Monday, November 7, 2011

tanya's treats Holiday goodies for sale!

Decription of tanya's treats Holiday 2011 yummies!
Cookies:
Kolache, Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter Kiss, Maple Nut, Shortbread, Gingersnap, Devil's Food, NEW Bacon Sugar cookies!
... 4 dozen- $25, 8 dozen $45
Goodie Sticks (great stocking stuffer!)
$20 per dozen
Brownies (with or without nuts)
$9 a dozen
Breads:
Banana, Lemon, or Pumpkin
small- $5 each, large $9 each
Cocoa:
The Very Best, Mocha Cocoa Bliss, Aunt Hilda's Aztec Elixir
1 jar $8
1 jar and 1 8oz bag of handcrafted marshmallows $15


Kolache- a small pastry with a fruit filling. Choose Strawberry, Raspberry, or Blueberry.
Chocolate Chip- delicious! I make mine with a bit of ground oatmeal, to create a crunchy texture. You'll love it!
Peanut Butter Kiss- traditional peanut butter cookie with a chocolate candy smack in the middle.
Maple Nut- cookie filled with a maple nut filling. One of my favorites!
Shortbread- traditional Scottish shortbread. Simplicity at it's best!
Gingersnap- The best Gingersnap you will ever taste. Made with fresh ginger. Slightly spicy, super crunchy. Awesome!
Devil's Food- delicious chocolate cookie with marshmallow on top, and chocolate icing on top of that.
Decadent!
NEW Bacon Sugar cookies- sugar cookie with delicious bacon added to the batter. Topped with a bit more of bacon, and maple sugar.

Goodie Sticks- Pretzel Stick wrapped in caramel, rolled in nuts, enrobed in chocolate. Called “Cracksticks” by it's fans, I must admit, they're pretty addictive.

Brownies
- Rich, chocolatey, moist, chewy...Brownies are good! I can make them with, or without nuts, and I can send it in a tray, whole, or cut and wrap individually, to a dozen.

Banana Bread- made without nuts (can add nuts if requested)
Lemon Bread- super lemony. So good!
Pumpkin Bread- pumpkin and spice, so nice!

Cocoa:
The Very Best- creamy, chocolatey, the best cocoa you've ever had!
Mocha Cocoa Bliss- rich cocoa with coffee added. Nom!
Aunt Hilda's Aztec Elixir- a bit of spice added to a delicious chocolatey base. Wow!
Marshmallows are handcrafted, so soft and sweet, perfect for adding to cocoa, or roasting, or just eating out of the bag!

These treats are great gifts, or make great party trays!

All Orders need to be in no later than December 1. Orders will be delivered via USPS (unless local.)
Postage will depend on order size, and where it's going. Email me with any questions! tanyas.treats@gmail.com

To order- email tanyas.treats@gmail.com, once I know where you want it sent, and how much you want, I can then email you back with the postage. It's that easy!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Oh, geez, sorry.

So long since I updated. I really need to update more often.

I'm currently visiting my mom. My Mother's Day gift (very very late Mother's Day gift) to her was to cook a 4 course dinner for her and 4 of her friends. So, for the appetizer, I made a mixed mushroom ravioli with a White Wine sauce, the soup was French Onion, the main course was a horseradish encrusted Prime Rib, Asparagus in Hollandaise and twice baked Potatoes. Dessert was Amaterasu's Delight.

The ravioli was completely from scratch. I used Tyler Florence's pasta recipe, but neither my mom nor myself has a pasta machine, so I rolled them out by hand. The mushrooms were minced very finely and cooked along with finely minced yellow onion. I added salt, pepper, a bit of nutmeg, and white wine vinegar. Delicious. The white wine sauce had a few mushrooms and shallot, again, finely minced, and cooked down, with white wine and a bit of white wine vinegar. Cooked down to appropriate thickness. the thickness of the pasta could have been thinner, but other than that, deeelicious. So now, I need a pasta machine.

The Amaterasu's Delight managed to delight another group of people. That dessert may make me famous. No, really, it's that good.

I made bacon chocolate cupcakes a few weeks ago. That was a successful endeavor. Will attempt to bacon up some more stuff.


The new class at Art Soup starts on Monday. This will be a 6 week class. Good times!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

A really good idea

So, I've been thinking alot about the future of my business. I so very desperately want to own my own business, to be my own boss, to feed people delicious treats on my own terms. I also don't want to get a business loan to do it. So, it can't be a restaurant-not yet. So here is my solution, and I think its a good one.

A vending truck!

Here's how it would work. I would rent a kitchen, part time, and sell goodies out of the truck, probably downtown Tulsa, and Brookside, the big bar areas. I would also hit the area around the BOK center. I would start by selling cupcakes (everyone loves cupcakes!) and coffee drinks, as well as soda, bottled water, energy drinks. As the business progresses, I would add other goodies to the menu. I think it would be successful.

As for the start up: about $20K for the truck. another $10K for taxes, licenses, equipment and ingredients. So, I'm looking at $30,000. Not alot in terms of a business start up, but a lot of money nontheless. I'm going to need help.
I'm thinking of different ways to raise money, and I think the first will be this.
Anyone who donates $30 will get a dozen cookies. You can choose between chocolate chip, gingersnap, or gluten-free and paleo friendly coconut macaroons.
In order for this to work, of course, I'm going to need a minumum number of donations,I'm thinking at least 10. I certainly won't make the whole thing doing this, but it will go into the savings account I'm opening tomorrow. And any money I make selling anything via tanya's treats will go towards this start up. I hope all those that love my baked goods will help me out.

