All Saints Bake Sale 2011

Hi Everyone!

Have you ever checked out my blog and wished you could just grab a cupcake right off the screen? Well if you said yes, please read on to learn about how you can feed you sweet tooth while helping aid chidhood hunger in America.

Share our Strenghth is a national organization that is dedicated to help end childhood hunger by 2015. They work with a network of community groups, activists and food programs to catch children who are struggling with hunger and surround them with nutritious food where they live, learn and play.

Do you know?

• More than 50 million Americans struggle to put food on the table



• More than 17 million of those affected are children? - That's 1 in 4 kids in America



• 19 million kids recieve free or reduced lunch, and only 9.4 million get free or reduced breakfast



• Children who struggle with hunger are sick more often, recover more slowly and are more likely to be hospitalized.



• Children who face hunger are more susceptible to obesity and its harmful health consequences as children and as adults.



• Lack of enough nutritious food impairs a child's ability to concentrate and perform well in school.



• Teens who regulary do not get enough to eat are more likey to be suspended from school and have difficulty getting along with other kids.

These are just a few alarming facts, so please be sure to check out Share our Strength for more information, ways to help support their efforts.


Last year was my first year organizing and setting up a bake sale, and I could not have done it without the support of my church, All Saints. Last year we raised over $1000 which was a great success! We had a huge variety of baked goods - there was something for everyone! You can read and see pics from last year here. This year I've set our goal at $1500! I know we can reach this with all of your support!

Funds raised by the bake sale will help accomlish the following:

• Enroll more eligible kids in school breakfast, after-school snacks and meals, and their families in SNAP (Food Stamps)



• Bring community gardens and farmers markets to low-income neighborhoods.



• Bring affordable, fresh fruits and veggies to urban corner stores.



• Teach at-risk families how to plan, shop for, and prepare healthy low-cost meals at home.



• Help local food pantries, food banks, and soup kitchens meet the pressing demand for more nutritious food.



• Increase awareness and understanding of childhood hunger and solutions to it.

So please please come out on July 10th from 7am-2pm at All Saints Church in Hayward to pick up some baked treats! We will also be collecting non perishable food items to be donated to the Alameda County Community Food Bank.

If you are interested in baking, please contact me at catrinaarmas@gmail.com

Thanks for reading!

xo,

Treen

More Mickey Cake Pops

Red Velvet Cupcake Bites

Matcha Green Tea Rice Crispy Treats

Nuff Said. =) Delish.

One quick note to self (and all reading ;])

ALWAYS use jet puffed marshmallows. Anything else just doesn't work the same!

Disneyland and Cupcakes

Disneyland is one of my favorite places EVER! I love going back every time even though I know the place like the back of my hand. There is just something so magical about that place =)



Anyhow, look what I found there! A set of cupcake pins! Each of them are different disney characters. =) I had to have em. So adorable! Can you guess who everyone is? =)










I also grabbed a few of these. Cupcake Vinylmations! The "frosting" is removable and when you remove it, it will reveal which character your vinylmation is. =) Can you guess who everyone is?








Also, since we went for baby Kiana's birthday, I made some mickey and minnie cake pops! And here, you cant see it too well, but its Minnie Mouse admiring the cake pop of her! When I first gave it to her she pointed at it and pointed to herself and laughed! It was really cute. heh.









Lastly, these arent cupcake related but they are just too cute I had to share! I love love love Mickey waffles!







I cant wait to go back next month. =) Yay Disneyland!





Thanks for reading.





Xo,





Treen

Red Velvet Pancake

Pancakes are one of my all time favorite breakfast foods (behind my moms omelettes of course ;]) and when you model it after a cupcake, now that is what I call a breakfast of champs!

Looking at this picture makes me crave this puppy! This ah-may-zing treat comes from Griddle Cafe in good ol Hollywood. They have a sleu of yummy sounding pancakes and other items from the griddle and I cant wait to come back! I was watching everyones things come out and they all looked great but once I saw "Red Velvelt Pancake" my mind was made up. This pancake is HUGE. It is deep red in color, generously dusted with cocoa powder and powdered sugar, and finished with a swirl of cream cheese frosting. Winner! You must get the french press coffee with this because 1. its good quality coffee and 2. it will help wash down all of the sugary goodness you will be consuming.

If you are in the area, check it out! You won't be dissapointed. =)

Thanks for reading,

Xo,

Treen

Ube and Coconut Cheesecake

I love ube and i love coconut! What a great combo here. =)

For those of you who don't know, ube is a purple yam used in many Filipino desserts like cake, ice cream, cookies or one of my faves Halo-Halo!

I had heard about someone using ube in a cheesecake so i wanted to give it a go. This was the first time I ever made a cheescake! And my gosh it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. It was alot of beating and alot of waiting. :P But look at what came of all the hard work:



Beautiful purple color with coconut jammed in the crust and atop the cake. *mmm*

So, as I mentioned, this was my first attempt at ANY cheesecake. First mistake was not paying attention to how many packets of cream cheese was equivalent to the number of grams needed. I was about 200 short but it still turned out hehe. Second mistake was not having long enough tin foil to wrap the pan for the water bath :/, third was that I don't own a roasting pan (vegetarian here!) for the water bath. So as you can probably guess, water got in my pan :( boo! Luckily it didnt affect the crust too much, but still. The next cheescake I will be making will not be the water bath method!

