Pawling Menu for August 6th, 2011

• Italian rainbow / seven-layer cookies
• Vanilla-lime mini poundcakes with vanilla glaze
• Snickerdoodle cookies
• Walnut oatmeal raisin cookies
• Chocolate chip cookies
• And some organic* McIntosh apples freshly picked from our trees!

*Not USDA certified mostly because 1) we have two trees 2) it’s too complicated.

Menu for Pawling Farmer’s Market on July 23rd

Menu

• Homemade chocolate pudding (pops) – depending on how the heat affects the pudding
• Frozen s’mores
• Frozen icing shots (chocolate, vanilla, cream cheese which is surprisingly good)
• Snickerdoodle cookies (regular and dinosaurs)
• Walnut oatmeal raisin cookies (done a little different this time)

The heat’s positively oppressive, but hopefully a handfull of people will make it out- and if you’re one of them, stop by for some frozen treats!

Healthy Alternatives

A couple of little girls and a few parents and their overly adorable children stopped by yesterday to buy some snacks. Although everyone loves cookies, I was thinking of offering some kid-friendly healthier alternatives because although one Madeline is nice, parents probably don’t want their children eating ten.

If anyone has any ideas, let me know, otherwise I’ll follow up on this by updating my menu for next week in a few days.

Pawling Farmer’s Market Afterthoughts

Pawling is my new favourite town. End of story. Everyone was super friendly and wonderfully helpful and kind! I was accidentally placed right next to the one other baker, but he too was incredibly nice and also baked Madelines (I think he had macarons too… so awesome!). It’s a gorgeous little town, and apparently the one person I know who lives there, Katie Rose, is the Princess of Pawling (unsurprising) and is known and beloved by everyone (even less surprising).

Perhaps I won’t bake so much for next week… I went in with six dozen Madelines, over two dozen hummingbird cupcakes, snickerdoodles and walnut oatmeal raisin cookies, nearly two dozen blueberry crumb bars and a loaf of banana bread. A lot of which is currently accompanying KR to a potluck because there was just SO MUCH.

Anyway, I’ll be there every Saturday until the 13th or 20th of August, so please stop by! If you met me there today, hello and welcome to my website, if there’s something I made today that you really liked, feel free to comment or drop me a line at confectionconceptions@gmail.com if you want it to reappear! I also do custom orders (and can adapt to food allergies / dietary restrictions) if you’re interested- you can check out my Menu page or email me for more details!

Come find me at the Pawling Farmer’s Market!

I’m officially baking for the farmer’s market in Pawling! It’s going to be awesome, and I’m super excited to be there tomorrow (hopefully I baked enough).

Menu for Saturday July 9th, 2011

• Blueberry crumb bars
• Hummingbird cupcakes with vegan cream cheese frosting
• French madelines (I think I have… six dozen?)
• Banana bread
• Snickerdoodle cookies
• Walnut oatmeal raisin cookies

I might be adding to the list in the wee hours of the morning, so if you’re in the area stop by! I’ll also have a complete menu on me and will be taking orders for next week.

Where to Find Me

Happy Tuesday!
If you’re wondering where you may find me to in person buy some delicious baked goods, I am hoping to provide some sort of answer. I will be at the Rosendale Street Festival in Rosendale, NY on July 23rd and 24th on Main Street. I am also hopefully going to be a vendor at the Pawling, NY farmers market if all goes well, and perhaps one or two other farmer’s markets which are TBA right now.

Thanks for your interest and helping me pay for college!

Menu Update & Photo News

Discovered through some rather unfortunate experimentation, French macarons are not veganizable . . . at least at this point, anyway. Things seemed to have gone surprisingly well up until baking; the shells had set and were dry, but after a few minutes in the oven they melted into a crisp chocolatey mess.

However, on a lighter note, banana bread has made its way onto the menu, and is something that can be veganized, and quite well.

