Sweet Tooth

December 2012

GET LOST IN BAKING WONDERLAND La Madeline, Tiff ’s Treats, Cheesecake Factory

6

new DELICIOUS recipes

*including cakeballs*

3 inspiring

baking stories

SHOPPING LIST INSIDE

MESSEGE FROM EDITORS

Hello

The argument has been settled, cakeballs are better than doughnuts. funny ideas that make us laugh all class. Anna is good at working on the computers and is quite amazing at all of the tech stuff. Whenever we were stuck and don’t know how to do something in InDesign or Illustrator we looked to Anna. She also has a lot of opinions and contributes them to the designs in order to improve them to look

Have any Question? contact us at: anabak620@aka.com

more professional. Kate is very good at coming up with ideas on how the entire magazine will look. She has this great ability to picture how the magazine will look and be able to tell us if the design is a yay or nay. Kate also has a way with cakeballs.

Abigail is good at writing. She can sit at a computer, get a topic and just write away.

Photo by Michaela Boswell

W

e first thought about a baking Magazine on the first day of Ezine when Ms. Harrison told us that we would have to make an actual magazine about something that really interested us. We all locked eyes across the classroom and thought baking. We had a lot of fun while creating Sweet Tooth and will remember this experience while continuing through the rest of our years at LASA. Everyone in the group brings a different perspective to the group.

We all work together very well and come up with the

Photo by Kate Stankiewicz

please enjoy.

She works well with words and knows just how to get a reader’s attention.

Together we came up with this wonderful magazine that we hope you enjoy and that it helps you whenever you are in a bit of a baking rut. We included multiple recipes to inspiring your inner chef. This magazine also has reviews of sweet treat shops around Austin to help you find a place to go after dinner when you need sugar.

Sincerely the makers of Sweet Tooth,

December 2012

Page 3

CREW

Abigail

Kate Stankiewicz has always enjoyed baking. When she was very little she would help her mom measure and mix ingredients for strawberry and chocolate cakes. She would also help apply sprinkles to cookies and cupcakes her mom had made. Now Kate can make so many different types of delightful goodies that she loves to make and eat. Her sweet tooth is always wanting more and more sugar. From cake balls, to cake, to cupcakes, from apple pie to lemon poppy seed cookies, from chocolate mousse to peppermint meringues, Kate has made it all. She has a dog and cat, but likes her cat way more.

Her dog is gross, while her cat loves her.

December 2012

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Abigail is an energetic person who makes her own punches at home. She loves to bake with her family at Christmas, and her enjoyable memories spent doing this has left her with a passion for baking. Abigail enjoys baking because it is a great stress reliever for her, and it helps her relax after a hard day of school. She loves to get into the kitchen and bake to her content. She also enjoys eating the pastries she has baked, and sharing them with others. Abby loves dogs so much. She thinks they are super cute. Abby adores puppies and enjoys playing with them a lot. They are superior over cats because cats are boring in her opinion. Abby likes to be drooled on by her dog Baily.

Photo by Kate Stankiewicz

Anna

Photo by Kate Stankiewicz

Photo by Abigail Boswell

Kate

Anna has Czech heritage and enjoys making Czech baked goods with her parents. She also loves tasting foods and writing reviews, and she also likes expressing her opinion to others to help improve their decisions. Anna enjoys writing and meeting people, so writing reviews is just the job for her.

She thinks food is what a person is built from, so it is important that people make the right choices when it comes to eating.

She loves the texture of dough when it is being molded, and cannot resist a can of icing.

Anna has two cats, Lucy and Kristy. She doesn’t like her cats because they are mean, but she likes other people’s cats more than dogs.

page 21

Photo by Kate Stankiewicz Cakeball

Recipe

CONTENTS

Editor’s Messege Biographies

3 4

Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery Tiff ’s Treats Capital City Bakery

6 7 8

Snickerdoodles Cookie Cake Cherry Pie Lemon Pound Cake 2 Cake Balls recipes Shopping List

12 13 16 17 21 23

Cake Club Sugar Mama’s Wedding Cakes

10 14 18

Photo by Abigail Boswell Cherry

Pie Recipe

page 16

Cover photo: Pink and white cakeballs by Kate Stankiewicz

December 2012

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Bakery Reviews Which one is right for you?

