Cranberry Sauce Cake!

What do you get someone who loves cranberry sauce so much, she carries it in her purse at all times, accompanied by a  can opener?  Of course, a Ocean Spray birthday cake!!!!!!  One of our most unique cake requests so far!!!!!

Recently we were asked to make a with cake for a movie themed birthday party, but not with the traditional black, white and red color scheme....something a little more girlie.  After some brainstorming, this is what we came  up with!  We used edible images from Despicable Me and different princess movies in the film on the top tier.  Every kernel of popcorn was made by hand using fondant that was airbrushed to give it the right color and dimension and we think putting the Happy Birthday on the sync slate (did you know that is what that black and white thing is called? I didn't, I had to look it up so I could refer to it in this post!!) added the perfect finishing touch.

Sweet & Simple - The Rocket!

So often we highlight the more elaborate cakes on our website and on facebook.  However, more often than not, the majority of our customers are looking for a beautiful and cool cake, but don't necessarily have the event budget needed for a fully 3D sculpted cake.  This rocket cake was just adorable.  Its simple, but yet has some 3D elements, to make the design pop.  Its a great example of a really cool kids cake with an affordable price tag! I hope you like! Tracie 

A Day In The Life Of A Teenage Cake Bar Employee!

Marissa decorating the bakery at Christmas

By Marissa Palladini

     First of all, I couldn't ask for a better job as a teenager than decorating cupcakes/cakes on a daily basis. Who wouldn't want that? Plus, there are all the extra cupcakes that fall over that we pig out on during our shifts.  All the employees have built such close friendships with one another that it's like going to work with your best friends everyday. However,  when one of us makes a silly mistake, no one lets us forget about  it. And sometimes our friendship causes us to get slightly off-task :)

     A typical day at work mainly revolves around frosting cupcakes. I'm sure the first thing you've seen when you walk into our bakery is us bent over a tray of cupcakes, with a huge bag of buttercream and tons of sprinkles, fillings, drizzles, etc. When all of the cupcakes are finished, we move on to filling orders. Most of them extend anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour to complete depending on the customer's wishes. Then,  there might be some fondant decorations to make, cleaning to do, or some dreaded dishes to wash. I can't even begin to tell all of the fights we have had over who does the dishes. I have personally gotten sprayed with our "power-washer of a sink faucet thing" out of anger multiple times!  Next to getting sprayed with the sink faucet, we've developed a humorous little prank where we grab a handful of flour and blow it on one of our beloved co-workers. They get coated with beautiful white spots of flour or powdered sugar.... I think we might have gotten Tracie a time or two too :) 

     Whatever happens at the bakery really all depends on who we are working with. If Aubrey and I are opening on a Saturday morning, we are bound to get stuck dealing with some type of natural disaster that swept through the bakery the night before. Jack and Abby will go on talking about what's currently going on at Bishop Feehan for hours on end. But Lexi and I will do the same thing about the happenings at FHS. On Saturdays there is a mad race to see who will be the lucky few to get to make fillings all day in the kitchen. Jack and Evan together will cause some type of mischief at the bakery on Friday night and end up getting yelled at by Tracie, but even she can't hold back her laughter sometimes. Poor little Kelcey just gets stuck in the middle of it all... but she's a trooper! In the end, we're all just a bunch of goofballs trying to bring the town of Franklin joy with cupcakes :) 

     At 7:00pm, it is time to close. The closing festivities usually begin around 530-6 depending on whose working, orders, etc. There's a system to our closing list, that mostly everyone has mastered, in order to get closing done quickly and efficiently. We might look like turtles all day during work, but when it's time to close we kick it into high gear so we can go home as close to 7 as possible. There's a big, collective sigh of relief when the closing list is finally done! However, there is still always boxes to make! Yep, you know those pretty pink boxes that all of your cupcakes go home in? Well, behind every pink box is a complaining cake bar employee covered in paper-cuts. But, we love our job and our customers, so I guess it's worth it :)

     A day at The Cake Bar is a day full of helping customers, laughs, friendship, and of course, cupcakes! I wouldn't consider working at The Cake Bar a "job" exactly because most people don't usually enjoy their jobs as much as we do. We're all so privileged to have a job where we have fun while we're working at the same time. I couldn't ask for a better job :) 

Livy's Hope! A community comes together to celebrate Hope!

As  many of you know, this past weekend we had the Livy's Hope fundraising event, and it was a HUGE hit!  It was such a great weekend, on so many levels.  Not only were the sheer number of people that attended staggering, but the excitement level at the bakery was just so fun - fun not only for the customers, but the cake bar staff as well. 

