FAQ #2: Do you watch all those baking shows?

In short, yes. Yes I do.

However, to further illustrate this, let me describe my current situation as I write this blog post:

I’m sitting in my chair conveniently facing my TV which is on its third hour of Hulu for the night. After finishing the final episode of Buddy vs. Duff (highly recommend) while fixing dinner, I watched a few minutes of Chopped (because it’s Chopped and it’s addicting), and then turned to my new series, Bakers vs. Fakers. All while updating my spreadsheets, planning my weekend baking schedule, posting on social media, and browsing some of my favorite food blogs.

So yeah, I love baking shows! I mostly love them as background noise that I can leave on while I get some work done. But growing up, I would eat, sleep and breathe Food Network.

You simply can’t recreate the drama of a croquembouche tower toppling or a ganache seizing or a last-minute tray of dropped cupcakes. I live for this kind of stuff! Only on TV, though, because when that happens in real life, it’s very terrible.

One of my favorite shows is Cake Boss, you know, with Buddy and his whole Italian/New Jersey family. He toured when I was in high school and stopped in Columbus, Ohio, and I had the privilege of attending his show (thank you, Aunt Tammy!). That was a pivotal point in my baking career—I left inspired, awe-struck, and determined to be Buddy one day instead of watching from the audience.

2012 outside the Palace Theatre in Columbus & in front of the Cake Boss trailer

I think part of the reason I love Cake Boss is because…that is my family! I love telling the story of our 2016 Guarasci Family Reunion. We had 76 people. Seventy-Six! Enough to fill up an entire wing at Deer Creek State Park, along with their golf course’s entire tee sheet that weekend. Let me tell you, though I may only be 25% Italian, I claim it more than anything, because no one knows how to cook, party, or love like Italians.

July 2016, the Guarasci Family! Since then there’s been countless marriages, births, and probably claiming people who aren’t even related as family.

This photo is a great reminder of the important things in life. Since we’re all so disconnected (and it’s looking like living behind masks might be our normal for awhile), taking a second to remember the warmth of family is a great encouragement to endure, whether you have a family of two or of 76.

I guess baking shows lead me back to family. Seems a little strange, even to me, but it’s true. There’s a simple child-like innocence that provides an escape full of buttercream and rainbow sprinkles.

Because I want you to experience the joy of baking shows, here are my favorites with a little insight on what each one offers. If you pay close enough attention, you can really learn a lot while you watch!

While you may still have ample time for binge-watching during quarantine, I hope you enjoy these shows as much as I do. Just make sure you aren’t too hungry when you watch—or else you’ll find yourself baking whatever you can get your hands on in your kitchen.

Talk soon, and feel free to send any of your favorite shows my way!

jorie

PS—the follow-up question is usually, “so when will we see YOU on one of those baking shows?!” My answer is simple—whenever Food Network calls! I have much to learn about competitive baking, but I must say I’m up for the challenge.

FAQ #1: What's My Favorite?

Welcome to my new FAQ series! I’ll be answering all your most pressing questions right here. Before we get started, subscribe below so you don’t miss any of the answers!

FAQ #1: The question I’m asked in about 98.3% of my conversations is “What’s your favorite thing to make?”

That’s a tough question. Every order is unique and special and delicate and charismatic etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. How I respond to this question is by answering with my favorite thing to eat.

Now, I don’t know if this is the answer people are looking for, but it’s an absolute no-brainer for me. In fact, it’s so obvious, I’m just going to let you look at this picture before diving into the answer.

Okay but like seriously, as long as this Peanut Butter Cup cake exists, I have literally zero other cares.

I consider this my signature cake. I started making it when I was about 13, and have only improved since (thankfully). It’s the cake I made on our local TV segment when I was 15, and it’s the cake I featured in my big-girl marketing campaign, Stay Celebrating, as a 22-year-old. It’s tried-and-true throughout the years, and I plan on keeping it on my menu forever, or else I think there would be riots in the streets from my loyal peanut butter cup customers!

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This cake is just so good.

It’s so good that I’m delighted whenever a customer orders any variation of a peanut butter & chocolate dessert because (cue the embarrassment) that means I get to eat whatever is left over.

I have systems for everything I do. The clean-up system for this cake is very strategic and not to be messed with. I get the cake or cupcakes all done, making certain everything is accounted for and won’t need any more icing or ganache, and then get all the boring dishes washed and tools put away. Then…then the fun part.

I save the leftover piping bag with a few tablespoons of peanut butter buttercream left in the tip along with the almost scraped-down bowl of chocolate ganache until the very end of my cleaning. Then I proceed to stand at my sink, take the spoon I use for the ganache, and pipe the last ounce of frosting onto that chocolate covered goodness and literally eat it like I’ve never tasted anything good in my entire life.

