Sweet Charley B's

Monday Extra!

I have a friend... He's awesome.  He's done more for our family over the last year than you can imagine.  I've known this person since we were 11(I've also known his wife that long... she's one of my besties)!!  That's a long time!!  Anyway, for some reason it gives me great pleasure to tease him.  Maybe because I've watched him go from wisea** middleschooler to one of the best dads I know?  Who knows?  Anyway, in an effort to make sure he knows it's all in good fun, I have created the Mississippi Mud Pie cupcake just for him!!

 

It's a chocolate cupcake with mocha buttercream and a fudge swirl rolled in toasted, slivered almonds and sprinkled with crused Oreos! 

I hope you enjoy it my friend! 

"Do you like Pina Coladas?"

Ahhh… That used to be one of my favorite songs in college.  It makes me snicker a little every time I hear it…. Have you ever seen the guy that sings it?  He’s got a ‘fro, a stylin’ leisure suit and and some awesome glasses. 

 
His name is Rupert... that makes it even better!

Didn’t mean to get off track, but can you guess what the flavor of the week is?  That’s right, a summer time favorite- Pina Colada!

 

It got some good reviews!!  I had 38 dozen cupcakes to turn out this weekend, so I didn’t get a picture of anyone sampling.  I’ll do better next weekend!

 

Happy Father’s Day and Happy Graduation! 

Following through...

When I was in my early 20's I was a little flaky.  Lessoned learned.  I like to try and follow through whenever I say I'm going to do something because it was not a trait that made me proud of myself!!  So I said that I would try and do two new flavors last weekend, but ran short on time.  I had a few minutes tonight, so here ya go!!

It's a little crazy, but I think it's pretty cute for summer time, and as you will see below my taster enjoyed!

WATERMELON!

 
This is the unfrosted cake... Just vanilla cake colored pink and I put some black little sugar pearls in it to look like seeds...

 
Watermelon frosting and green jimmies to look like the rind...

 
Split in half... I think it needs more "seeds"!

 
Nothings say fun like cupcakes at 10 o'clock at night!!  It's a dirty job, and I know I can always get Sam to do it!! In case some of you don't know, this is my sweet boy, Sam.  He's 12!!  How did that happen?

Flavor of the week

I’m a day late, sorry!!  I had this done yesterday, but fell asleep before I had it posted!!  Some weekends are longer than others, you know? 

My flavor this week is Blackberry Cobbler!!  I made a yellow cake with fresh blackberries swirled into the batter and topped with a little cobbler topping before I baked it.  Then I topped it with blackberry butter cream, a little more cobbler topping and blackberry candy.  I think I might redo this just a little bit.  I’m thinking about not swirling the blackberries into the batter and just filling it with a little homemade blackberry jam instead…   It did taste delish, I’m just not sold on it 100%.

 

I thought I would have time for two new cupcakes this week, but I just had too many orders!  It was a crazy weekend!  Maybe I’ll have time to squeeze one in mid-week? 

Happy Monday!

Success and Failures

I’m not going to pretend that every cupcake I have made has been perfect.  I have had my share of failures…  I can remember one morning so vividly.  I was working really hard on my lemon blueberry cupcake recipe.  I had already thrown a couple of dozen failures in the garbage.  I was pulling two dozen out of the oven that I thought looked PRIMO… did I mention it was 6:30 in the morning?  All of the sudden from around the corner comes my sweet Charley and startled me.  Alas I dropped the full two dozen perfect cupcakes that I had worked all morning to get.  At the time I think I cried a little, but now I look back with a little smile at the memory of my early riser and the look on her face that was priceless. 

 
This was a different day, but you can see how we shared the same joy!

I have also had a few e-mails that very kindly pointed out something that could be better with my cupcakes.  When I received them (especially the first one) I wanted to quit.  I worked so hard on my recipes, I couldn’t figure out what I could do differently.  I experimented and practiced.  My family and sweet friends have been my guinea pigs and I think I am getting better!  I truly appreciate those e-mails now, even though they were hard to swallow in the beginning.  I don’t know anyone who is perfect right out of the shoot (except for Him). 

