A literary birthday party

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Kiesha

Last year, I developed a professional relationship with David Gutowski of Largehearted Boy, providing baked goods to several of his Largehearted Lit events at Word bookstore in Greenpoint.

This week, Largehearted Boy celebrates its 10th birthday with a birthday party at Word. The Thursday night event will feature two authors reading birthday-themed stories, a secret music guest and Fauxstess Cupcakes by me!

This event is free and open to the public, so come on out, eat some cupcakes, hear some great stories and music and celebrate Largehearted Boy’s 10th birthday!

Holiday Baking Wrap-Up

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Kiesha

It’s taken me a while to recover from the holidays this year. We did a lot of traveling around New York and New Jersey and I did a ton of baking.

First up were goodies that I baked for the Winter Warmer party Rob and I hosted on December 23. We invited a few friends over for holiday beers, cookies and homemade eggnog.

These were vegan gingerbread cookies. This year I saw lots of pictures of using upside down gingerbread men to make reindeer, so I made an attempt. I’m not much a cookie decorator, but I think I got the idea across.

Next up were Eggnog Cupcakes. Since we were making the homemade eggnog, I decided to continue the theme. These were not made with the homemade eggnog though; I just used the boxed Jack Daniels’ brand. These were okay, but I think I would definitely prefer to use the eggnog cupcake with a Cinnamon Rum Frosting.

Next up were cupcakes that I baked for my sister-in-law’s annual holiday party on the 24th in Queens.

These were vegan vanilla cupcakes with vegan vanilla frosting. I mixed up my own colored sugars and then decorated the cupcakes to look like ornaments. I used pretzels to make the hooks.

Finally, I spent about six hours on the 23rd baking five different cookies for cookie boxes to give as presents. This was a marathon baking day, but I think it turned out okay. My boxes didn’t turn out quite as cute as I hoped. If I do them again next year, I’m going to take more time to find materials to line the box, rather than using foil and scrapbooking paper. Ah well, it’s the taste that counts.

The cookie boxes consisted of three non-vegan treats, pictured above. These were Iced Ginger Cookies, Peppermint Twists and Lemon Chewies.

The vegan cookies were traditional sugar cookies and Pinwheels.

And, of course, I had to leave a few out for the Big Man.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I’m really looking forward to 2012. Speaking of which, you can sample some goodies at my first event this year– The 10th Birthday Party for Largehearted Boy at Word Bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on January 26. There will be two authors reading birthday-themed pieces and a special musical guest. I’ll be baking Fauxstess Cupcakes! You can read more information about the event here.

Upcoming Events Where You Can Find My Baked Goods

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Kiesha

Hi everyone!
The Brooklyn Baker is at it again. This coming week, I’ll be baking for two (count ‘em, two!) literary events at Word bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Tuesday night, you can find my Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Toasted Marshmallow Frosting and Vegan Pumpkin Cupcakes with Vanilla ‘Butter’cream Frosting at a Largehearted Lit event featuring authors Nathan Larson and Joshua Cody. Wednesday night, you can sample Blueberry Scones and Lemon Scones for the book release party for Leanna Hieber and her new book “Darker Still”. Leanna is bringing Earl Grey tea to go with the scones!

Both events are free and open to the public! For more information, check out the Word events page at the link above.

Literary Baking (Middle Eastern Baked Goods for Craig Thompson Event)

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Kiesha

You may remember a few days ago I wrote about a couple of events for which I would be baking. The first of these events happened last Saturday.

I baked Middle Eastern cookies for the event celebrating the release of Craig Thompson’s newest book Habibi.

The first cookie I baked was called hab el hal, which are sugar cookies flavored with cardamom.

These were super tasty. The cardamom provided a really interesting flavor and they were incredibly addictive. I just wanted to keep. Eating. Them.

The second cookies was called baraziq, which were butter cookies coated on one side with sesame seeds and on the other with pistachios.

I’m not a big pistachio fan, so I only had one of these, but it tasted pretty good. Other people seemed to really enjoy them.