In Austin, there is a large variety of bakeries, and sometimes it is hard to tell where to start. These reviews can help you explore some popular choices, and will tell you all that you need to know about the bakeries, so you can find the perfect bakery for you. No hassle - it’s sweet!

December 2012

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Photo by RenĂŠ Lego

These will give you a clue!

Tiff’s Treats A truely local bakery, Tiff ’s Treat’s website says it was started by two UT sophmores.

The bakery always keeps 10 flavors of cookie on the menu, but adds a special cookie about once a month. The cookies, about three inches in diameter, can be ordered by the dozen or bought in-store individually. They are ranked inexpensive on yelp.com.

Snickerdoodle

A cinnamon special! It is the perfect cookie for anyone who loves sugar, although some find that the sugar drowns out the taste. It is the favorite cookie for Leon, one of the founders, according to Layne Lynch in the Eat My Words Blog by Texas Monthly last December.

Chocolate Chip

At first sight, this cookie does not appear much chocolate at all, but don’t let that fool you! Most of the chocolate is on the inside. It is a little crunchier toward the edges, but very chewy in the center.

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La Madeleine According to their website, La Madeleine bakery has existed for nearly 25 years starting in Dallas, and the bread is made daily. This French restaurant has free Wi-Fi, as well as “a charming cozy atmosphere,� according to the owner of La Madeleine. It is moderately priced, according to yelp.com.

Sacher Torte

According to sacher.com, this cake from Vienna, Austria is well known for the apricot jam in between the layers of chocolote. All 300 calories of this cake are moist and rich.

Mini Fresh Fruit Tart

It may not be visible, but this 150 calorie dessert has a sweet surprise: under the strawberries, tangerines, blueberries, kiwi, and grapes, there is a layer of cream. The crust is sweet and the texture contrasts well with the fruit and the clear gel holding the tart together.

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The Cheesecake Factory The Cheesecake Factory is on the pricey side, with the two slices of cheesecake below totaling to over $17. Their website menu has over 35 types of cheesecake. The decor is Egyptian and it is in a huge, fancy building. The restaurant is also charitable, donating to organizations like Feeding America.

Oreo Cream

The milk chocolate icing is extremely strong and overwhelming if eaten too fast. According to their website, the layers are fudge cake and OREO速 Cookie mousse.

Red Velvet

This red velvet cheesecake comes wih a side of non-sweet cream, which contrasts well with the rich flavor and white chocolate shavings on the side. It is very rich, and delicicous.

December 2012

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By Kate Stankiewicz

F

rom eggplant to lilac, numerous shades of purple topped the treats that filled the tables in Mr. Pace’s room October 25. ‘Beat Mac!’ ‘We own the knight!’ ‘Go Jags!’ were phrases written in frosting on cookies, cupcakes, and brownies. Some of the bakers, decorated from head to toe in their most elaborate game day attire, stood behind the desserts. Multiple spirited students walked in with cans to donate in order to receive one of the tasty displayed sweets. The shiny cans got stacked in the center of a table, the pile getting larger and larger as lunch progressed. Meanwhile, the room grew less and less purple, as hungry students left with the Jagcolored confections they’d earned for their can donations.

This event is held about once a month by LASA’s Cake Club. Cake Club “can parties” were started this year by Senior Bonnie Devany. “They are something I have wanted to do for a long time,” she said. Now that she has a leadership position in the club, she was able to try it out.

“We had a huge success!”

Can parties were created to entice LASA students to bring in canned food to donate to the Austin Area Food Bank with the reward of a decked-out baked good in return.

December 2012

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Photo by Juan Benitez

Cake Club Baking with a Purpose

Photoby Bonnie Devany

more specifically the school community. It provides the LASA high schoolers with a group of people they can relate to through baking and helps them relax and release their built up tension. After a day filled with lots of focusing and

These are some of Bonnie’s Chocolate cupcakes she brought to the first can party

hard work, baking assists the students in calming down and letting more of their creativity flow out that was held in all day.

