Sugar Skulls at Short Street Cakes, and more Dias De Los Muertos Celebrations!

From now through Wednesday, November 2nd, Short Street Cakes will host our 3rd Annual Dias De Los Muertos altar to celebrate Day of the Dead. We have blank sugar skulls for sale ($5, with a portion of proceeds to benefit COLA- Coalicion de Organizaciones Latino-Americanas), a table with icing, glitter, and sequins to decorate the skulls, and an altar where participants can leave offerings to the souls of the departed. Please feel free to join us, and bring your family to participate in the sacred act of honoring the dead.

From Wikipedia: "Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) is a Mexican holiday. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. It is particularly celebrated in Mexico, where it attains the quality of a National Holiday. The celebration takes place on November 1st and 2nd, in connection with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). Traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. Scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to a goddess called Mictecacihuatl. In Brazil, Dia de Finados is a public holiday that many Brazilians celebrate by visiting cemeteries and churches. In Spain, there are festivals and parades, and, at the end of the day, people gather at cemeteries and pray for their dead loved ones. Similar observances occur elsewhere in Europe, and similarly themed celebrations appear in many Asian and African cultures."

I first learned to make sugar skulls two years ago from Suzie Millions, and I blogged about it, along with the recipe and more history of the holiday, here.

The lovely and wonderful Miss Glo will be hosting her altar again this year in the back courtyard at Mayfels on Tuesday, November 1st, starting at 5pm, and we will be bringing the altar at the Cake Shop there to join in the festivities. You can see photos of last year's celebration here, and read the write-up of the festivities from this week's Mountain Xpress, here.

Also on November 1st, Nuestro Centro, Asheville's Latino Community Center, located at 441 North Louisiana Avenue, in West Asheville, will be hosting a Noche de Alteres/Dias de los Muertos Celebration. I feel grateful and excited to be part of celebrating the season of honoring the loved ones who have passed on. I feel we need their guidance now more than ever. It also feels really wonderful to continue to root the Cake Shop in a community where we are building traditions and have moments throughout the year to come together and remember the cycles of the seasons and our souls. Each year that we celebrate Dias de Los Muertos, I feel more grounded in our families, our community, and our rich and beautiful history. Much love and many blessings, Jodi

Today, In Cake.

First, let me say, Happy Birthday to Jasper!

I am so incredibly lucky to be the mom of such a thoughtful, loving, curious, and fun creature as my son Jasper. We had a great birthday party yesterday with friends and family at the fair! I love you, Jasper. I'm so happy that, for the rest of my life, even when you are grown, these earliest of fall days, when the leaves are still green and the sky is still blue and the first sharp cool breezes of autumn come in, will remind me, first and foremost, of you, your sweetness, and your birthday. Ahem. And, in other news, I have so much to tell you about the Cake Shop! First: The Shelves.

We now have these awesome shelves, built by my dear friend Peter Parpan!

We've been putting things on them, to sell! Like these Short Street Cakes T-Shirts, that my friend Tubbs printed up so excellently! We're selling them in Ladies, Youth and Mens Sizes, for $15 each.

We're also putting Hannah Dansie's artwork and magnets, and when my Cake Ladies book is out in just a few short weeks, we'll have those on the shelves, too. And here's a little photo essay I did today of the most recent rearrangement of furniture in the Shop, along with bonus shots of Anna and Lucy ruling:

This Weekend in Cake: Paris of the South, Old School Cake School, and, of course, Weddings.

I love summer. I especially love this lush, deep part of the summer, when the Crape Myrtle is in bloom, the cicadas are loud and obnoxious, and the storms are fast and furious in the afternoon. I love it because its my birthday time (Thursday!) and because I love swimming and because things just seem a little lazier. More things to love about summer: we've got peaches and raspberries and blueberries and wineberries- and lovely friends visiting from far-flung places.



Why, yes, it is Elyse Manning, one of the cake ladies featured in my book, Cake Ladies, which comes out in a mere 3 months from now!

Here's some highlights of our hot summer weekend at the Cake Shop:

1) Paris of the South Flea Market!



I love this little flea market. You will too. Food truck heaven, thrifty paradise. Cheap tables, live music, good times. Oh, and we're there too, selling cupcakes!



Phillipe, the fawn that stole Elyse's heart:



And some more scenes from the flea:






Paris of the South Flea Market is open Saturdays and Sundays, down on Lyman Street by the river, just past the candle factory.


2) Weddings.

Check out these from Oh, Darling! Photography, taken at Claxton Farms.




Then there was this wedding cake at Brahma Ridge:



Which, I hear tell, held up even in the summer mid-day heat.


3) Cake School!

