I have many close ties to service individuals – my dad was Air Force for 20 years, both sets of grandparents were military, my uncle use to be Fire/Rescue and now does Arson investigations, my brother was Army, and of course my hubby was Army. I know how hard they work & how often their lives are put in jeopardy to protect the rest of us and our freedom.
Bozilla Cakes is offering 15% off any order for active military, police and firefighters (with ID). This includes Bozilla Bites, any occasion cake, and even wedding/ grooms cakes! Make sure to mention it when you call or email to place your order.
I want to say thank you to all of our service personnel!! Y’all make it safe for the rest of us to live our lives.
I got a call from a client today asking about wedding cake prices. I immediately started asking her questions about date, location, etc. She seemed slightly hesitant and finally said that the cake was for a quinceanera. For a second, I had a moment of “oh no!” because I honestly did not know much about them. I know the basics of a quinceanera, but have not done extensive research. I finished asking her the questions I had about the cake and told her I would send her a quote shortly.
Once I had time during the day, I sat down at my computer and googled “Quinceanera.” Wow!! There is a huge market for this! I promptly spent the next 30 mins looking at website after website full of information and products. I learned how wonderful, beautiful, & important this tradition is. It is basically a rite of passage for a 15 year old girl. A quinceanera is really like a wedding without getting married. It can be planned for up to a year in advance and all the family is involved. And the cake that is usually ordered is a wedding cake! At this point, I was extra excited about the customer and got right to her email.
She loved all the info I gave her and were are meeting this weekend to work out all the little details! I am really glad I did my research and learned about quinceanera’s. It is really awesome when people want you to make a cake for their special day – whether it be a wedding, birthday, quinceanera, anniversary, or whatever! They are all special occasions and deserve to be celebrated so that person/persons feel special and loved.
I know there are a lot of vegans and vegetarians here in Austin, and more people are choosing that way of life everyday. So I started wondering what kinds of baked goods and cakes were available to that group. I would love to have several vegan options for birthday and wedding cakes. And I think that it would be possible to do vegan Bozilla Bites too!!
The most important thing I needed to figure out was what items a vegan or vegetarian do not consume and it seems that a vegan is just on a more strict diet than a vegetarian. Vegans remove all animal products from their diet, including dairy. That information basically means that cakes, in general, are vegetarian friendly, but not vegan friendly. I need to eliminate butter, milk, eggs, cream cheese and sour cream. Then, if we use a better flour like rice flour, alternative wet ingredients, and stick with vegetable based oils (which we use anyway) it would be a vegan cake! I am thinking the first one to try is a carrot cake because, for me, carrot cakes are very forgiving when it comes to doing substitutions.
Something else that makes me very excited about providing vegan options is that it will also be a lower fat option for people! So those that are watching their cholesterol can have a cake option that does not contain egg yolks or butter, which I think is incredible!
I also have to do some shopping for vegan ingredients. I am hoping there are vegan alternatives to butter, eggs, and cream cheese products. I think a trip to Central Market is in order….maybe the hubby and I can go this weekend and scope it out (we also really love the beer selection at Central Market).
Check back soon to see how those recipes are coming along…..
Yes, you read that right, I am horrible at using Facebook. I would call myself relatively computer savvy…I can navigate the administrative side of my Web page (with a few initial instructions from my husband), keep up with Twitter, and generally can navigate most of the Web with no trouble! But goodness, I feel like I am learning it all over again with Facebook
I never have had a page/profile (whatever its called!) until I made one for Bozilla Cakes. I don’t know if they just make it difficult to learn to use it or am I just an idiot? I think a big problem I have is when I initially started the page, it asked what category my business was under, and I just chose whatever looked closest to cakes not realizing the choice I just made would completely rule the actions I can do on Facebook. It didn’t seem like an incredibly important choice, so I really didn’t pay much attention. I honestly could not tell you what category I picked. I would have paid A LOT more attention if I knew the impact it would have.
For one, I can not be a Fan of any other business page! The only option it gives me is to make the page one of my favorite pages, which is fine, but I would really like to be a Fan of some businesses and not just favorite their page.