Benitez said he’d be surprised to hear any criticism of Cake Club. “There is not one thing that I don’t like,” he said. Very few students turn down the sweet snacks on days they are brought to their classes. Even those who need to be sugar free have a difficult time rejecting the cupcake offers. A few teachers also don’t accept the treats, jokingly explaining that they are on a diet.

Not being a baker is no excuse for not being in the club, because there are many other ways to be a part of it. For example, some members buy prebaked treats and bring them to give out while others only deliver the goods to classrooms, the way Isaac Ramirez does. “It takes the pressure off the bakers, so they don’t feel like they have to do everything.” Every little job helps get the club closer its large goal.

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Normally members of this club make treats for the whole student body every other Friday. On these days, the goods are brought to last period classes throughout. Students are encouraged to bring nonperishable goods to give to the club. The donated food is stored and sorted in Mr.Pace’s room before it’s delivered to the food bank. He also lets the club use his room for club meetings and parties.

Cake Club was started to help out the community. Not only does it give the LASA student body a sugary treat to enjoy after a long, hard week, but it also helps spread hunger awareness throughout the school.

Devany is in charge of the club for this reason.

She believes that more people need to act to help the community out and make it a better place. “It is important that the LASA student body understands that hunger is a prevalent issue in Austin, and as privileged students, it’s our responsibility to help,” Devany said. This year’s can parties have already generated more donations than the club had received at the same time last year. So far the club has gotten about 300 cans to donate. Last year Cake Club donated about 1,000 cans total, but the goal for this year is 3,000.

Whether baker or not, many students participate in this club. Hannah Read is just one of the many freshman cake club members who enjoys baking for the school and helping the food bank. “I’ve always loved baking, and making them for charity just sweetens the deal,” she said, “You get the feeling that you have done something good by donating cans to people who really need food.” This enjoyment of doing good deeds is not the only benefit of being in Cake Club. At the end of can parties or after the baked goods are delivered to classrooms, the extras are handed out to the members.

This club also offers stress relief for some stu dents, including Junior Juan Benitez.

When he was extremely anxious about his theatre performance, he let it all out by baking. “[For example], last week, I just needed to de-stress from everything related to Phantom of the Opera, so I decided to go bake a strawberry cake,” Benitez said. This is another way Cake Club helps the community,

Even though I’m not baking stuff, I still feel like I’m doing something to help the community.

It’s no wonder Cake Club is a popular activity at LASA. It gives members a chance to help the Austin community by getting donations for people who rely on the food bank. At the same time, LASA students get to satisfy their sweet tooths. And judging by how quickly the purple treats disappeared from Mr. Pace’s room, there are quite a few of those at this high school.

December 2012

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SNICKERDOODLE Snickerdoodles are easy go to cookies. They are delicious and fun to make. According to Allrecipies.com, this is THE best recipe for making snickerdoodles! They are amazing!

Ingredients • • • • •

1 C. butter 1- 1/2 C. sugar 2 eggs 2- 3/4 C. flour 1 tsp. cream of tartar • 1 tsp. soda • 1/4 tsp. salt

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Layout all of your ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350 dergees.

Mix sugar and butter together.

Add the rest of the ingredients in order given.

Mix sugar and cinnamon into a separate bowl big enough to roll your dough into.

Use a spoon to get some dough out the bowl and roll it around in the cinnamon sugar.

Put rolled balls onto pan about 1/2 an inch to 1 inch appart.

Put into oven and bake for 10 to 11 minutes (use your good judgment to say when they’re done).

Take out of oven and let cool beofre eatting.

MERINGUES “Some meringues are as light as a cloud and not messy, you can make a lot of them, and you can flavor them however you want,” says Missy at allrecipes.com. Carlotta Stankiewicz thinks that meringues are much better when made in a nonhumid climate because the air created when blending the mixture is lost and the meringues come out sticky and chewy instead of dry and crunchy. She is an expert with the recipe and knows how to make the perfect meringue.

Ingredients

step 3

• 4 egg whites • 2 cups confectioners’ sugar • crushed peppermint candycane DO NOT:

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Do not double the recipe because the oven will not be able to hold all of the meringues at once and if you do a few at a time, while some are baking, the others are sitting out loosing their air and they won’t turn out as light and crunchy.

