I hope everyone is enjoying a good week so far. I know I am! I had a day off on Tuesday and got to spend lots of time baking and trying some new recipes.

And even better is the news that on Wednesday, Cream Puffs in Venice will be featured in a podcast interview conducted by the lovely Adrienne of Adrienne’s Essentials.

Several months ago, Adrienne e-mailed me wondering if I’d be interested in being featured in a podcast feature she and her friend Toya host each Wednesday.

Adrienne sent me the questions in advance, which gave me the opportunity to prepare a bit. It was all exciting and fun and a bit strange as I’ve never been interviewed before. It was an excellent way to remind myself of many of the reasons why I started this blog in the first place.

The podcast will be up on Wednesday June 6th so be sure to check out Inspirational Wednesdays if you’re interested.

Adrienne and Toya, thank you so much!

Ciao!

After the excitement of baking for a bridal shower at the beginning of May, I could not have possibly imagined what was to happen next. I was barely over the high of baking (and being paid for it) when I had what I consider to be an opportunity of a lifetime.

I had lunch with Dorie Greenspan.

Dorie is the author of many incredible cookbooks including Baking with Julia, Paris Sweets and the recently pubished Baking: From My Home to Yours. In April, Dorie was awarded the James Beard Foundation award in the Baking and Dessert category, and deservedly so.

Dorie was in Toronto for the Santé: The Bloor-Yorkville Wine Festival. As soon as Dorie e-mailed me to let me know that she’d be in town, I knew I had to make time to meet with her.

After a few e-mails, we agreed to meet at the Avenue bar and lounge in the Four Seasons Hotel for lunch. I arrived early and chose a table by the window. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I fidgeted in the chair and kept fussing with my top. I looked at the menu. I looked outside. I tried to imagine what it would be like saying hello to Dorie.

And then there she was. And the very first thing she did was give me a huge hug. Within seconds, I felt like I’d known Dorie forever. She is as sweet and charming in person as she is in her cookbooks.

Over the course of almost two hours, we talked about everything from living in Paris to creating recipes. With a wonderful sense of humour, Dorie imparted so much wonderful advice and encouragement. I told her about the Daring Bakers and how much baking meant to me.

I find myself at a point in my baking where I’m trying to figure out how to create recipes of my own, but I don’t want to fail. Dorie very wisely pointed out that it’s okay to try something and chuck it if it doesn’t work out. It was a liberating piece of advice! I was amazed by Dorie. Her energy and her presence were infectious.

Best of all, Dorie signed my copy of Paris Sweets, a book that I hold most dear!

But before I knew it, I had to return to work. I would have loved to have spent the rest of the afternoon with Dorie and walked over to The Cookbook Store. Gracious as ever, Dorie sent me on my way with another hug and a smile.

As I made my way back to work, I could hardly believe that I’d just had lunch with Dorie Greenspan. When I got back to work, a number of my colleagues were eagerly awaiting the details as I’d told them about the lunch. I got to relive it all and it was no less exciting and unbelievable.

In the days that followed, as I reflected on Dorie’s words, I had this overwhelming urge to bake for her. That may sound silly, but baking is the best way I know to share my appreciation. I have a little theory that we bakers share a generosity gene and I think Dorie proves that. Her selflessness, her willingness to share what she knows and give advice, I think it’s all because of that little bit of baking DNA!

For Dorie, I decided to bake one of my most favourite little treats. They’re called Pasticcioni (plump pastries) and are from Viana La Place’s dear, sweet cookbook, La Bella Cucina. They’re plump little cakes filled with a dollop of pastry cream and baked. While the original recipe advises to eat them while warm or the day that they’re baked, I actually like them if they’re a few days old. They’re lovely dipped in espresso and then bitten into to find the pastry secret inside. Sometimes, I also like to tuck a perfect blueberry or raspberry inside each one as a little treat.

Technorat tags: dorie greenspan, paris sweets

May has been such an incredible and busy month for me.

To begin with there was the launch of my blog redesign, which I’d been planning for months. In around that event, several other things happened to me this month that I’ve been so eager to share with you.

Just before the launch, I got to spend a week in Florida, enjoying the sun and the water in Fort Myers and Miami South Beach. And prior to that, I had two very exciting experiences. Earlier this month, I had the honour of having lunch with Dorie Greenspan, one of my baking idols. While I have a separate post planned for that, I wanted to write about what happened at the very beginning of the month that was truly a first for me.

I was offered and accepted my very first baking job! I’ve baked for friends and family before, but for the first time someone hired me to bake for an event.

The event in question was a bridal shower being held by a close friend of my mother’s, L. This friend was hosting a shower for her sister who is to be a June bride. When my mother worked with this friend, I would often make my coconut cupcakes, based on a recipe from Ina Garten. L loved the cupcakes so much that she asked if I’d make 30 for her sister’s shower.

