Midweek Delight

By happenstance I have this week off of my day job, and therefore are no longer moonlighting as a budding pastry chef but get to actually experiment and play around with some new recipes for the next 4 days at least.

Another perk to having the week off is that I got to go with my mom to the Wednesday market. Normally this market doesn't get as much traffic as our Friday or Saturday does so we take a pared down table with not as many offerings. But this week I decided to try my hand at some mini pies and took them to see how they did.

I'm calling them Pocket Pies (my mom actually came up with the name, cute right!) and today I had them in lemon, blueberry, apple and cherry. I took 12 total and sold out of all of them, so I think people liked them. I plan to also have them on Saturday but also with some raspberry ones!

If that sounds good to you, then stop by and see me

Late Nights & Early Mornings....

What are you still doing awake?? You should be in bed by now. At least I know I should be. It is now..... 12:30 in the morning (or late at night, I'm never really sure how that all works). I have been busy for the last 8 hours baking in my kitchen. The evidence is in the stack of dishes next to the sink and the rather thick layer of flour on my shirt.

Ok I'll admit I wasn't baking that whole time, there was that haft hour I spent helping pick green beans in the garden, we do live on a farm after all.

And we did find time to go out for a little Birthday dinner. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Today, as in Saturday July 26th is my birthday. Normally, it's not something that I jump up and down and shout about. But when your baking cupcakes and cookies, it's a little hard to not get excited. I would love it if you came down to the market and bought yourself a treat in honor of my birthday!!

On the Menu:

• Banana bread- These mini loves have been going like(pardon the pun)hot cakes recently, come early to snag yourself one.
• Chocolate chip cookies- I brought a ton of these last week and only made it home with two, which my dad promptly ate, so you'd better hurry.
• Marshmallows- I have loved experimenting with new flavors this week and am bringing; Vanilla, Strawberry, and Orange.
• For the first time ever Ella Pauline's is proud to present our first pies! Blueberry, Cherry and Apple crumble are on the menu for this week but stay tuned for all sorts of new, seasonal flavors!

I hope to see you there!!

It's a Marshmellow World

Would you like to know the one weakness I have? My love for Marshmallows. People can get me to do anything simply by offering me a bag of squishy delight. My mom knows this and yet doesn't use tis knowledge for evil, instead she simply buys me a bag every once in a while as a gentle reminder that she loves me. This was especially true when I lived out of state, I would get bags of marshmallows in the mail all the time. Once she even brought me a bag of lemon marshmallows, which is the whole purpose of this post. Now I don't know if you've ever had a lemon marshmallow or not so I'll  just tell you that it taste a little like what I imagine heaven to taste like. We've looked everywhere since then and can't find these little delectable anywhere. So I decided to make my own.

Now I didn't have any lemon extract on hand so these ones are just vanilla, but they are no less delicious. And I do mean DELICIOUS!

They turned out amazing and I plan to have them in all sorts of amazing flavors, do make sure you stop by and see me this weekend!

A Little Chocolate Goes A long Way!

I'm happy to report that at yesterdays farmers market we made some money, always a plus on windy and stormy days!

I contribute the majority of sales to the introduction of a new product, well not new techniquely but new to Ella Pauline's. The Chocolate Chip Cookie! This delightfully unassuming treat gave me quite some trouble Friday night, but we pushed through our differences and came to a mutual understanding that I feel benefits up both.

So what makes these cookies so troublesome? I think its the dynamic relationship between the salt and the chocolate, it causes a rift in the recipe that makes cooking times relative. Nonetheless, I had some scrumptious cookies to take with me to the farmers market yesterday. Add that to the cinnamon runaways, chocolate donuts, and banana bread and we had one delicious spread!

Looks good right! I hope you ate something yummy yesterday and if you didn't come see us next week and we'll see what we can do about that!

Ella Pauline's
"Life's short, eat the cake!"

So Whats Ella Paulines?

Ella Pauline was a real person. No its not me, I'm Stephanie, but she was my Great Grandmother. She passed away a long time ago, but I can still remember sitting on the carpet under her kitchen table munching away on cookie dough as she pressed out our family's favorites on the table above me. I truly believe that those earliest memories are what started me on the path I now find myself.

And so I decided to name my business after her because of the love I felt in her kitchen. And I like the way her name sounds in my mouth.

Back to the question:

Ella Pauline's specializes in seasonal treats, cakes, and nostalgic desserts. We source as many of our ingredients as we can from local, Michigan companies. We've started out small, right now we're at our local farmers market on Saturdays where we sell products like homemade donuts, banana bread and cinnamon runaways (a cinnamon bun cupcake in a cup with a fork so you can eat it on the go!). I plan to expand our product line soon, but as I'm sure some of you can imagine having a full time day job doesn't leave much room for experimentation right now.

 

Every week we generate more sales and more loyal customers and I love interacting with our community and finding out what they think about our goodies. It's been a lot of fun so far, a lot of work but a lot of fun too! The dream is to one day (Hopefully soon!) occupy a storefront, where we'll offer all manner of delicious goodies.

 

I hope you'll come down and try some of our yummy treats!

 

Find us @ the Hastings Famers Market Saturdays from 9-1!

In the Beginning.....

In the beginning, Ella Pauline's was just an idea, a dream rattling around in my brain. Sometimes in the dead of night I would pull it out of its drawer and roll in around. I'd pick out the colors of the booths, cute ways to package my goodies, and above all the rainbow of colors that would someday fill a glass display case for kids to press their noses and sticky fingers to. But for the longest time that's all it was, just an idea, just a dream. I went about my life with this secret desire, a longing to do something more, create something more. And then it happened, just like they always say it does, I woke up one morning and was tired of waiting for the right time, the right moment, to come along and I just decided to start.

It's been a slow start, but I'm a firm believer in slow and steady wins the race. Everyday I move forward and it might be at a turtles pace, but forward I trudge.

I thought I might use this space to document the journey of my company from dream to reality.

I hope you'll follow me!