Verdict: I liked it alot! It was tangy and sweet and the taro flavor popped out at you just right. Because I was short on cream cheese, it was more of a mousse cake which was ok, but I loveee cheesecake so I cant wait to make it again. And this time, I'll have all of the cream cheese I need and it will (hopefully) have a crunchy crust!




Yum.

thanks for reading!

xo,

Treen

Mickey Mouse Cake Pops

Oh Bakerella, you make everything look SO easy! My version of mickey mouse cake pops turned out ok...but boy were they hard to make!

I wish I found black candy melts in the store but i didnt. You can bet I will be stocking up around Halloween though! =) Anyhow, my awesome dad picked up some black candy coloring for me at the cake store so I could test these puppies out. This weekend (well, now actually because its 1:30am!) we're headed to one of my favorite places ever, Disneyland! YAY! We are going down to SoCal to celebrate my nieces birthday and celebrate a wedding with friends.

Anyhow, back to the pops. When I began coloring the melted chocolate, it started to thicken sooooo much. I had to add a whole lotta thinner to help it out and even then it was still really thick...it took soooo long to get it semi-right. So that is why I plan on stocking up on black candy melts around halloween hehe. The result was they didnt have a smooth nice finish like I'm used to ;p

Here they are! I made some minnie mouse by adding a chocolate bow =)

Another view, I <3 instagram because it makes my pics look so cool!

And lastly, here is a picture of the two very special pops I made for our friends. A mickey and minnie mouse bride and groom! I hope they like them! =)

Anyhow, its about that time...we're off to Socal! Yay!

Thanks for reading =)

xo,

Treen

Kids and cake pops!

My cousins enjoying cake pops! Except Caden, why you look so sad, boy? Probably because he finished his pop already. =)

Green Eggs and Ham

I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them sam-i-am! =) I love Dr.Seuss! I especially love the book "Oh the places you'll go" which I received as a gift from my sissy Mia (check out her make-up blog!) when I graduated college. =)

Anyhow, I was so excited to make these cupcakes for a Dr.Seuss themed birthday party. They were for my Moms co-workers daughter and I have been making her birthday cupcakes, that she brings to her classroom for a few years now. Last year, we did a princess and the frog theme and this year was Dr.Seuss! When I dropped them off, she told my moms co-worker mentioned that her daughter had come up with this theme all on her own because "even the boys would like dr.seuss!" =) how cute!


Since these were going to be for young kiddies, I decorated mostly with chocolate. The hat and eggs are all chocolate (and edible marker). The ham is made out of fondant...I went looking in a few stores for green laffy taffy or airheads but couldnt find any! So I just mentioned that the kids might not like the taste of the fondant. I have this image in my head of a kid eating fondant and spitting it out because they dont like the taste. So I wanted to give fair warning...but then again, they might just eat it right up!

Here are a few pics of the cupcakes:

A close up of the hat and green eggs and ham:


Vanilla cupcakes with chocoalte and vanilla frosting, and the cat in the hat's hat:

And chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and vanilla frosting, with green eggs and ham:

The green eggs and ham are my favorite! So cute. hehe. I hope the kiddies enjoy them!

Thanks for reading!

xo,

Treen.

Feelings on cake pops

So, as you may know, I havent really been a fan of cake pops. Well I mean, I love love love eating them, and admiring them...especially Bakerella's amazingly beautiful creations. What I didn't love was making them.


The first time I made them was near Christmas. I made Bakerella's adorable reindeer pops and man, I did not know how much work they were and how long they were going to take! Baking, mixing, dipping, decorating, packaging...it's a lot of work! And what I had the most trouble with was keeping the cake from falling of the stick, and with un-smooth chocolate coating. Some of them turned out good...like this guy below:







But after all that work, I think it took nearly 4 hours I decided not to make them anymore.


Then a friend asked if I would be able to make them for her and I decided to give it another go. I wanted to get some practice in, and second time....ay yay yi...same deal. Third time, I decided to do some research and really get this right!


And wow, what a difference it made! I followed directions to the T (I'd been taking shortcuts before, trying to get it done quicker and not refrigerate as often as I was supposed to) and I found out neat techniques to help smoothen out the pops and voila! this is what I got:



:) I know, the cake balls are a little lopsided but look how smooth they are! Yay!


And here is a picture of them nicely packaged:



So now that I know how to make them, I kind of like them. Alot. I can't wait to start experimenting. I'm not sure if I'm ready to take on cake pops Bakerella style, but I definitely want to start playing around more with them. They are a lot of work, but look how cute they are!


Now, here are some bonus pics of some cupcakes I made recently:


German Chocolate:


Carrot and Red Velvet:

Mash-up pic of the cupcakes and pops (thanks Instagram!)

Thanks for reading! =)

xo,

Treen