I'll be honest, we started this whole thing thinking that we were going to make a couple hundred Livy's Hope cupcakes over the span of a weekend.  Because of that, I didn't really put a ton of thought into the amount of effort each butterfly would require, or the materials needed to make the butterfly. So, you know how the Livy's Hope cupcake was 3D with pink dots all over it?  Well, that was my brilliant idea. Which , if I do say so myself , made all the difference in the cupcake cuteness factor:)   Initially we were only planning to make 200 cupcakes, so what was the big deal, I thought?  Piping polka dots on 200 butterflies is nothing - we do it all the time. Well, fast forward to a week before the event when we realized over 1200 people had been invited to the event through social media outreach, and that over 300 were planning on attending, with the potential for purchasing  6+ cupcakes each. Then, the polka dots and 3d wings didn't seem quite so cute.... or easy:).  The rest of the cake bar staff was not feeling the love for me when they were making  600+ butterflies and trying to find things to prop the butterfly wings against to let them dry.  Or, when they were piping small pink dots all over 1,200 wings.  That's when it started getting ugly, and name calling began between the staff after hours:)   However, I still maintain, how could I have possibly known the fund raiser would go viral!  And in the end, all the effort was worth it to see Livy and Hailey's face when they got their very own Livy's Hope cupcake, complete with 3D wings, pink polka dots and all:)   

 The response was just nutty right from the beginning! The very first day we announced the event, we had people calling about pre orders, which was two and half weeks before the fundraiser weekend. By the beginning of the week of the event, we had 300 pre-orders for Livy's Hope cupcakes.  That means that before we had started making the increased number of  600 cupcakes, we were already in the hole because of 300 pre-orders.  So you can see, our original math of making 200 Livy's Hope butterflies spread out over Fri, Sat, and Sun wasn't going to cut it.  Nor was the planned increase to 600 cupcakes that we had started planning a few days earlier.  Now, it appeared we were going to need to make over 2,000:) 

So, Angie and I sat down again to figure out what we were going to do.  First, we called Jonathon and Allison hyperventilating - it was ALL such good news and we were so excited, however we also didn't want to let anyone down by not having the needed product to support the number of people!  Angie, Jonathon, Allison and I came up with a new plan, where we included ALL cupcakes in the fundraiser, instead of just the Livy's Hope cupcakes.  This idea seemed to not only benefit the Scheinman family more from a proceeds perspective, but also allowed more customers the chance to donate to Livy's Hope, without the fear of running out. 

Once the cupcake volume hurdle was overcome, we were able to breathe a bit easier.  I think our neighbor's Dean Bank must have heard about our anxiety, as they called and offered to help us in any way t hey could.  The HR Director himself came down to help us fold boxes in preparation of the event! 

Then we had to staff the event.  Which again, at the initial thought of selling 200 cupcakes was not a big deal at all.  However, selling 2,400 cupcakes in three days requires more staff than we have available in one day... ever:) So we started calling people that Jonathon, Allison, and I grew up with trying to find folks to donate their time.  I also started calling previous employees that I was hoping would have time to come  help us make as many quality cupcakes as we possibly could within 3 days.   Which they did... and we were so grateful!   

So, that brings us to the first day of the event.  Angie and I kept guessing about what the traffic patterns would be like daily for planning purposes.  I kept   insisting  that Friday morning and afternoon wouldn't be crazy busy because people were working. I assumed that everyone would come either after work, or on Sat/Sun,  so we could breathe easy during Friday morning.  Well, apparently, my thought process wasn't all that unique because everybody showed up  on Friday morning to MISS out on the evening and weekend rush, lol.  So, again, my planning hat seemed to have a big hole in it:) 

Once we got over ALLL that, it was a breeze:)  Most people were so gracious if they came and the Livy's Hope cupcakes ran out, or if their favorite  flavor was sold out, and we were so thankful for that. I wrote on facebook that morning that I had watched the "young Heros" video about Hailey and Livy from the Livy's Hope blog and was reminded, once again, why were doing all of it.  Its a wonderful story, about 4 amazing people that deserved celebration!!! Once i remembered why were we doing all of it, the rest my anxiety passed and we had a blast.  I'm so thankful that we were able to participate in such an event!  It was an amazing experience that I know we will not soon forget.  Thank you Livy, Hailey, Jonathon, and Allison for your inspirational message and lifestyle! Allison's friend came down and took some amazing photos of the weekend that are all posted on facebook, but I'll repost some here for those that are not facebook users:) And ps, if you fall into the catageory of non facebook user you need to accept that facebook is a part of your life and join! Its just a guess, but I think its here to stay;)  Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

 Tracie 



For those of you that came out and supported this wonderful family and cause, we genuinely appreciate it!  Please know, you've participated in an event that will make a difference.  For those that weren't able to make it down, please consider donating directly to Livy's Hope at www.livyshope.com, and while your there, read up on how you can make a difference with your own story of hope!!!!!!!