Oh. My. Gosh. I would be lying if I said that hadn’t served as my dinner a time or two (college student budgets, am I right?). It’s also been nearly every birthday cake for my family because they love it equally—if not more than—I do. Customers order groom’s cakes, wedding cakes, surprise cupcakes, baby shower cakes, and basically every other kind of cake you can imagine in this flavor.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

In its most basic form, this is a chocolate cake, filled and frosted with peanut butter buttercream, dripped with Chocolate ganache, and topped with chopped peanut butter cups.

But that description doesn’t do nearly enough justice to convey HOW FREAKING DELICIOUS this peanut butter/chocolate cake is. So here’s my ultra descriptive-marketing guru-food show host description for you (and I’m kicking myself that I don’t have a picture of the inside of this cake! We must eat it too fast for that to happen):

Four layers of the most decadent and satisfying fudgy chocolate cake you’ve ever had are filled with a simultaneously airy and rich peanut butter-y buttercream that you’ll wish you could substitute for Jif on your sandwiches every day. The liberal layer of peanut butter frosting around the outside of the cake ensures every bite is saturated with the perfect ratio of peanut butter and chocolate. But, wait! Those bites wouldn’t be complete without themselves being covered in a thick, shiny chocolate ganache coating that serves as the base for swirls of more buttercream to hold chunky pieces of chopped peanut butter cups.

This is the kind of cake that leaves you salvaging every last crumb off of your plastic party plate. It will have you standing in the refrigerator light well past midnight, or maybe even for breakfast at 8am, with only a fork in hand as you go for one more bite, trying to be discreet so no one else in the house will notice. This cake is seriously as good as it sounds, guaranteed.

Don’t overlook the cupcake version, either. These babies are just as good as the real thing, especially if you make a cupcake sandwich out of them (more on that later!).

Now that I’ve successfully made you crave this Peanut Butter Cup Cake, and have most likely made you mad at me for sharing these mouthwatering pictures and ultra-visual descriptions with no samples, I think it’s time for me to sign off.

If you would like to place an order for my signature cake, please do! Because that means I get the leftovers. Well, and you get this cake. Which makes this a win/win! Visit the Contact tab up top to submit a form, and you’ll have your cake in no time!

Cheers!

jorie

Home Run Biscuits

Fox in the Snow Biscuits.

It’s okay if you stop right here and admire this picture for awhile.

If you’re from Columbus, Ohio, you know that after visiting the garage-turned-gourmet-cafe called Fox in the Snow on 4th Street in Italian Village, your life will be changed. Seriously. It’s the most incredible place I’ve ever been. It’s everything I can aspire to own one day!

Fox in the Snow Photo from ABC6.

I dream (daily) about the industrial-yet-rustic atmosphere monogrammed with the world-famous fox logo; about the natural light beaming in through the ivy vines along the glass garage door panels; about the wood grain tables and personal pourover coffee pots; about the windows above the counter where you can set up your laptop and let the background be the ballet of bakers working on the most decadent pastries you’ve ever eaten.

Then there’s the pastries. The pastries! The pastries that greet you from the hallway entrance behind clean glass panels and force you into choosing one for that day—but it usually results in two or three because the choice is nearly impossible. And then there’s the biscuits.

Fox in the Snow pastry case, Summer 2019. That’s not my arm reaching for that Blueberry Galette, but it very well could be.

Truth be told, I’ve never had a Fox in the Snow biscuit. Until the pandemic, I didn’t even know that was a menu item (I’m always blinded by the stunning blueberry galettes, like above!). However, with a brilliant marketing strategy and an effort to keep people baking while quarantined, Fox in the Snow released their official biscuit recipe for us to try at home, along with this incredible video from one of the owners.

I’ve wanted to try these biscuits for the past 8 weeks of quarantine, but haven't because I’ve needed to ration my butter and flour to use for customers’ orders. Then I was going to make my mom a Mother’s Day cake, but seeing as we still had approximately 8.2 pounds of my graduation cake left, we didn’t need more. So, finally I had a reason to make these beauties!

Here’s how it went:

I woke up unintentionally around 6:30am on Sunday, because apparently that’s how the day was going to go. What else would I do besides make biscuits?

I snuck upstairs, brewed myself a cup of coffee which I had to put in my Fox in the Snow mug, and pretended I was drinking a vanilla latte made by a barista instead of French vanilla black coffee made by my Keurig. Sigh.

Then I made some dough, following their recipe to the T with big chunks of butter and just enough sugar to bring a subtle sweetness throughout the flaky layers.

When it came to cutting the biscuits, I chose my medium biscuit cutter and got 12 rounds out of the dough (as opposed to their 8, oops!).

An interesting instruction from the recipe is to not twist the biscuit cutter at the bottom of the cut. You push straight down and lift straight up. That gives the biscuits a clean edge and a flat bottom to set on the baking pan.