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Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C).

Butter and flour a baking sheet or cover the pan with wax paper.

Separate 4 egg whites from the yolk.

Whip egg whites until foamy using an electric mixer.

Sprinkle in sugar a little at a time, while continuing to whip at medium speed.

When the mixture becomes stiff and shiny like satin, so that is stays in a peak, stop mixing, and transfer the mixture to a large pastry bag.

Pipe the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet.

Decorate accordingly.

Place the meringues in the oven and place a wooden spoon handle in the door to keep it from closing all the way.

Bake for 3 hours, or until the meringues are dry.

Serve or store in an airtight container.

December 2012

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Cake in a cup

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By Abigail Boswell

hen you walk into Sugar Mamas, you automatically get that bakery feel. You can smell the fresh, warm baked goods in the back and see the employees bring them to the front of the store to be put on display in the big glass cases for you to look at and tell yourself that your diet will start tomorrow. You take your delicious treat to

the other side of the shop where it is decorated for Halloween. You sit at your table and see all of the witches and pumpkins around. There are orange and black streamers are intertwined around the ceiling. It gives you a very festive feeling while you sit down and enjoy your treat with your new best friend the plastic spider.

Before Sugar Mamas opened in 2009 it was just an idea in Olivia O’Neal’s head that was begging to be set free. “I’ve always know that I’ve wanted to own my own business. That was the driving force ever since junior high. Originally I wanted to open a coffee shop but by the time it rolled around to decide what I wanted to do coffee shops are everywhere and they aren’t that unique anymore so I wanted to do something much more creative like a bakery.” Olivia and her

“Baking is my passion” December 2012

Page 14

Photo by Michaela Boswell

Sugar Mamas

Photo by Michaela Boswell

things than others. Everyone at the shop works together to get stuff done and to give the people of Austin the treats they enjoy.

“Some recipes we make are really easy and some are really hard. I would say for an easy one….about a week you know making it two or three times and for a difficult one about a month or two. It’s hard never being satisfied and constantly changing it until you can consistently have the same product that is a delicious come out. “ Sugar Mamas is very environmentally conscious while they bake. As said on their website they are doing their part to keep Austin green. Their cups are

This picture is of how the bakery looks in the mornning before everybody comes in to buy all they can

made out of renewable materials which is helping them achieve their goal of becoming a zero waste company. Even though they have expanded fairly larger than before they have cut their waste products by 75%. They don’t stop there, they have unbleached chlorine-free bakery boxes.

Sugar Mamas has also recently added a special treat for man’s best friend. Since Austinites love their furry friends Sugar Mamas put something on their menu that won’t make your pet feel left out anymore.

“We love our furry friends as much as you do, so we have a special pupcake just for them! All net proceeds from the sale of our pupcakes will be donated to

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husband Steve had the perfect combination for a successful bakery. She loved to bake and he loved to taste test.

Just like every business, Sugar Mamas has a certain routine they follow to help avoid confusion on how the day is going to play out. “We get here in the morning and get the kitchen running. Lights on, ovens on, sinks running and all of that. We make our first section list which is how we decide what we’re going to make for the day. First we bake all the cupcakes and then comes the frostings then comes everything else like brownies, cakes, and mini pies. We also make dessert bars.

Everything is always fresh and ready for the day.”

People come from all over Austin to get their favorite goodies from Sugar Mamas.

Everyone has a preference on what’s the best cupcake at the bakery. O’Neals favorite is the chocolate cake. “I just think it’s really easy to make, super moist and it comes out really consistently every time. It takes a lot to really mess up the chocolate cake. It’s a very forgiving recipe,” O’Neal said. “Our most popular dessert would probably be the red velvet. People are crazy about died cakes.”

The bakery gets a sufficient amount of customers a day. The store is busiest around lunch or after lunch so around 12:45 - 2:00.

Some adults who bwork say that they have very stressful days and need someway to deal with all of the stress. For some people walking around outside in the fresh air with a sweet treat is they way to go.