While I was happy to make the cupcakes, initially I was very reluctant to ask for money. For a long time now I’ve been mulling over the idea of how to start a baking business at home. Somehow, though, charging someone that I consider to be a friend just didn’t feel right. But L insisted that she pay me so, without much thought, I threw out a figure that I thought was fair and she agreed.

The night before the shower, I baked the cupcakes in plain white liners. On the morning of the shower I dressed up the cupcakes by putting them in a second, prettier liner. After icing the cupcakes, I tinted some of the leftover icing a dark pink colour and decorated half the cupcakes with rosettes. On the other half, I sprinkled edible pink glitter.

While I’m sure a professional would have been able to do something far more elaborate, I thought my cupcakes were pretty and they were fresh and made with the fresh ingredients. That’s very important to me.

I delivered the cupcakes and L was very happy with them. She e-mailed me later to tell me that they were a hit. But this brought up an issue, which I’d been thinking about for awhile. L mentioned that a few people asked for a card as they might be interested in hiring me.

But I have no card.

And I have no card because I still don’t have a clear focus for my vision. As I mentioned above, I’ve been contemplating the idea of being a baking caterer of sorts. But my ideas are still unfocussed. I don’t really have a plan. Part of the reason I wanted to redesign the blog is that I wanted to begin developing an image identifiable with Cream Puffs in Venice. Something that one day, I could use as a business identity.

But this particular experience raised so many questions. And it brought to light the fact that as far as the “business” side of it goes, there’s a lot to think about.

While I was happy to be paid, in actual fact I probably spent double what I received. The cost of ingredients, the cost of the cupcake liners and the items I used for decoration, the cost of the boxes to store the cupcakes, the cost of gas for my shopping trips and for delivering the cupcakes, and of course the cost of my time — these were all factors that I didn’t really think about.

And of course, there’s the card. I’d love to have a business card, but I don’t have a business yet. And I still don’t know how I’d like my card to look.

All of these questions and all of this wondering is both exciting and a bit scary. As fun and thrilling as it was to bake for an event and be paid for it, I also feel like I lost an opportunity by not having cards to promote myself.

And now that I’ve gotten a taste of being paid to bake, I want to do it more.

As I relive this experience, I’ve decided to not worry so much about all the questions. This tends to be a habit of mine. I get so worked up about the unknown that I eventually convince myself not to take that first or second step.

I’m going to enjoy the experience for what it was: my very first baking job.

Let the cupcakes fall where they may!

Ciao!

Technorati tags: cupcakes, coconut, coconut cupcakes

There comes a time in every Cream Puff’s life when you look around at the pastry box you’ve been sitting in and decide that a change is in order.

In December 2005, when the idea of Cream Puffs in Venice became a reality, I knew next-to-nothing about blogs and how to design them. Sadly, I still know next-to-nothing on the subject! What can I say? My interests lie in sugar, butter and eggs, not in anything related to the computer or the Web outside my very limited abilities to hit “Publish” once I’ve finished a blog post.

But once Cream Puffs in Venice was born, my little blog began to take on an identity of its own. It began to occupy a truly important place in my life, so much so that today, I cannot imagine my life without Cream Puffs in Venice.

Suddenly, ideas that were remote and unlikely have become very possible for me. And so it was that the idea of redesigning my blog took shape. Not knowing where to begin, I decided that I might as well take a chance and look for someone who designed blogs. My search for blog designers began and ended with Toronto’s The Blog Studio. Through The Blog Studio I met Lucia Mancuso and Peter Flaschner.

Attracted to their body of work, the fact that they’re based in Toronto and the ease with which I was able to work with them, I hired The Blog Studio. To put it mildly, Lucia and Peter are incredible. They worked with me every step of the way never making me feel silly for the questions I asked (and I’m sure some of them were very silly indeed!). I have something special in store for them but they may have to wait a week or so. In the meantime, the best way I can think of to thank them is to pass along your feedback. So please, let me know what you think!

As part of my blog’s new look, it also has a new place. While I enjoyed using TypePad, Cream Puffs in Venice has now moved to WordPress. With this move will come some technical changes that may cause a few unintended interruptions in accessing Cream Puffs in Venice. For those of you using the www.creampuffsinvenice.typepad.com address, you’ll have to change your links to www.creampuffsinvenice.ca. I apologize for any hassles this may cause!

Also, you may experience some interruptions in receiving the feed of my blog. If you do, simply click one of the feed buttons in the “Subscribe” box on the right side of the page. If you still have trouble subscribing to the feed, let me know and I’ll see how I can help!

I’m still working out a few little details here and there with the new site, but I’m excited to finally send it out there and hope that you will be excited as well!

And I also hope that this will be a new beginning of sorts for my blog, as well as another step towards all that is possible.

Ciao!