I have had plenty of success, too.  I have regulars and I have donated more dozens than I can count.  I raised more than $600 dollars for our school.  I love the invention of new flavors. I have 967 people who like Sweet Charley B's on Facebook! The smell of baking makes me feel like Charley is right here.  That is all the success I need to keep going.  I am so grateful for this opportunity.  Thank you!

Flavor of the Week

I thought I might try something… Until I run out of ideas anyway!!  I have a running list of new cupcake I flavors that I want to try, but I never seem to have the time to experiment.  Sunday night is now "New Flavor Night" PLUS it gives me a blog post topic every week too! 

So this week my flavor is confetti cake with cake batter frosting… You know like Cold Stone.  Cake batter is my kid’s go-to choice.  So, I thought I would give it a go!!

 

Here is the cake before frosting…  I think it’s pretty cute and of course I had to leave one unfrosted for Georgie!!

 

Here’s the finished product…

 

And a cross section so you can see the confetti! 

 

Enjoy your Sunday night, back to the grind tomorrow!!  By grind I mean school, baseball practice, baseball games, gymnastics, etc! 

Georgie's Special Day

Our little Georgiana has one of those summer birthdays.  While being able to have a swimming party is awesome, it’s kind of a bummer that her special day doesn’t fall during the school year.  It’s hard to get in touch with her school friends to send birthday invites and of course getting to be the special person in the classroom is the BEST!  Georgie’s teacher is exceptional though, and makes sure that all the little people get their day, even if it doesn’t fall during the school year! 

Thursday was Georgie’s day to celebrate.  I had a big plan to take in unfrosted cupcakes with 22 baggies of frosting and 22 little shakers of sprinkles; alas my little individual had other plans. (If you don’t know the G, she’s VERY opinionated!) (And she is the only kid I know that scrapes off the frosting and eats only the cake!)  She decided she wanted the homemade hostess cupcakes because they have filling, no frosting, and they are dipped in chocolate!!

 
 

In my opinion kids are the toughest critics.  They are brutally honest because they don’t know any better!  So I was expecting someone to say “EEW gross” or “I don’t like chocolate”.  Instead I heard Georgie’s teacher saying, “Slow down, take smaller bites!” and the kids saying “there’s something in the middle!!” and “I wish I could have another!”  I was so flattered.  It made my day, and so did the smile on Georgie’s face…

 

 
 

Enjoy the sunshine!!

p.s. I got my two blog posts in for the week!!

Carnival!

Before I get to the good stuff, let me say I am sorry for getting off to such a bad start on the ol' blog here.  I had another blog once upon a time and I went about it in spurts... Sometimes I was a good blogger, and sometimes I was very sporadic.  It is my goal to be a much better blogger this go 'round!  I'm setting a realistic goal for myself... Two entries a week.  That should be achievable!  My favorite blogs are one's that are frequently updated, so let's give it a shot!!

So about this carnival I mentioned in the title.  Our elementary school hosts a carnival in May to help raise money for our parent/teacher association.  Many people don't know all that the parent teacher association pays for... field trips, assemeblies, ours is building a play shed and filling it with balls for our kids to play with at recess, all sorts of stuff.

Last year was my first foray into the cupcake game at the carnival (outside of baking for friends and family of course).  It took me two whole days with a helper and I only turned out 160 cupcakes!  This year I've got my routine down and I made 320(!!!) cupcakes in an evening and the morning/afternoon. 

 
There are all of the boxes!  I sold them for $2.00 a piece or 4 tickets...  I made 15 different flavors including a gluten free vanilla with vanilla frosting!

 

I had so much fun making these cupcakes and watching the little faces come up to the table to choose which little cake they wanted!  I told Zach that next year I might need to get a little plexy glass shield to put in front of the cakes... I think it's more sanitary if I am the only one touching...  Just sayin'...

 
This is my AMAZING sign that my sister-in-law Krsita painted for me.  Yeah- she did this all by hand, no tracing... She is amazing!  I am in love with my sign!

The carnival was a huge success.  I sold every single cupcake more than an hour before the carnival was over!  Our community is awesome! 

