I am a huge fan of holidays, birthdays and really any type of celebration. Tune in for holidays and birthdays for special flash sales and discounts! Get a 10% discount on any loaf as a birthday gift from me!

Evanston Farmer’s Market

I had the opportunity to take part in the Evanston Farmers Market where I got to expand my reach outside of the Wildcat community and into Evanston and beyond. I had an incredible time sharing my passion for running and bread with everyone at the market! Great bread, even better energy, and who can hate on a free sample!

Graduations

Graduations are such an incredible accomplishment – a milestone, time to reflect on your growth (maybe have a panic about time moving too fast) but overall a celebration of the person’s hard work and character. Whether graduating from preschool, middle school, high school, college, med school, or even graduating through the day – nothing can make the event more special than an epic cake! Class of 2024 highlighted some incredibly hardworking grads so lets give them some kudos.

Paige graduated from Northwestern in a mere 3 years and is now headed to UChicago to for grad school!

Patrick graduated high school and is headed to Colorado Boulder to continue his education (and hikes).

Abby graduated from LSU and is headed a worldwide travel adventure throughout Europe.

MCAT Celebration

I could not be more proud of Claire for enduring the endless studying and 7 hour exam that is the MCAT – just to begin medical school. As my freshman year roommate, I have watched this girl work through a plethora of classes I cannot even pronounce. She is an EMT and works overnight shifts in the ER! As the most hard working person I know – she deserves this chocolate peanut butter crunch cake and so much more!

Spring BBQ

Suns out buns out – or should I specify sourdough hot dog buns. You cannot have a good grillin BBQ with homemade sourdough hot dog buns and homemade sourdough soft pretzels WITH a homemade cheese sauce.

Wildcat Baseball

You cannot go to a baseball game and resist a Bavarian pretzel – much less when it is homemade AND sourdough. Although they may have lost this particular game, the pretzels will give them the motivation to victory.

Valentines Day

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays! Naturally, I concocted some brown butter M&M sourdough cookies and some sourdough sugar cookies, bagged them up and passed them out all day!

Birthdays

Liv decided to celebrate her girlfriend’s birthday with a suprise citrus themed extravaganza. Naturally, we ventured to Michael’s with nothing concrete in mind, but low and behold, upon entry (and on sale) were dozens and dozens of citrus themed items from plates to candles to napkins. Naturally this set up this birthday event for her girlfriend visiting from California perfectly. The only way to top it? An olive oil citrus cake with an orange curd and homemade whipped cream topped with homemade candied oranges and edible flowers.

Julia celebrated her 21st with a little “cake on the lake” celebration – enjoying a cake enhanced picnic with a view of the beautiful lake. She celebrated with a marble cake with vanilla icing, a childhood favorite of hers enhanced by a chocolate mousse and chocolate fudge filling – the perfect balance of vanilla and chocolate I would say.

Lauren’s big birthday celebration! This was exciting because I got to experiment with some flavors – the request was chocolate but find a way to make it less rich. Naturally the tart raspberry jam filling and a light whipped cream cheese frosting perfectly balances the richness of the chocolate. While whipped cream frostings are a nightmare to decorate, I whipped something together. Only the best to celebrate miss Lauren!

If there is one thing I know to be true about Clark – this man loves some tea. He screams British man in all ways from vibes to style and if he could carry tea in a flask and take it everywhere, he for sure would. One of my first interactions with Clark he brought us some homemade blueberry scones that were left over from his tea party – obviously this man should be treated with a London Fog Earl Grey cake to celebrate his 21st!

You know what they say – once you graduate you simply immediately become an elderly woman. As featured in the get up by dear Katherine, dressing as the immediate shift the girls on the cross country team will take upon graduating, this cake celebrates the full circle of life. Katherine celebrated her birthday with a chocolate cake, vanilla icing, and a delicious brigadiero filling.

Rolling right through May we have the coconut lover herself – celebrating her 21st where a very specific coconut cake with coconut frosting. As her crown states, she is officially legal in this grand old town of Chicago.

Another day, another Lilly. Luckily for me, Lilly is quite a fun name to write in cursive. My bestie Lilly was celebrated in our lovely home with a funfetti cake and strawberry filling. Absolutely divine! Nothing tops funfetti post karaoke.

Kicking off the month of may with a bang could not be done better than with Aliza’s birth! We celebrated a Clue themed party where I made my best attempts at a “bleeding” cake with a thick raspberry coulis complimented by the cute exterior of a strawberry lemon cake with a lemon buttercream frosting.

No better way to finish off the trifecta of birthdays than with a celebration for Alex! After requesting a rather simple cake – chocolate with vanilla buttercream, Alex challenged me with a gold themed cake. While gold is a difficult color to perfect, I rallied many attempts at a good shade and landed on this beautiful cake.

Oh but of course! Emily and her love for tiramisu requires a tiramisu inspired cake – I am talking a fluffy Genoise cake soaked in espresso simple syrup with a mascarpone cream filling and a whipped cream cheese frosting. All this plus a paint and sip? Nothing can top it – with the exception of a weird man (featured in the 3rd photo) named Kiran ruining the surprise with his idiotic actions!

What better way to celebrate Lilly than by surprising her and replicating her favorite holiday – Thanksgiving! Obviously the pressure to choose between an apple pie for the Thanksgiving theme and a cake for the obvious birthday festivities was too great and I resorted to concocting both!

Before we continue take a moment to reflect on the color of this cake. The aim… periwinkle. I do not really know what color that is, but after battling with various shades of grey and taking my best shots at understanding color theory, I made it to some sort of purple. The perfect color to celebrate Izzy!

If there is one thing I now know about Simone – it is that this girl LOVES carrot cake. The request was to make the cake cute and make it KNOWN that it is a carrot cake. So naturally the piping of cute little carrots was essential. The pineapple, carrots, pecans, coconut, and thick caramel filling made this cake a big hit for this carrot cake lover.

Why not have 2 birthday parties for myself! – Celebrating my 21st in Chicago with some friends requires a scrumptious chocolate chai cake with chai cream cheese frosting and an apple spice filling!