But that clean edge doesn’t really matter when you brush on the egg wash. This isn’t just any egg wash, either. The addition of heavy cream in this pre-bake glaze makes such a smooth and velvety wash…you’ll just want to drown them in it.

Pro tip: Don’t drown them. Because then the excess wash will settle on your baking pan and it'll make your oven and entire kitchen smell like burning scrambled eggs.

Here they are out of the oven. I could admit that they’re leaning, or I could just use the industry go-to term, “rustic,” to excuse their uneven and misshaped form. So we have rustic biscuits now!

I’m guessing the lean resulted from the dough being cut too thick, and then when they rose in the oven, they got a little top-heavy and, well, toppled. However, this didn’t affect the taste one bit! If anything, it gave a perfect visual to see each flaky layer between the crisp bottom and the golden brown top.

In fact, after I brushed on the honey butter and topped it with some turbinado sugar (the recipe calls for salt, but I’m a sweet fan myself! I also have 176oz of Turbinado that I didn’t order, so I’m using it in literally everything), we cancelled breakfast.

Please notice the fruit bouquet I made at 7am on Mother’s Day because my mom’s gift didn’t come in the mail in time. When all else fails, see what you can do with what’s in your fridge!

Have you ever taken snacks to a group of kids and been straight-up mobbed? Well, that’s what happened when I took these biscuits out of the oven. My parents came running. They begged “can we pleeeease have one before church while they’re hot?” Obviously I allowed it, because I wanted one too.

They were so good that we each had one, watched a 60-minute church service, and decided we didn’t need my dad’s famous Mother’s Day breakfast. Usually nothing comes between us and his Sunday morning pan-fried sausage, hash browns, and scrambled eggs; but when there’s hot Fox in the Snow biscuits, nothing else matters.

If you’re wondering why this post is called “Home Run Biscuits,” it’s because as my mom was leaving the kitchen, one bite into a warm biscuit, she yelled from the hall “home run!” I’ll take it.

The last thing I’d advise you to do, though these would be good hot off the baking sheet or with some butter slabbed across the top, is to make some strawberry jam.

I have no idea how to make jam. The only thing I know about canning comes from watching those apocalypse prep reality shows that feature people who live in underground bomb shelters with 42 years’ worth of home-canned food.

However, I do know how to cut up some strawberries, throw them in a pot with sugar and lemon juice, and let it simmer until its super thick and syrupy and good enough to eat with a spoon. So that’s what I did.

Take that spoonful of jam, carefully break apart one of the dozens of layers of your biscuit, and generously (liberally) spoon it over the top. WOW.

That’s all it is!

For my Columbus friends, do yourself a favor and drive to Fox in the Snow (they have multiple locations!) and BUY EVERYTHING. Please think of me while you’re there! Also please tell them to open an Atlanta location.

For everyone else, do yourself a different favor and MAKE THESE BISCUITS! They’re simple, fun, and oh-so-delicious. Put them up on Instagram, tag @foxinthesnowcafe, and they’ll repost your creation!

This isn’t affiliated with or sponsored by the cafe, however I just love it so much I wrote a whole post about it, and I think you’ll love it too.

Enjoy, Biscuit Lovers!

jorie

It's Macaron Monday!

Are Macaron Monday’s a thing in the baking world?

I’m not sure, because the truth is, I’ve always been too intimidated to make them! The precision required to weigh, sift, fold, pipe, bake, and assemble the little French meringue cookies scared me off…and I’ve owned a home bakery for ten years!

Because of this extended social distancing time, I decided to give macarons a shot since I’m not filling orders and have time for a little R&D. Let’s be honest, baking research and development trumps all other industries. I get to look through Pinterest, browse other blogs, take mouth-watering pictures—and it usually ends with a taste test.

For my first bake with macarons, I wanted to try a standard, vanilla recipe that would give good feedback and had clear instructions. You can find the whole thing here at one of my favorite blogs, Preppy Kitchen. I read through his tips and committed them to memory, and then just started baking.

You’ll need a few special ingredients for macarons, namely almond flour. I’ve never worked with almond flour, but it needs sifted. A lot. And then you need to throw away all of the parts that are too big for the sifter so they don’t impede your delicate meringue.

Oh, and the vodka. Like I said, this is strictly for R&D (wink), so I used the vodka to wipe down my mixing bowl and attachment to sterilize them and rid them of any excess oil that may deflate my meringue. But, if you find any secondary uses for the leftover vodka, by all means, continue that R&D! And please let me know how that goes.

I’ve also never baked with a scale before—I know, shocking. But I decided to put my new scale to use, since macarons have an incredibly low margin for error. Measuring in grams (as opposed to cups, ounces, etc.) really isn’t that difficult and there wasn’t as big of a learning curve as I expected.