So, if you want to help a girl out, and get a dozen cookies in the process, let me know!
I'm so ready to get this going!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

a teaching gig!

So, orders for cupcakes trickling in, but the newest venture is a teaching gig!  I will be teaching a basic cake decorating class for the Art Soup Program at Youth Services of Tulsa. The class is called "Edible Artwork". I'm really looking forward to it!

Soon, will be time to bottle the vinegars and vanilla extracts. I also need to start the ginger extract, as well as another batch of the orange and the lemon extracts. It will be a busy summer!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Long time, no see!!!

My dearest readers,

I'm so sorry.  I know its been several many weeks since my last update.  Life has done that "life" thing, and I set aside my blogging for a bit.  But no more! I am back, and I am blogging!

So, what have I been up to, you may ask?  Why, cupcakes!  Lots and lots of cupcakes!  I've tried new recipes, refined old ones.  This week is my sisters baby shower.  Yes, I'm getting a new niece or nephew in a month and a half!  My sister and her husband have opted to be surprised when the baby is born, but if you ask my nephew, who will soon be a big brother, he's convinced its a boy.  But back to her baby shower.  She wants 1/2 dozen yellow with lemon filling and vanilla buttercream, and 1/2 dozen chocolate with mocha buttercream.  So, I made some lemon curd, and used the nifty pan my mom gave me, which puts a hole in the cupcake as its baking.   Soon, I will be filling those holes with delicious lemon curd, and top it with vanilla buttercream.  Then I will make the mocha buttercream and finish off the chocolate.  Delicious!

I'm working on my pricelist, and soon, will have a brochure with all my goodies, and their cost.  I'm even working on a website!   

So for now, I bid adieu.  Until next time!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

2 more cakes.

So, I found a couple more pictures of cakes I've done.  This one, to the left, I'm particularly proud of.
"What is that?" You may ask  Why, its a Companion Cube!  Its from a video game called Portal.  I've never played it, but just about all my friends have.  Apparently, the game involves this cube, and a cake at the end of the game.  Apparently, also, the cake is a lie.  This cake, though, was most assuredly NOT a lie.  And it was a birthday cake for the aforementioned Groom of Chocolate Love, so, of course, the cake was chocolate.  Never mind the mess in the back...that's all my decorating stuff.  Right after finishing the cake, I took a picture.  I was rather proud of this cake.  I feel I made up for not being able to do the d20 cake.  I hope so, at least.
  


This next cake was for a birthday, of course.  The girl liked pink, and liked polka dots. 
So she got both.   My writing is better on this one than on some of my previous cakes..
see, I get better at it!  I rather like writing on cakes now.  I got some practice doing it at a bakery I worked at for a while, and that helped.

So, that's 2 more cakes.  as I find more pictures, I'll post more.
I took last Wednesday off from baking cupcakes, but this Wednesday,
I shall be baking Yellow cupcakes with Chocolate frosting-it's a classic
combo, and it's sooo tasty.  I'll be delivering them to my friend Cyndi's
salon. I'm also going to be making chocolate chip cookies, for an event at work.  I'm also going to be experimenting with meat pies..more specifically meat tarts..like PopTarts, but with meat.  I will be sure to blog about those.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

The Kitchen Sink.

Today is my day off, so I decided to spend the day doing laundry and vegging out in front of teevee.
I was watching the Cooking Channel, and on one of the shows, they were making pizza. I suddenly decided that I needed pizza. But do we have the ingredients for pizza? I go through the list in my head- I know we have flour and yeast, and I knew we had cheese. The rest, I'd just wing it. I looked through the fridge, and saw lots of left over things, so I used them. This, my friends, is why its called "The Kitchen Sink".
I will admit to cheating on the crust. I used my bread maker. DON'T JUDGE ME. I'm all about new technologies! So as the dough was being made, I started on the pizza sauce. I started by chopping up some leftover onion that had been languishing in the fridge for a couple days- I saved it from a fate worse than, em, something. I sauteed those on medium, then added a balsamic vinegar. Now, this vinegar, I love this vinegar. I bought it last year at the Flower Mart, which is an annual street market in Baltimore. It's a balsamic vinegar with fig and vanilla. I have used it on everything- so good on veggies, so good on pork, so good on chicken, so good on salmon, so good in hamburgers..so I wanted to try it with pizza sauce. I let those work together to caramelize the onions, as I prepared the tomatoes. We had 1 tomato, and a handful of little grape tomatoes left over. So I took the tomato, squeezed out the seeds, and coarsely chopped it. I just cut the grape tomatoes in half. Added them to the onions, and added some salt and garlic. Cooked that on medium for a few minutes, then set it to low while the dough rises.
Meanwhile, I got the rest of the toppings. I found a container with about 12 olives, left over from a meal a couple days ago. So I got those and coarsely chopped them. Found an artichoke heart- Just one. Chopped it up, mixed it with the olives. We had some spinach! Chopped it up (I don't like big leaves of spinach on my pizza, but I do like spinach on my pizza). 2 leftover italian sausages, perfect! Some provolone slices, and some shredded cheddar. So, those were my pizza toppings.
I have a pizza stone somewhere, but I suspect its in the garage, with much of my other stuff, so I just used my rectangular stone, so the pizza wasn't round. But the shape doesn't matter.
So, after baking it at 350 for 24 minutes, I couldn't wait to taste it. And mmmmmmm was it tasty. I like my pizza crust thick, so I made it such, but not too thick. the sauce was thick, tangy, maybe a little sweet, from the balsamic, and sooo good. the different toppings worked super well together.
Making pizza from scratch isn't hard. (especially if you have a bread maker). And the toppings can be anything. You should try it, too. Its so good!