“Some people think of baking as a really easy thing to do or it was their blow off class in high school but baking takes time and exact measurement. If you switch one thing it could change your product drastically. When you go to restaurants or bakeries and get your food, think about how someone took time to make that specific piece of food as perfect as they possibly could, which even if it’s a tiny little cupcake they still took time to hand make that tiny little cupcake. If it’s a giant cake, then you can see the time and effort that was spent working on that cake by all of the beautiful details,” said suzan walter, an employee of Sugar Mamas.

The employees of Sugar Mamas all have different skill levels. Some are better at certain

It was always a dream of mine and when I got old enough to actually have that dream come true I seized the chance.

Austin Pets Alive.”

Sugar Mamas is very convenient for a lot of people. They are able to walk to and

from their houses to get to and from Sugar Mamas. The store is in a great location in comparison to a lot of competing bakeries. Even though Sugar Mamas isn’t a chain like a lot of other bakeries the one location at they do have is wonderful for business and has a very homey feel when you walk in.

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CHERRY PIE Cherry pie is great recipe for an occasion. Weather its for a birthday, a specific holiday or just becuase. It is very easy to make and compltetly delicious! It gives you the nice spring/summer feel of fresh fruit. Cridicts on epinions.com it could be said that Lucky Leaf Cherry Pie Filling or Topping is this short-cut pie-baker’s Lucky Charm.

Ingredients • • •

2 Pilbury pie crust 2 cans Lucky leaf cherry pie filling Pie pan (any size you want)

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Layout ingredients.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out first pie crust into bottom of pie pan.

Open pie fillings and pour into the pan.

Roll out second pie crust next the pie.

Cut the crust into strips and lay them onto the pie so that it is in latus format.

Put optional egg whites on the top of the crust once on pie to make look golden during baking.

Stick pie into oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes Take out of oven and let cool.

Dig in and enjoy!

LEMON POUND CAKE Lemon pound cake is great for that cold rainy day when you can’t go outside. It is delicious and worth it. According too Allrecipies.com, this cake was PERFECT. I used it in a Lemon Berry Trifle and everyone just raved over it.

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Ingredients • • • • • • •

3 C. sugar 1 C. butter - 2 TBS. 4 eggs 3 C. sifted flour 1 C. buttermilk 1/2 tsp. soda 2tsp. lemon extract

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Layout all your ingredients.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream sugar and butter together (let cream for about 15 to 20 minutes).

Add eggs one at a time.

Add other ingredients (mix soda with butter milk before adding) Add sifted flour last Grease tube pan with crisco.

Put in oven and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or untill it testes done (when testing stick a tooth pick into the cake and pull it out. If there isnt any batter on the tooth pick then it is done).

8. Let pan cool and then flip it upside down and let it fall out of the pan.

9. Cut into your cake and enjoy!

December 2012

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Craft of Cake The Sweet Art of Cake Decorating

Photo by RenĂŠ Lego

By Anna Nehyba

December 2012

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I thought, ‘I can do that!’

money, and therefore recommends a business course to anyone who wants to work as an artist. Cake decorators can do on-the-job training and pastry chefs can go to school, but either way, anyone working in the baking industry can always use a business course.

Pfertner finds cake decorating both fun and meticulous. She often finds new ways to decorate just through experimentation. However, anything that can be done before the cake is baked is done ahead of time, because cake has a time limit. She generally likes to make her cake a maximum of three days before the cake is delivered.

Pfertner is now working on a longhorn cake. Her husband helped her make the stands of half inch metal rods that hold up the cakes. She has already made the legs, horns, chin, and stomach of rice crispy treats covered with smooth white icing. It stands on a football field made of cake. It is a three layer cake: it is eaten from the top, layer by layer, so it won’t fall apart.

Between formerly working as

A small cake that shows a simple way to decorate by using a spoon to texture the icing.

Photo by Anna N.

Photo by Janette Pfertner

J

anette Pfertner carefully moves a knife down the smooth orange icing. She delicately folds rice paper, cuts it, and attaches it to the head of the animal, and then covers it with icing. Two white horns bulge out of the head, made of rice crispy, and its nose has “Bevo” carefully written across it. She adjusts the icing of the body to make sure that the animal’s body curves just right, and then steps back to admire her work. The two foot tall longhorn stands on a football field, and it is all cake.