I am excited for another opportunity to set up my little table.  Still moving forward with the store front-  have a few things to finish up before I can make any big steps with that project.  I'm also weighing my options with a cupcake truck?  That has a lot of appealing qualities... I wouldn't be bound by "store" hours which is a HUGE attraction!  We will see what is store for Sweet Charley B's!!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day!  See you later this week ;)

Location, Location, Location

If you were driving around Olympia today, you may have seen a crazy girl in her work-out clothes taking pictures on the side of the road.  That was me!  I parked my car in some precarious places to take pictures of some of the locations that I would like to open my store in!

This first picture is of my DREAM location.  It’s a little house looking-place that was built to be a gas station in 1920.  My sweet friend, who has one of the coolest jobs ever, got a picture from the state archives of what it looked like way back when.  (She’s a historical preservationist just in case you were wondering). 

 

This little building is literally less than 2 miles from my house.  I have driven by it so many times and dreamed of what I would do with it if it were mine.  The catch is that it’s not for sale.  It has been owned by the same lady since 1980 though, and I’m thinking maybe she wants to sell it but just hasn’t had the right offer??  Who knows?  I’m all about putting myself out there these days!  And of course I would paint it yellow, just in case you were wondering!

 

The next place we have been looking at since the inception of Sweet Charley B’s.  It is “strip-mallish” sort of.  It has two units downstairs and two units upstairs.  It has been empty for quite a while and I can’t figure out why!  It’s a great location… Right on the main drag in town where everyone goes to do their errands.  A huge selling point for me is the cement floors.  I LOVE cement floors.  I think they are so appealing and so easy to clean!  A little bit of a detraction for me is one of the units upstairs is occupied by a tattoo/piercing place.  Not really my clientele, but who knows?  Another thing that does not excite me is renting.  If I had my choice, I would love to own my building instead of paying someone else’s mortgage!

 

Another choice (and I didn’t take any pics) is downtown.  The buildings downtown are amazing and gorgeous and I love them.  However, parking is atrocious, and there are a lot of issues with panhandling and crime.  So, being down there by myself early in the morning isn’t that appealing. 

Lots of options and I do have some time to make a choice…  Which do you like the best?

My First Official Post!!

I have spent some time thinking about what my first post should be!  It’s a lot of pressure!!!  Obviously there will be lots of baking here, but I thought I might start out with the short version of the story of Sweet Charley B’s.  I’m guessing that some of you might not know me!!

My name is Amanda and I am the mom of three, Sam (almost 12), Charlotte “Charley” (6 ½) and Georgiana “Georgie” (5) and the wife of Zach.  My kids are what I live for and they have been my full time job for the last 8 years.  Each one of my kids is so unique and wonderful (So is Zach!  I didn’t mean to leave him out!!).  I am eternally grateful to God for trusting me with each one.

Last June, just one week after my sweet Charley had finished Kindergarten, she got what we all thought was the flu.  Friday evening she had played in a soccer game and by Saturday at lunch time she had a fever and was just not doing well at all.  Trusting my mother’s instincts against the advice of the nurse on the weekend “on-call” line I took her to the emergency room.  She was just so uncomfortable and restless.  I had never seen her like this before.  From the ER in Olympia they sent us to Mary Bridge in Tacoma, this was late Sunday night.  After several hours in the ER at Mary Bridge they admitted Charley to the PICU upstairs.  By 8:30 Monday morning, Charley was not here with us anymore.  She was home with Our Heavenly Father.  Somehow, somewhere she had contracted Group A Strep bacteria in her blood stream.  We have been told that what happen to her was like having lightening strike twice in the same place; it NEVER happens. 

Charley and I used to bake together all the time.  Whenever I was in the kitchen she was at my heels.  If there was something to do, she wanted to do it. If there was someplace to go, she wanted to go.  Charley has inspired me to follow that “what if” that has been in the back of mind for a long time.  I will be baking to keep her close to me and so that no one will forget she was here.

 

We are planning for a retail space.  We are looking for just the right one and won’t settle until we find it.  Be on the lookout for new flavors and some little snippets of life from time to time!!

I am so glad you stopped by!!  Thank you to everyone who has supported us by ordering cupcakes and spreading the word!  I’m thinking we need to work up some sort of customer appreciation or something!!

See you soon!

Amanda

p.s. Until I get it all over here please click here to go to our Facebook page where we have a list of all the flavors and pictures of them too!  You don't have to be a member of Facebook to look!