We had our second installment of Old School Cake School Classes at the Cake Shop today! I'm very proud of today's three graduates, who successfully baked a cake from scratch, start to finish, for the first time in their lives!



However, I think the best part of Cake School was the mimosas.



Next installment of Cake School is Sunday, August 14th.

Thanks to everyone for such a beautiful weekend, especially the magical and amazing Cake Shop Cake Ladies, like Hannah, who made this awesome cake:



And Anna, who makes the Cake Shop awesome. Love.

Three Newsletters of Note.

Hey Friends, I would like to spread the word about three newsletters this week I find to be interesting:
1)Short Street Cakes- our sort-of monthly email newsletter, including info on Summer Old School Cake School and other upcoming events;
2)Slow Food Asheville, with a really interesting article about the recent Indigenous Terra Madre Summit in Jokkmokk, Sweden: "Delegates shared their stories about keeping food traditions alive and fighting to maintain rights to self determination, land, and water. Observers, like me, learned how they can be allies to indigenous communities as they (like many of us) seek to decolonize their food traditions and ensure their food cultures are taken up by the next generations." Word.
3)Community Food Security Coalition. This email is chock full of really dense and really relevant food policy information at the federal level. Just in case you are a big dork like me and you enjoy reading stuff like that.

Petit Fours, for Fun and Profit!

Or: Southern Petit Fours: An Illustrated Sort-of Recipe (with instructional video)

In Europe and elsewhere, all manner of small, elegant desserts are known as "Petit Fours." In the South, the term usually refers only to the category technically known as "petit four glaces," tiny cakes, glazed with soft cooked icing, and decorated with small, elegant icing designs. French for "Little Ovens", petit fours developed in 18th century Europe, as a means of taking advantage of the last, slow heat of coal ovens in the process of cooling down.

One of my inspirations for the Cake Shop was the Pat-a-Cake Bakery in Marietta, Georgia. I don't know if it still exists, but when I was little, Pat-a-Cake was where we sometimes would go to pick up rolls, cakes, or pies for special dinners. I don't remember it very clearly, but I remember that the place was very clean, and had wide, bright cases full of pastries. I remember the Folgers Coffee in the styrofoam cups for the grown-ups, and when we would go in and wait to get our order from the folks behind the counter, I could have a colorful petit four, a treat I relished.

I've often thought about Pat-a-Cake in creating the Cake Shop, in that I respected that it was not a cafe, but a special-order bakery. I liked the formality and deliberation of the arrangement of ordering a cake, much like arranging to get your shoes fixed, or picking up the dry cleaning, or getting your hair cut. I wanted to bring some of that formality into the Cake Shop, and the attention that can be paid to the cakes, and the customers, when you have that kind of arrangement. While trying to come up with a use for the tops we cut off of the cake layers to make them level, I remembered the petit fours at Pat-a-Cake, and decided to try my hand at using scraps of cake to make them.

While many recipes will point to sponge cakes as the base for petit fours, really they can be made with any combination of leftover cake, icing and filling, layered and sliced, and then coated with glaze.

To Make Petit Fours, I used the icing recipe from the beloved Southern Heritage Cakes Cookbook:


To begin, combine in the top of a double boiler, over boiling water:

6 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
food coloring and/or flavoring of your choice (optional)

Stir until mixture is very hot, melted, thin, smooth and glossy. Add water if necessary to achieve desired consistency. Leave it aside while you work on the cake:


Today I used some cake from a batch of Strawberry Cake that was accidentally made with some of the sugar missing- not our normal Strawberry Cake recipe, and therefore not sell-able as such, but still tasty and moist.

I spread macerated strawberries between the layers, sliced the cake into small squares, and then poured the hot icing over the little cakes, coating the top and sides. When the icing solidified, I scraped the petit fours off of the rack and onto a cupcake liner, and then decorated the top with different colors of cream cheese icing in an icing bag with a writing tip. (Candied or fresh flowers would be a worthy substitute to icing, too.)

Here's a demo:


Voila! Happy Eating. I think next time that I will make them a little smaller, but I like the rustic, irregular look of them too. And, yes, we will be selling these from time to time in the shop, and yes you can order them. Yay! Call us at the Cake Shop at 505.4822 to order. xo

Old School Cake School Take 1

This past weekend, I had the great pleasure of teaching our very first "Old School Cake School" Baking Class at Short Street Cakes. The idea of Cake School is for students to bake a cake from our menu, from start to finish, while getting instruction on the ingredients, tools and methods used, and then to take the cake home with them. (What I forgot to include in the syllabus was the requisite sharing of feelings and emotional processing that comes with people baking together- what we at the Short Street Cakes call the "feelings in the Cake Shop" part of the day- but luckily, all of the students seemed to be okay with that).