Pfertner was the sixth out of eight children, so she helped out her mother, who was always in the kitchen. She started cooking before she was ten years old, but it was never more than just a hobby. Her careers have been numerous, from working at a blood bank, to being a telephone operator, to teaching at a preschool, and owning her own daycare.

But when her youngest daughter Sarah kept having chronic ear infections, Pfertner had to find work she could do at home so she could look after Sarah.

A friend of hers that had taken a cake decorating class had made a hundred dollars from a wedding cake. She only did a couple of cakes in the past and never took a class, but that didn’t stop her. “I thought, ‘I can do that!’…It was never anything I ever dreamed about; I knew I liked to cook, and I just knew I could do it,” Pfertner laughed. So she began taking classes to become a cake

preschool teacher and mother of three, Pfertner found that she loved to teach.

Her passion for teaching was even there when she worked in her shop. Just standing there selling cake supplies, from different types of pans to wedding plates, customers would come and ask her how to use the supplies or how to do certain techniques. She joined ICES, or the International Cake Exploration Society, and it became a big part of her life. Owning a shop and having her knowledge about cake decorating propelled her toward the top of the organization, and Pfertner became the Texas Representative of ICES. About four times a year there would be a Day of Sharing, which was a day when the people running ICES would elect members to share their knowledge and teach others in an all day workshop or demonstration. Pfertner was asked to teach, so she began to teach a little bit of everything, including one of her favorite techniques of decorating, gilded appliqué. She teaches classes in her home too, but it is more difficult.

Many people will call her to take the classes, and then cancel on her. She cannot plan when she’s going to make

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A cake that is a longhorn standing on a football field which Pfertner has been working on recently

decorator.

Less than a year later, the store where she took classes threatened to close down. So she bought the whole store, and renamed it to Miss J Cakes.

“Craziness,” Pfertner laughed. “But that’s cake decorators.” It served as her retail shop for several years, and Sarah would play in a cleaned out closet there while she worked. It was truly a random act. According to her, it was not a very smart move either, because running a retail shop and a bakery turned out to be a lot of work, and she didn’t know much about the business part of the cake industry. Pfertner finds that (generally) artists aren’t good with

December 2012

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October 2012

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A groundhog groom’s cake custom-made by Pfertner for a Groundhog’s Day wedding.

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No one cares what the cake looks like after you cut into it.

with different spices (like cardamom) for people from India, and pineapple, rum and even mango cakes for Latino people. She made an Indian cake with an elephant, and learned that the trunk has to go up for good luck. She also found that groom’s cakes are a Southern tradition, and that people up North are only just starting to use them because they see them on television. The largest cake she had ever made had eight hundred servings, and she was not surprised to hear the customer got divorced within a year, as it is not uncommon for a marriage to not work out, regardless of how large the cake may be. She made a star destroyer cake from Star Wars, a cake of a stranger’s house (because it was the customer’s dream house), and a cake for a woman that later became the Mayor of Pflugerville. Once Pfertner made a cake for a man that loved rodeo, and instead of rooting for a bull rider, he would root for the bull. Later when she was taking the cake to him, she passed some people that recognized the bull. Some people come back for another cake when they get married again or have their first child. When she owned her shop, there were people that would come in every year for their kid’s birthday.

Janette Pfertner always loved to cook, and though she worked various jobs, her fate led her to bake. She never dreamed that she would make a longhorn cake, or buy her own shop and bakery, or compete in cake shows on television, but when these opportunities came, she embraced them and challenged herself.

She has so many stories of successes and failures, but they are all experiences that she learned from. Cake decorating has become a part of who Janette Pfertner is.

Photo by René Lego

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the cakes, so there are only a certain number of days available to her. Pfertner says she gives them two chances, and then they have to find someone else to teach them, because she doesn’t have time to worry about it.

