that usually dress the walls, dutifully covering all the glitter, rhinestones and frills. Instead of magic-wand-making crafts, there were wooden trains to paint -- In place of the usual pitter patter of ballet slippers, plastic trucks with 2-year-old drivers barreled and collided into one another. To top it all off -- a chocolate with butter cream frosting cake and fondant trains choo-chooing around the top tier. Happy Birthday, Sullivan!

I Love You, Too.

Blanca comes to clean the house I live in every other Thursday. She has been in training since she moved to the United States a few years ago under the tutelage of her mother-in-law, Margarita (who used to clean this house until her business grew too large to handle alone). Despite the fact that I speak no Spanish and Blanca is still learning English, we have built a friendship based primarily on warm, happy smiles and enthusiastic nods. We don't know much about each other but we seem to be equally impressed by the other's work. I work from home, so Blanca sees and compliments my cakes and culinary creations; I am always in awe of how she makes the kitchen sink seem to actually glitter and sparkle. When we see each other, we don't really share stories or jokes. We jump right to the unspoken punch-line and spend our time laughing together.

On the biggest, most important holiday of the year -- Valentine's Day -- I make gifts for all my friends. Since I knew Blanca was coming on Thursday, I made her gift ahead of time. As I handed her a little transparent jewelry box filled with four heart-shaped strawberry pate-de-fruit candies, she stared at me without speaking our laughter language. I worried that somehow I had made her feel uncomfortable with this gift... but just then she proclaimed in a slow, strong, earnest voice: "I love you!" Perhaps her intended message was a little transformed in translation, but I'll take it.

Dear Holly: Happy Birthday!

My dear friend, Holly, is unlike anyone else I know. She's sweet, generous and smart -- like most of my friends. But she seems to genuinely like most things -- she's always finding some beauty in everything. This is a special ability (one I certainly have not been able to cultivate) and it flows so naturally out of her. Even though I know she's such a lover and would appreciate any simple cake I wanted to give her on her birthday, I found myself wanting to make her something special. She's not one for globs of frosting and flowers made of sugar. I went to my local produce market, bought as many berries as I could, and focused on the fruit instead of the cake. I piled golden raspberries, red raspberries, blackberries and currants on top of just a single layer of cake and a thin spread of passion fruit frosting (Holly's favorite). Shockingly, Holly loved it!

Jackson Pollock Wedding Cake

When I ask brides to describe the kind of decoration they want on their cakes, I hear a lot of the same key words: "something floral," "Martha Stewart-like," "simple and elegant." At this wedding tasting, I had the pleasure of sitting down with both the bride and the groom. I asked Will, the young man getting married, what he would like the cake to look like. He said, "Oh, you know, maybe something in the Jackson Pollock style." The response was so smooth and witty... or so I thought. The bride and I both started laughing, but he was serious. The three of us all decided to commit to this idea. I got my paintbrushes out and dripped and squiggled red chocolate over this fondant-covered white wedding cake. Edible abstract art? Why not?

Happy Birthday, Stranger.

After an hour spent meticulously molding the letters of her name out of dark chocolate a friend watching me work asked, "So how do you know Kimberley again?" It was a funny moment when I told him, "Well, I don't." I've never met her, don't know how old she is turning and know little else about her than these three key facts: Kimberley likes the color orange, loves the taste of chocolate and has a sister who ordered a cake for her from Sweet Peony. We never did meet. Cake-Maker and Birthday Girl remain strangers connected only by this double-decker Devil's Food cake.

October Wedding Season is Here!

Congratulations Jamie and Bill! This lovely bride and groom had a gorgeous wedding this weekend in Healdsburg -- complete with a Sweet Peony (that's my wedding-cake company!) 5-tiered Pumpkin Spice Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and topped with some Shortbread Crumbles, Rose Hips and Huckleberry Sprigs. This "bruiser" of a cake stood over 2 feet tall on the reception table and weighed just about too much for me to lift on my own. That's a lot of cake! Happy October, everyone and get ready for a month full of wine-country weddings...

I Don't Think It Gets Any Better

Baking with kids might be the greatest thing ever! Add on top of that -- the chance to make a cake with my adorable nephew, Chef Sam. In fact, Sam graduated from Jr. Chef to Chef this summer when he not only made the cake (maybe he had a little help from Aunt Katie) but he also designed the decoration!

Way to go, Sam! If you have a Little Chef interested in making a cake, cookies, ice cream or other favorite sweet treats, email me at info@sweetpeony.com to register for Sweet Peony Baking Lessons -- Baking classes & parties for toddlers and children in your home.