Ada chose the Strawberry Cake, Heather chose the Fresh Coconut Cake with Seven Minute Icing (a challenge, which she mastered), and Amy chose the Italian Cream Cake, all venerated items in the Southern Cake Canon.

What resulted was an amazing day where three women who had not previously ever baked a cake from scratch went home with a beautiful, delicious cake, a recipe, and (hopefully) the confidence to continue baking and experimenting with homemade cakes to bake for themselves, their friends and families.










Congratulations, graduates! I'm very much looking forward to May's Old School Cake School (dates, times, and cost TBA). Here's to spreading the Cake + Love!

Asheville Grown's Video on Woman Owned Businesses!

At Short Street Cakes, We Are All About Love.

(or: How to Celebrate Valentine's Day with Cake)



Here at the Cake Shop, we love love. We love it alot. And the kind of love that is celebrated at Valentine's day, sexy, flirty, lovey-dovey kind of love, is our favorite kind of love. And we're here to help you celebrate your love, and your loved ones. If you are interested in some history on Valentine's Day, check out last year's epic post. If you are interested in purchasing sweet, cake-y goodness for your lover (or your inner lover, yourself) this Valentine's Day, read on.

Valentine's Day Special #1)
The Sweetheart Cake: $20 including Delivery.


This is sweet Lucy, displaying the teeny tiny little Sweetheart Cakes that she invented for the Cake Shop. We've decided that they are the perfect expression of Valentine's Day love- perfect to share with one special someone, and perfect to have delivered, to your sweetheart on Valentine's Day, along with a heartfelt message (we can help you with that), a paper flower from Two of Hearts, and a handmade Lollipop from Sugar Two Shoes.

$20+tax gets you a Sweetheart Cake in your choice of Mexican Chocolate, Raspberry Almond, or Bacon Apple Flavors, Boxed, Delivered anywhere in 28801 or 28806, with a Handwritten, Heartfelt Note, a Paper Flower, and a Lollipop. (yes, you can use your groupon). Please place your order by Friday, February 11.

They will Swoon.

Valentine's Day Special #2)
The Classic: An 8" Heart-Shaped Chocolate Cake, covered in rich Ganache, accompanied by a heartfelt note (again, we can help you with that), and adorned with fresh sweetheart roses. Delivered anywhere in 28801 or 28806 for $30. Please place your order by Friday, February 11.

In the shop:

Extended Hours: We will be open from 10am until 6pm Saturday, Sunday and Monday, February 12th, 13th, and 14th for all your last minute Valentine's needs.

Sweethearts and broken hearts:



(a subtle way to show that special someone exactly how you feel)

And rumor has it that there's going to be a cupcake peep show- with some X-rated cupcakes behind an 18-and-over curtain in the case. Just sayin.

Nobody Doesn't Love Hannah Dansie. (Or: More Beautiful Things You Can Buy at the Cake Shop)

This is local artist Hannah Dansie, who also happens to work at the Cake Shop (lucky us!) I first met Hannah almost two years ago, when she was a vendor in our Craft Market, Howard Street Handmade. There she sold beauty in multiple forms under the name of Two of Hearts.



Hannah, among many other things, crochets, makes buttons and pins, and is a painter. She creates works like this painting:


And this painting, behind her candy display at the Cake Shop (we'll get to that in a minute):


And, now, lucky us, Two of Hearts has been making things to sell at the Cake Shop!

Like:
These Amazing Paper Flowers:


And These Amazing Magnets!


Next time you come in the Cake Shop, pick up a little gift, a paper flower or handmade card to go with your cake, perhaps! And come back soon, because she's working on new ideas for more handmade loveliness for the Cake Shop. Yay!

But, that's not all. As if all that weren't enough, she's been working on another project: her new local, handmade, all-natural line of Candy, Sugar Two Shoes!



Hannah debuted her new business at the winter Big Crafty, and the response was immediate and huge: people want their candy!

Sugar Two Shoes offers a variety of lollipops and hard candies, in ridiculously good flavors such as: Black Cherry Rose, Raspberry Almond, Banana Cream, and Egg Nog. She's making up more tomorrow, so come by the Cake Shop on Wednesday and see what new beautiful treats await!



Hannah is renting the kitchen at the Cake Shop for her candy production, and I'm so excited that Hannah has chosen to display and sell her candy at the Cake Shop, too! I am also really excited that the Cake Shop is living the dream of supporting small-scale crafting (craftivism?) towards entrepreneurship and empowerment, especially for women.

Thanks, Hannah! You rock and we love you.