Next, I can’t link my Twitter and Facebook pages! When I first got onto Facebook, there was a blurb about linking them and I was just not ready to do that yet. I was focusing on just getting the page running. Now I want to link them and cant! Arrrggg!
I could list a whole bunch more, but don’t want to go on and on about it, so instead I am going to ask for help! If you know how to fix either of these problems, please let me know.
Ok, I’m done with my little Facebook rant. If you’d like to be a fan of Bozilla Cakes on Facebook, click here.
I have decided to change up breakfast a little bit at Bozilla Cakes. I offer breakfast for the commuters that go between Marble Falls and Austin or vice versa.
Usually I just do a variety of muffins and coffee but I have been wanting to offer something more substantial for those that are not a fan of muffins. I don’t make them overly sweet and substitute butter for applesauce, so they aren’t like a sugar bomb. People kind of expect everything that comes out of a cake store to be like a piece of cake.
So after some pondering and testing, I have decided to sell kolaches! I realize there are various types of kolaches. Some people may consider the ones I make to be a disgrace to the name kolache, but whatevs- they are tasty!
Our kolaches are made with a homemade yeast dough filled with thinly sliced ham and cheddar cheese. I want to have one that has some jalapeno in it for those that love it spicy! So today I am going to put up my new sign so people know that we have them. I love adding new items to our menu, its so much fun.
Usually it makes people feel a little uneasy to try baked goods that are reduced sugar or sugar free. You get a weird, bitter aftertaste and the texture can be sacrificed. But not anymore!
I have a soft spot for people with diabetes, especially Type 1. They were born with a bad pancreas that is attacked by their own cells destroying the islet cells that produce insulin. Insulin helps glucose enter our cells so it can be converted to energy that is used by our muscles and tissues. Therefore, these diabetics can’t handle large amounts of sugar as there is no insulin to facilitate its travel. Without the ability to regulate the amount of sugar in the bloodstream, it just builds up in the bloodstream causing life threatening complications.
With that said, cake is pretty much out of the question for most diabetics unless they have insulin on hand and ready to use! So I decided I wanted to make reduced sugar cakes. And after many attempts…success! I have a chocolate and red velvet cake that has no where near the sugar as a regular cake.
There isn’t a whole lot of good info (at least that I have found yet) on the Glycemic Loads of certain foods. I did find one site that had a pretty comprehensive list of foods, but I don’t know if it is really reliable. So I will go do some more research and hopefully get a book that I can refer too. But based on the site I used….
A regular chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting has a GL of about 29. The new chocolate cupcake with a whipped cream cheese type frosting has a GL of about 8. Yes, that includes frosting! And it’s good frosting. I am actually going to offer it as a regular frosting flavor. The cake is moist and chocolaty without any texture sacrificed. Now I am going to try and expand to other cakes – especially vanilla. I knew chocolate would be the easiest. So now that I know how to substitute the sugar, I want to make as many flavors as I can.
I hope this will not only allow children and adults with diabetes to have a birthday cake or a cupcake, but also give an option to diabetic brides and grooms to have a wedding cake they can actually enjoy. That way they can have their cake and eat it too.
So I’m officially married! My hubby is so fantastic! Its fun to be married. The wedding was as close to perfect as you can get. All of our family was there which was very special. And my brother got to come (who I haven’t seen in about three or so years) – he is on contract in Afghanistan, but luckily had a couple weeks of vacation, and we were able to plan the wedding when we was coming back. That was the first time for him to meet my hubby, too! We started dating about 6 months after the last time by brother was in town. So both of them were a little nervous to meet, but they totally hit it off!
We had a great honeymoon! Came back pretty sore from learning to snowboard. By the last day we were doing better, but still not great. We took some video of each other coming down the mountain and man, I look like I am moving slow as heck! But to me, it felt like I was flying down that hill. Which was a little disappointing when I saw my video. Hmm, oh well…we plan to go snowboarding next season a couple times so maybe we will be better then. If you are looking for a place to visit for skiing/snowboarding, Jackson Hole is the place! It is absolutely gorgeous.
We have a bunch of pics of the wedding and Jackson Hole on our flickr page.
So good to be home!!
I really like the new trend of doing something other than a traditional wedding cake..cupcakes, cake balls, or whatever! There are no rules for it anymore and that is nice. Breaking the rules can be fun!!