Next came the actual making of the batter, or macronage, which, from what I gather, is a fancy word for stirring. It requires patience, attention, and some arm muscles (no seriously, folding 40-50 times really works your upper body!). The most important part of the mixing, once you get stiff peaks in your meringue, is folding. Fold, fold, and fold those dry ingredients some more until you get “figure 8 ribbons” in your batter.

Figure what? That’s about the most vague description I’ve ever heard. But this video from Sugar Geek helped me see that, yes, you actually do fold until your batter can make a continuous figure 8. So that’s what I did!

Then I filled my piping bag and piped 1-inch circles all over my parchment paper that I stuck down with some batter. I wasn’t sure how much the meringue would spread in the oven, so I spaced them out a good bit. After you pipe them, you let them rest until they set up and are firm to the touch.

The 40-minute resting time went pretty quick, because we had a family Zoom call to distract me!

Sorry, you probably don’t care about that. But I do! So that’s why I put in on here. Because it’s my blog and I do what I want (kidding, sort of).

Back to the Macs:

Here they’ve rested and are ready for the oven. The resting period lets them rise up in the oven instead of spreading out, or so I’ve been told.

And that’s exactly what they did! *silently fist pumps alone in my kitchen.

I put nonpareil rainbow sprinkles on half of them, just to further my R&D work. And because I love them.

Okay, the hard part is done! All that I did after celebrating their seamless baking process was whip up a batch of my favorite vanilla buttercream, threw it in a piping bag, and piped a circle onto the bottom of half of the cookies, then topped them off with the other half of the batch.

Well, then I rolled some in sprinkles, because like I said earlier, I can. And I love sprinkles.

To answer your question, yes, I did get a little heavy-handed with the buttercream. But again, buttercream is my favorite part of any dessert, and I made these macarons for myself. Therefore, I put lots of buttercream in them.

Now we’re done!

Except, don’t eat them. At least not for another day or two after they sit in the fridge. Supposedly the flavors develop to give you a cohesive Mac, but clearly I couldn’t wait, so I took a bite. But I needed a good picture (see above), so someone had to do it.

Best of luck with your own Mac bakes, and be sure to let me know how it goes! I promise, it’s not as scary as it looks.

If I can do it, you can too!

xoxo,

jorie

Southern Living: Villa Rica Edition

So, Redneck Yacht Club, huh? Welcome to our life in Georgia! 

Jorie, circa 2000, ready for lake life. Obviously.

Thirteen trips to-and-from Ohio later, we found our house on a tiny lake in West Georgia. It wasn’t that easy, however, because in those 13 trips we worked with four realtors in multiple cities and looked at a minimum of 85 houses. Yes, we have high standards, but we also wanted a lake house (sounds a lot more glamourous than it actually is…we’re not talking about the Taj Mahal here!), and lake houses in Georgia are all…unique, to say the least.

The reasoning for a lake house? My mom swore she wouldn’t become my dad’s hobby in retirement; in an effort to preserve our family, we all needed built-in activities and had been accustomed to life on water. And now that I’ve lived on water, there’s no turning back. Which is not ideal for my soon-to-be post-graduate budget. 

The Hodapp’s, June 2016. The happiest day of all of our lives, since my high school graduation meant I would FINALLY stop complaining about high school.

In a tiny little southern town called Villa Rica (for Spanish speakers, or even those who know a little bit about the language, in Georgia it’s not pronounced Vee-ya Ree-ca. It’s vil-la rick-uh. Villa Rica. You got it, now just add in some southern twang and slow your speed down, and you’d fit right in with the locals). After some nauseous driving through the backwoods of Georgia, we made our last trip as guests and would return as Georgia residents in just a few short months. 

In June of 2016, I’d just graduated high school (hallelujah), and was swamped with my last cake orders in Ohio before the move. This period of my life was pretty much a blur as graduation day had become the happiest day of my life up to this point. We spent that summer back and forth from Ohio moving our belongings 10 hours south to a neighborhood where we could count on zero hands the people we knew, and to a city where they drop a golden nugget on New Year’s Eve in the town square. Not kidding. 

This is truly what dreams are made of.

On June 21st, 2016, a few days before my college orientation, we closed on our new house. We planned to stay there for a few days until heading to Berry for SOAR, so we brought some essentials with us. You know, things like air mattresses, beach chairs, a folding table, clothes, golf clubs, my Kitchenaid mixer, and some snacks.

Our first dinner at our new house, June 2016. Leave it to the Italians to christen the kitchen with boxed spaghetti and jarred tomato sauce. The definition of gourmet.

Well, bringing kitchen utensils, for one, would have been a great idea. Curtains also would have been a good idea. And maybe lamps, shower supplies, and cleaning products would have all been good ideas. But no, we were ready to sit on the dock and drink room-temperature bottled water for the next few days. Priorities, right?

This was our pantry upon arrival. Stocked with nutrients. At least we wouldn’t totally starve.