Pictures are going to be appearing soon – not every item on the menu will be represented quite yet, but I’m going to try to get as many as I can photographically represented.

Menu Update

I updated the menu to include different flavours of French macarons as well as créme brûlée, another dessert I’ve decided to offer. If you have a favourite macaron flavour that isn’t listed, you can comment / email / ask me in person and in all likelihood I’ll be able to make it. I’m still trying to figure out how big one order of macarons would be, but I’m going to say if you want more than one flavour, the limit is three; I’ve realized that making all of the shell flavours as well as the different fillings would be exhausting for more than that number.

French macarons

These come in a multitude of flavours and fillings including:

1. Plain [almond flavor]
2. Chocolate / chocolate ganache filling
3. Vanilla / vanilla buttercream filling
4. Raspberry / homemade raspberry jam filling
5. Blackberry / homemade blackberry jam filling
6. Pistachio / pistachio buttercream filling / crème brûlée filling
7. Peanut
8. Coconut / coconut buttercream filling

The associated fillings are paired with the same shell flavour, or in the case of the créme brûlée, just a nice combination. You can mix and match, if you want to.

News

Hi everyone!

I haven’t really had the time to really establish this site yet, so I’ll be working on that in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned for renovations and the soon to come store! I’m looking into using PayPal and figuring out logistics at this point.

Information [I like lists]:

• Until I have the store  really set up I’m open to baking pretty much whatever people want [if you want me to re-create a family or favourite recipe, you can email it to me and I’ll do my best, but it may not taste exactly like Grandma’s] or you can browse a rough menu here.
• Right now I bake on the weekends, so if you order something during the work week, I will bake it between Friday – Sunday.
• You can email me at swingchefeats@gmail.com if you are someone I don’t see every day and are interested in purchasing baked goods, and we can talk about payment method, etc.
• At this point I am taking cash and checks ONLY, as I haven’t acquired credit card processing superpowers yet. If you are comfortable sending a check through the mail for the time being, I will bake and ship your desserts to you [you must cover shipping and handling; remember, I’m a student and we’re notorious for being poor!].
• I AM NOT TAKING LARGE ORDERS RIGHT NOW. I WILL RE-EVALUATE THIS AFTER JUNE 10TH. If you think your order is too big, email me and I’ll let you know. You can order multiple cakes, and a few dozen cookies, I’m just not baking 20 pies.
• LOCALS: if you want a large order for a graduation party after June 10th, come talk to me and we can possibly work that out and arrange the pick up / drop off.
• This is my first time doing this, so please be patient as I work through challenges as they come!
  

If you were at Oakwood’s Fair Trade Fair and sampled a vanilla-lime poundcake bar, those were mine! I hope you enjoyed them, and that is 100% something I can bake for you if you so desire.

Pages to check

• About: Why you should buy my products and where the money goes
• About My Food: Food and information on dietary accommodations
• Menu: The list of baked goods I’m now selling, price upon request and determined by quantity

Red Velvet Cake

Right now I am baking cinnamon rolls that I will share with you when I am done. As I was waiting for the dough to rise, I was going through How Sweet It Is, my go-to blog for sweets. I found it a few weeks ago and it’s become my favorite dessert-and-occasional-savories blog. I appreciate Jessica’s humor and anecdotes, especially about her maternal grandmother, Mother Lovett.

I digress. Anyway, after I got busy swooning over her food, I read a post that linked me to her red velvet cake recipe. This reminded me of a few days ago when I was reading about red velvet cake and learned that they’re usually vanilla or chocolate flavored. Having never before eaten a red velvet cake, I was outraged that the cake I had for so long anticipated eating didn’t taste . . . red. I’m not too sure what red would taste like, or what I had assumed it tasted like, but I’m pretty sure that a cake that is that distinctive in looks should match it with a distinctive taste.

Oh well, I’ll just have to fix that sometime– but for now warm bread dough is begging to become delicious, sticky cinnamon buns.