We are doing cupcakes for our wedding – carrot cake and Italian cream cake (ICC)…YUM! I asked my soon-to-be hubby what he wanted for cake and it was hard for him to decide..but carrot cake is one of his favorites and he said he really likes the Italian cream cake. I got on a serious kick of making ICC cupcakes a month ago and was bringing home cupcakes at least once a week. So I think after the 3rd or 4th time, they began to grow on him!
I am also on a serious cream cheese frosting kick, so I am glad that both the cupcakes we are using have cream cheese frosting. It seems like it makes everything better….Hope everyone at the wedding likes that.
Ok back on topic! Wedding cake cupcakes have several advantages over regular cake….
1. It is incredibly easy to serve – no need to pay for a cake cutting service either. (Those can be pricey!)
2. I think they are way easier to transport than a large wedding cake!
3. Since they don’t have to be cut, no one is touching the cake with their fingers or leaning over it….you get my drift.
4. Leftovers are much easier to take home with you. Big pieces of cake can be annoying, but cupcakes can be boxed up and are much more likely to be eaten, so there is less waste.
5. You don’t have to worry about the cake being cut wrong and not getting enough servings out of it.
6. And lastly…who can say no to a cupcake!!
Another option from doing a traditional wedding cake is cake balls! Fun, chocolate dipped balls of cake. They are usually slightly smaller than a golf ball shape, so it is a perfect 2-3 bites of cake. Check out the cake gallery for some pics to get an idea of what I’m talking about. And cake balls have the same advantages listed above as cupcakes!
So those of you who are looking for something a little outside the norm, cupcakes or cake balls may be a perfect choice for you.
I have been meaning to write about the first show I went to last Wednesday, but it has been crazy busy with the my wedding and the bakery.
The show was great! I really did not know what to expect, but Crystal from Weddings Unveiled was so incredibly helpful that I felt I was as prepped as I could be. I showed up at 4pm to set up – got the table all done with my books of sample cakes (done by my fiance – and they were awesome. I’ll take a pic and post so you can see), dummy cake, and samples. I made so many samples!! I took three flavors – Italian cream cake, vanilla cake with lemon curd, and chocolate cake with coffee cream cheese frosting.
After setting up, I cruised around to check out the other vendors and it was very exciting. There were several photographers, caterers, and florists. It was really fun seeing what everyone else had brought for their tables, so that way I have some ideas for next time.
Then they started letting the brides in! That is when it got really fun. Luckily, my fiance came by after work to help me so I wasn’t there all by myself. All the brides were so nice and sweet and they seemed to be glowing!! There were several times within the couple hours that I had a line for people wanting cake. And many people came back for seconds. I got great reviews on my cake. People were surprised at how moist they were, even tho they were cut up into 1in x 1in pieces. So hopefully I will see some of the brides for tastings over the next few months!!
Overall, it was a great experience and I learned a whole lot. Can’t really ask for more than that!
I decided to do a blog post on fondant because I can not count the number of times I have said the word “fondant” to someone and gotten a response of “UGH! I do not like fondant!” followed by a grimace, head shake, and sometimes an additional “UGH!”
Most of the fondant people have had is the kind that is bought from a restaurant supply store, baking supply store, or online. It comes in all kinds of colors and flavors but typically doesn’t taste very good. The way I see it, that fondant is not made to eat necessarily..unless you really, really, REALLY need a sugar fix. That fondant is usually used to achieve a specific look – a smooth, clean look to the outside of a cake. And it isn’t just used on wedding cakes! Regular birthday cakes can be covered in it and intricate 3D sculpted cake use fondant regularly. It is just unfortunate that it does such a great job for decorating but doesn’t taste that good.
That is where Bozilla Cakes differs from the rest! We make our fondant at the bakery for each order. It works just as well as the fondant from the store, but it is so good to eat. I heard that people sometimes prefer it over icing (my fiance being one of those). It compliments all of our cakes and doesn’t require you to peel it off before you eat the cake. We make three different flavors of fondant – vanilla, almond, and chocolate an can be colored any shade of the rainbow!
So, before you discount fondant because you don’t like the taste, give ours a try and you may be pleasantly surprised!
Flickr Photos