My mom and I lived like nomads for an entire summer while my dad kept working in Ohio. I promise, we are two very intelligent women, but sometimes we just look at each other and shake our heads like, “what in the world were we thinking?!” 

Seriously, we had no curtains on the back of our house, which is 95% windows and faces a lake with lots of activity during all hours. 

We grocery-shopped at the local Walmart and bought a can of beans for tacos and couldn’t use it because we didn’t think to get a can opener. 

We lived out of a travel-size cooler because the house came without a refrigerator—and we didn’t even think to go buy one, fully knowing that we would eventually make that purchase so we could, you know, live there. So we continued eating non-refrigerated and non-canned food off and on for three months.

Somehow, we survived, and as soon as my dad made the trip down, he looked in a closet, found some curtains, and held them up to us and asked the simple question, “why didn’t you hang these up?” Listen people, there’s no manual on how to move into a new house. But my mom and I lived as though we were stranded with no knowledge of how to use Command Hooks to avoid waking up and going to bed according to the sun’s schedule, not to mention avoiding all back-lit windows when it got dark and people could see in. Needless to say, we make a great pair, but we really need my dad if we actually want to survive for any length of time with any sense of logic or rationality.

Jorie + Dad, summer 2018. It took us another 2 years to realize we could hang curtains in my room, too, not just the upstairs. We consider ourselves a family of geniuses.

That summer may have been a blur, but it’s one I wouldn’t trade for the world. Little did I know, my life in Villa Rica hadn’t even begun yet, and my college life in Rome would be unlike anything I could imagine in a sleepy southern berg.

That’s all for this time! Excuse me while I go sit on our deck—in a real chair, around a real table—and eat some pasta that was fixed with more than one communal utensil.

Y’all Come Back, Now!
jorie

**Please note, I poke fun at Villa Rica and its southern culture because I truly love it. A humble little spot in West Georgia has unsuspectingly become home, at least for the last three years and a few/many more to come. It’s also rumored that I myself have developed a bit of an accent…if you want to hear the thick of my southern draw, just make me mad, and you’ll get an earful, bless your heart!

Berry What?!

Berry College—like the fruit—is where I had my sights set. And *spoiler* it’s the name that’s about to be on my diploma this spring! 

Jorie, circa 1998, ready for an All-American lifestyle (read ‘til the end to see why this American flag picture is relevant!).

Remember that 27-minute phone call I had with the golf coach in the last post? I think you need to know the backstory, because it’s wild. That is all.

In the fall of 2015 (during my senior year of high school), Coach was driving the women’s team to their tournament in Destin, Florida, when my initial email came through on his phone. He miraculously had a player in the van from Ohio, so he showed her my email. She didn’t know me directly, but sent my name to her former teammate who was still in high school in Ohio. Turns out, we’d been paired together in a tournament that summer. Talk about a small world.

Jorie + Mom, 2020. We’d end up making thirteen (13) trips back and forth from Ohio to Georgia between college-shopping and home-buying. Needless to say, we make a pretty good travel pair. And we’re pretty good at finding random beaches to visit everywhere we go.

That kind of sounds like one of those “my sister’s-cousin’s-neighbor’s-great-granddaughter knows-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy” stories, and that’s actually not too far from the truth. The chances of the Berry College golf team having a player from Ohio were slim-to-none, but there she sat in the van, about to help me out tremendously.

After a decent recommendation from that teammate-of-a-teammate, the next week Coach Farrer drove 9 hours to watch me play a few holes in the state championships, and the next weekend I visited Berry for the first time with my mom.

At this point it really wasn’t that long ago that I thought Berry College was a tenant in a strip mall along I-75 in a forgotten middle-of-America zip code. As my first step on campus revealed, Berry was, in fact, not a strip mall, but…

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I’D EVER SEEN.

I mean, it has a castle. Come on.

Coach proceeded to spend 8 hours showing my mom and I around campus—the castle, the water wheel, mountain campus, the chapel, the gym, both golf courses and practice facilities, the dining hall, and a little bit of Rome community. There was nothing I didn’t love, and the thought of spending four years in this fairytale setting made it reallyyyy hard to finish out the next few months of high school, and in the dead of winter nonetheless.

Berry College. Need I say more? Except for the fact that yes, those are people canoeing in the reflection pond.

This time the 10-hour trip through farmland and cornfields back to Ohio didn’t seem as long. My mom and I left campus with a little more hope than the previous trips, and our heads spinning with the excitement of finding my home at Berry. We could see our years of planning finally coming together during a time when we really started to question everything we were giving up for a little sunshine and a few rounds of golf.

I regularly joke about my parents following me to college because—who does that?! But when you look at the situation as a whole, God aligned every part of the process that made the decision almost a no-brainer. I was an only child with parents nearing retirement, with no siblings, or even pets, to hold us in Ohio. The weather really was a driving factor, and once all of us got on board with the thought of southern living, everything seemed to fall into place, but not without a lot of prayer and too many setbacks to count. We may be a family of three, but I think we’re a family of three hoarders. Literally. U-Haul almost ran out of moving trucks for all our stuff (and that was after 26 SUV loads of stuff donated to the thrift store).