Because making a cake stand on legs and look like an animal is a meticulous job, Pfertner feels that so many people wrongfully assume that a cake decorator won’t be worried about how it tastes as long as it looks good. “No one cares what the cake looks like after you cut into it. It better taste good,” she says. This is her motto, so whenever brides come over, she has them taste cake samples to find what they like. Some of the samples are baked from scratch. The other samples are made from a cake mix, such as Pfertner’s favorite, Dunkin Heinz, and are improved by adding some extra ingredients. Most people pick the cake mix. Although baking from scratch seems like the better option because it is all handmade, she says most people prefer the taste of cake mix because it is what they are used to.

Pfertner enjoyed having brides come over so she could customize cakes, so when the shop became overwhelming, she closed it and began working just from home. Although it previously wasn’t, it is now legal to sell cakes made at home, and she already owned a cake vendor’s license.

Pfertner is a custom sugar artist, and she works together with the customer to come up with a personalized cake, considering things like a bride’s dress and what their cultural preferences are. Inside her home, she has a glass cabinet full of sugar art, such as flowers and ribbons and flowers with ribbon, in bright colors that are so vivid that they seem real and not made of sugar.

Other cake businesses in the area compete with each other, but Pfertner “wouldn’t say they’re competition.” With her experience, she challenges herself to do her best. When a customer asks her if she can make the cake appear a certain way, her automatic answer, as an artist, is always yes. One time Pfertner was asked to make a pleated cake, which she had never tried before. She thought she would airbrush the cake, but that didn’t work.

She ended up staying up all night painting the whole cake. No regrets though, and she said it looked absolutely beautiful afterwards.

Pfertner doesn’t just stay local; she has made cakes for people from all over the U.S. and immigrants from various countries, and has learned so much from it. She’s made a fruit cake for someone in England, cakes

CAKEBALLS Cakeballs are very versatile and addictive. They are perfect to satisfy your sweet tooth according to Allison at allrecipes.com. The Jell-O Company says, “Cakeballs are a great festive treat!”

step 3

Ingredients: strawberry cakeballs • 1 vanilla cake, baked from scratch or box mix • 1 cup strawberry frosting • 4 oz. white chocolate almond bark

oreo cakeballs

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• 18 oz. pkg oreo cookies • 8 oz. pkg cream cheese-block • 4 oz. white chocolate almond bark

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Step by step: strawberry cakeballs oreo cakeballs

Bake the cake and let it cool.

Break apart the cake and put the crumbles into a bowl.

Add frosting and mix until it’s dough-like.

Cover with plastic and refrigerate for about an hour or until it’s chilled and hard.

Use a spoon, a melon baller, or your hands to shape the dough into small balls about the size of a quarter.

Melt the white chocolate bark.

Dip the balls in the chocolate and place on wax paper.

Decorate while coating is wet.

Let the balls cool and the coating harden.

When the coating is hard, serve or refrigerate.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Blend oreos until fine.

Add 6 oz.-8 oz. of cream cheese.

Blend until dough-like.

Chill for about 15 minutes.

Shape the dough into bite-size small balls.

Melt the white bark .

Dip the balls into the coating and place on wax paper.

8. Decorate while coating is wet.

9. Let the balls cool and the coating harden.

10. When the coating is hard, serve or refrigerate.

December 2012

Page 21

Pillsbury is the way to go when baking on the go

SHOPPING LIST

Snickerdoodle pg.12 • • • • • •

1 C. butter 1- 1/2 C. sugar 2 eggs 2- 3/4 C. flour 1 tsp. cream of tartar 1 tsp. soda

•

1/4 tsp. salt

Lemon Pound Cake pg.17 • • • • •

3 C. sugar 1 C. butter - 2 TBS. 4 eggs 3 C. sifted flour 1 C. buttermilk

• •

1/2 tsp. soda 2tsp. lemon extract

Meringue pg.13 • • •

4 egg whites 2 cups confectioners’ sugar crushed peppermint

Cakeballs pg.21

Cherry Pie pg.16 • • •

2 Pilbury pie crust 2 cans Lucky leaf cherry pie filling pie pan

oreo: • 18oz. pkg oreo cookies • 8oz. pkg cream cheeseblock • 4 oz white chocolate almond bark strawberry: • 1 vanilla cake, baked from scratch or box mix • 1 cup strawberry frosting • 4 oz white chocolate almond bark

December 2012

Page 25

Why pay a cake decorator...

When you can be one.

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