Please, no judgments.

You may be wondering what this all has to do with baking cakes. Well, without me, there are no cakes to be baked. So basically I’ve roped you into reading my whole life story. But if you’ve made it this far—congratulations, by the way—you’re probably not going to stop now. Especially when I tell you I ran a bakery out of a college dorm room (which I wouldn’t recommend for many reasons, but hey, you can’t re-write history).

In summary, I found where I wanted to go to school, was offered a spot on the golf team, and had narrowed our home-buying radius significantly to a three-hour circle around Mount Berry, Georgia. 

You’ll want to stay tuned to hear about the tiny little town we settled in. Let’s just say it may be the polar opposite of the lifestyle we’d grown accustomed to in Ohio. But there’s no doubt it encompasses the heart of southern hospitality.  It’s definitely not lacking in the pickup truck, cowboy boot, or American flag categories either (maybe my patriotic baby picture foreshadowed all this?).Before I publish the next part of the story, I encourage you to watch this music video of “Redneck Yacht Club” to get an idea of my family’s current living situation. Just know that it’s spot on, and we absolutely love it.

See y’all next time!

jorie

Bird Lady Adventures

So you probably think I graduated from high school, opened a bakery storefront in a quaint southern town, and am making a killer profit right about now.

Jorie & Grandpa, circa 2001, probably making the infamous Buckwheat Pancakes I so dearly despised as a 4-year-old (love you, grandpa, but why you made me eat buckwheat pancakes is beyond me).

Wrong. Very wrong. Though that would have been a dream come true, a lot of other factors were involved. Namely, remember those horrid winters I mentioned a while ago? Yeah, never living through one of those again, or at least for the next four years. Take the desire to move anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line and the advice from my parents to get a college degree because, “What if you’re thirty and never want to bake another cake again? Then what do you fall back on?”, and you have a very good point. Plus, I wanted to fulfill my goal to play college golf. 

So, college it was. 

Now this part of the story really isn’t made up. If you need an example of God’s handiwork in modern times, keep reading…

“Mom, Dad, I’m not staying in Ohio after I graduate. I’m going south. You can come visit me, or you can come with me, but I’m getting out of this place,” said twelve-year-old me. 

Yeah, right. What parents are going to listen to their only kid, let alone actually go along with her idea?

For the record: I’m keenly aware of the “Only-Child Syndrome.” It’s a real thing. And I praise God daily for giving me parents who worked tirelessly to make sure no one could tell I’m an only child (I still don’t like sharing, but at least I know how to do it!). 

As you may know, my parents listened to me. Clearly, I didn’t fully think through my ultimatum, because they actually came with me to college.

Okay, so maybe they didn’t actually follow me to college, but it makes for a great story. At one point it was suggested that my mom get a job in Rome. On campus. Like where I live. And occasionally she still threatens me with that proposal. Basically, I just gave the three of us an excuse to escape the eight months of snow that made us all miserable.

After we decided that we were all packing up and moving, we started counting down our move by winters— “only five more of these until we’re gone!”  And for those next five winters, we entertained ourselves on Zillow looking up houses anywhere from Alabama to North Carolina. 

Just to add in another major life event, I still had to find somewhere to go to college, and wherever that would be would decide (relatively) where we would buy a house. My search was rather slim, knowing I wanted a smaller, private Christian school where I had a shot at playing on the golf team. Shouldn’t be too difficult, I thought, which was a rather naive thought considering we had absolutely no idea where to look, or how to call coaches, or what schools even existed that fit all of my criteria. Oh, and throw in finding a house within three hours of that unknown school *and* my parents retiring and leaving the house my grandpa built…should be a piece of cake! 

Hyperventilating yet? Because I most definitely was.

Yeah, it was a piece of cake alright. One of those hockey-puck-grit-cakes I used to make. But, if there’s one thing I learned: never doubt God. He’s literally the only explanation for how all those moving parts worked—and worked successfully—to get us to Georgia.

Everyone asks, “how did you find Berry College from Dublin, Ohio?” Because in Dublin, Berry College sounded like one of those chain universities in a strip mall parking lot. So, here’s the answer to that question that requires a little imagination and a lot of faith:

My smart grandparents, who live half the year in Ohio and the colder half in Florida, happened to be on vacation in Pennsylvania. This isn’t relative to the story, but I think it should be known that they were on a bird-watching trip. If you know my golf-playing, grocery-store-owning, practical-minded grandpa, you know this probably wasn’t his idea (considering he hates birds), but he agreed to go anyway. Nonetheless, they were on a quest to find the Roseate Spoonbill, or something like that.

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Please enjoy the above gallery of pictures with my grandpa and I! Eight pictures don’t nearly do justice to the impact he’s had on my life, my golf game (still working on the three-putting thing), and my business.

In the lobby of their bed and breakfast, they met a lady who, to this day, we’re not entirely sure actually exists. She pulled a chair up to their breakfast table (there’s always one of those people at those kind of places) and started making conversation.

Because of my recent local celebrity baker status, the subject naturally turned to me (or maybe because I had visited 12 schools, liked none of them, and was frantically trying to find a place to go after graduation; but I like to think the conversation turned to me because I’m a celebrity). “Our granddaughter really wants to play college golf in the south, but she’s not having much luck finding a school,” they explained.

The frail, middle-aged woman urged them to pass along the name Berry College. It’s a school in Rome, Georgia, that is globally known for its nest of bald eagles.

Jorie & Coach, May 2018 at the DIII Women’s Golf National Championships. A sneak peek of why Berry is the best decision I ever made—or, rather, how Berry is the best decision ever made for me.

How fitting.

Berry College, you ask? Like the fruit? Yes, that one! My chances of playing college golf were quickly shrinking, so out of curiosity and a little desperation, I called the coach at Berry College and talked to him for 27 minutes on the phone. If you know me, you know that one phone call minute feels like 3 regular minutes, and actually enjoying a phone call is a modern-day miracle. I hung up, knowing I’d go there, without ever having seen the campus or the school’s website come up in any of my hundreds of Google searches. 

I’ll leave you wondering about where the bird lady adventures lead, and how this all connects to my passion for baking. I promise, it’ll all come together! But I’m telling you, there’s no other explanation for my travels besides the Good Lord Himself pulling it together. I mean, who would’ve thought I’d end up at Berry College—and love it, by the way!

Talk soon!
jorie

The Story Continues: Chef in Training

Hello Again!

If you came back to read this post, you must be okay with the fact that I’m a Cupcake Camp dropout, and for that, I thank you!

Jorie, circa 2000, proudly holding my very own gingerbread house. Disclaimer: I will continue using baby pictures because my self-esteem is not ready for pictures of 12-14 year-old Jorie to hit the internet (braces and glasses were not my look).

Anyway, let’s pick up where we left off, shall we?

I believe I just revealed that I dropped out of Cupcake Camp.

I mean really, you can’t expect me, a savvy twelve-year-old with purpose and discipline, to return to that barbarian cupcake camp ridden with who-knows-what kind of diseases. Sigh. Square one, again. 

That fall after my failed attempt at summer camp my mom came across cake decorating classes at the local craft store. She called to sign my same friend and I up for redemption. Unbeknownst to us, we had to be sixteen to take the class by ourselves. Problem solved, Mom’s coming too!

We trudge through the Ohio snow to arrive at the first class of “Buttercream Basics.” Little did we know that Betty Crocker herself would be our instructor. Okay, may not actually Betty, but Miss Sandy was pushing 85 and had never gone a day without wearing an apron; though she could make a mean buttercream rose in her sleep. After four weeks of Miss Sandy’s strict frosting bootcamp, we all knew how to make a round cake with a rainbow and clowns on it. Pure elegance. 

We received our Buttercream Basics diplomas (except for my friend, who hated the class, and everything related to cake decorating, and decided to hang up her apron. FYI—she is very talented in other areas!), and that was that. 

Except, aha! THIS could be how I make my money! 

After all, I did love the decorating and took to it easily. With a little practice, I’d be off and running in no time, right?

Have you ever taken a bite of sand?

Jorie, 2013, proudly standing behind the very first wedding cake I ever made. I was 15, and was so very close to exiting that very awkward stage of life (see note above).

That was my starting point for a from-scratch vanilla cake recipe. That little bit of practice I thought I’d need turned into many months of recipe testing with many failed attempts and many dollars spent on wasted ingredients. You’d be surprised how many “Light and Fluffy White Cake” and “Best Vanilla Cupcake” recipes result in gritty hockey pucks better used as paperweights or adhesive paste than delicate desserts. 

I paused on the cake testing at the gentle urge of my parents who were tired of trying terrible samples and pretending they “weren’t that bad.” In the meantime, a little frosting recipe testing could pass the time until we were ready to brave the cake arena yet again. 

The buttercream recipe I was taught in cupcake class was made from, how do you say it—lard. Yeah, that white slimy stuff that comes in the giant Crisco cans that we’re 98% sure comes from unpleasant animal parts. (In my opinion, that shouldn’t classify as buttercream. You know, since it’s not butter. Though I suppose if they marketed it as lardcream, no one would willingly partake.) The lard alone was a turnoff, but the fact that my mom’s entire kitchen and everything in it was coated with a hefty layer of shortening didn’t help its cause. Gross. 

Upon further research with a hint of a miracle, I learned that American-style buttercream omits the lard. Woohoo! Leave it to America to commit to 100% butter. Thank you for your service, Ms. Paula Deen. One trip to Sam’s Club and 25 pounds of butter and powdered sugar later, I found my recipe, and haven’t turned back since. 

The infamous Salted Caramel Cupcake that looked amazing, but literally tasted like a mouthful of sand, circa 2012.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the recipe testing stories, but just know that my salted caramel cupcakes have improved roughly 9000% since my first attempt (which I served on a family vacation where everyone politely found the trash can after one bite. Sorry, Guarasci’s and Bruning’s). 

Here I’ll leave you, wondering if my family ever lets me bake for them again (hint: they did, reluctantly).

Thanks for reading!

Cheers!
jorie

Yes, I'm a Cupcake Camp Dropout...

Well Hello, There!

Jorie, circa 1998. As you can tell, I’ve always had a deep love for cake.

If you’ve made it to this page, you must want to know the *real* reason I started Jorie Cakes. I can’t make it up, I really can’t. It’s my hope that you’ll find as much joy reading as I do writing—and enticing you with dreamy cake pictures—throughout my ten-years-and-counting cake story. 

Before we dive in to twelve-year-old Jorie, here are the bullet points of who I am now, though lacking details such as my love for trees and my strict diet comprised of the pairing of chocolate and peanut butter.

I am:

Jorie, circa September 2019, in the cake-baking off-season.

• A Dublin, Ohio, native who’s now found her way out of the brutal winters to sunny Atlanta, GA

• A 22-year-old senior at Berry College in Rome, GA (check it out!)

• A member of the Berry Women’s Golf Team, my other life passion, as you can see

• An only child (I’ll forgive you if you don’t want to read after this point, I know only children are the worst)

• A Christian, whose life is fully dependent on the grace I constantly receive from God (because I’m totally incapable of anything on my own, trust me)

• A self-proclaimed foodie & Food Network addict, with the occasional Say Yes to the Dress marathon

• An avid yogi, grocery store aficionado, and research junkie (there’s so much to learn!)

That’s me in a nutshell. Now we can get on to the story you really came here for. Sit back, flip on Food Network in the background, and scroll through the first installment of my story. Enjoy!

Summer, 2009:

I was twelve. A very mature twelve, but nonetheless a kid in search of a job. I have no idea what I so desperately wanted money for (Littlest Pet Shop? American Girl Dolls? A trip to the mall with my middle school friends?), but I found myself in search of an income. 

The logical solution? Babysitting *shivers*. Okay, it can’t be that bad. Oh, it was bad. At least the one time I tried it, it was bad. If I had any say-so in the matter, I would never again willingly find myself in charge of someone else’s kids, no matter how good the pay was. Scratch that off the list. Back to square one. What else can a twelve-year-old do? No babysitting, definitely no dog or cat sitting (tried that, too), and not old enough for a big-girl job. 

My first little cupcake army, circa 2011, NOT made at Cupcake Camp. *Also shot this photo on an iPod touch, because that’s what middle schoolers did.

Here we go—Cupcake Summer Camp! 

Sounded like a blast. And a blast it was—for all the wrong reasons. That summer, a friend invited me to cupcake camp at our local, successful bakery. Coming from a big Italian family, I’d always been a natural in the kitchen. My mom taught me how to use a butcher knife to cut my after-preschool apples at the age of four when I refused to use the inefficient plastic kiddy knives. 

Anyway, here we are at cupcake camp, the oldest campers in what seemed like a glorified daycare center in the back room of this bakery. Everything was going great. I cracked my singular egg into the bowl and returned to my seat. 

Then, the horror. 

The little girl next to me, who clearly lacked any sort of sanitary common sense or public decency, took her hands that were previously, um, in a place they shouldn’t have been, AND STUCK THEM IN THE BATTER. Gasp! Yes, she took her hands out of her drawers, put them in the batter, LICKED THEM, and PUT THEM BACK IN THE BATTER! 

*faints*

It’s true, and it’s a wonder I ever returned to the kitchen after that episode. As I, a self-proclaimed stress-cleaner and perpetual hand-washer, watched in sheer terror, I tightened my apron and willed myself to finish out the day. Upon returning home, my parents oohed and ahhed over my bakery case-worthy cupcakes but were stopped in their tracks when I yelled across the driveway, “DON’T EAT THOSE!” to my dad as he had a cupcake halfway to his mouth. I explained the tragedy that had ensued only hours earlier, and the cupcakes promptly found their new home in the garbage.

That was day one. I’d tell you about days 2-5, but I wasn’t there for those. I’m sure they were great.

I guess this makes me a Cupcake Camp dropout. You know, maybe babysitting wasn’t so bad after all…

Thanks for reading! Check back to see how I overcame the horrors of Cupcake Camp, or subscribe below to have it delivered straight to your inbox.

Cheers!
jorie