The event was great and Craig was nice enough to stay and autograph everyone’s book with both his signature and a drawing.

I even took a little plate of cookies to the table where Craig was sitting to do his autographs. I hope he enjoyed them!

Upcoming Events Where You Can Find My Baked Goods!

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Kiesha

September is a busy month for me! Not only did I spend Saturday baking for seven straight hours in anticipation of my 30th Birthday Party (more on that soon), but I am also baking for two different events at Word Bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The first event, “An Evening with Craig Thompson” is this Saturday. Craig Thompson is an incredibly talented graphic novelist who is responsible for some incredible books, including “Good-bye, Chunky Rice and my favorite graphic novel “Blankets”. He has just recently completed his first book in about seven years, “Habibi”. It’s the tale of two refugee child slaves and, as Amazon tells me, “at once contemporary and timeless, “Habibi” gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.”

Tickets for the event are $40 and include a copy of the book. There will be a question and answer session, as well as a cocktail hour in which attendees can meet and mingle with Craig Thompson. This is where I come in. I will be baking two different Middle Eastern cookies for the cocktail hour; Baraziq cookies, which are cookies coated on one side with sesame seeds and on the other with pistachios and Hab el Hal, which are Cardamom cookies.

I understand tickets are going fast, so get yours today!

The second event at Word will be another Largehearted Lit event sponsored by blogger Largehearted Boy. You might remember that I previously baked Doukhobor treats for an event featuring Alina Simone. This time around, the authors are Libba Bray and Steve Brezenoff. Bray is promoting her new book “Beauty Queens” and Brezenoff is promoting his book “Brooklyn, Burning”.

For this event, I will be baking vegan Pink Lemonade Cupcakes and (non-vegan) Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes. This event is free and both books are young adult friendly!

Come on out, check out some great books and eat some goodies!

Doukhobor Baked Goods at Largehearted Lit

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Kiesha

As you might remember, a couple of weeks ago I posted about my friend Alina Simone releasing both a book and an album at the same time. Another friend, David over at Largehearted Boy, hosts a monthly event at Word bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. For June’s event, he welcomed Alina Simone as well as Wesley Stace and a special performance by Amanda Palmer.

You may also remember that Alina asked me to provide refreshments for the event, in the form of Doukhobor baked goods. I selected two items from her Doukhobor cookbook and crossed my fingers. Rob and I went over to Alina’s apartment (she has a bigger kitchen than I do) and about five hours later I had created Apple, Raspberry and Apple/Raspberry Fruit Tart Pastries as well as Orange Cookies. They got good reviews from Alina and Rob and on the night of the event, there were only four Apple tarts left out of the three dozen tarts and three dozen cookies. I would say they were a hit!

It was actually pretty cool hearing Wesley Stace (AKA John Wesley Harding) tell me that my Raspberry Tarts were delicious. Yay!

Some photos of the baked goods and the event:

Doukhobor Baked Goods

Orange Cookies

Fruit Tart Pastries

David from Largehearted Boy

Alina Simone

Wesley Stace

Amanda Palmer

As a side note, because we drove Alina to the event in our car, we ended up driving Alina, Amanda Palmer and Eugene Mirman home, as we all live in South Slope. It was one of the more surreal nights I’ve had in New York.

As a second side note, this post definitely wins for most links embedded in a post.

Literary Treats in Brooklyn: Doukhobor Baked Goods for Alina Simone/John Wesley Harding

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Kiesha

My friend Alina Simone is releasing both a new album AND a book in June and asked me if I would be interested in providing baked goods as refreshments for her release event at Word bookstore on Wednesday, June 8. There was just one catch; she wanted Doukhobor baked goods.

You can read all about the Doukhobors here. They’re basically a group of people of Russian descent who now mostly live in Canada, whose ancestors left the Russian empire way back in the late 1800′s due to religious differences. That’s the super-duper Reader’s Digest condensed version of the story.

Anyway, a chapter of Alina’s new book “You Must Go and Win” concerns the Doukhobors and during the research process, she bought a Doukhobor cookbook in Canada. Alina thought it would be a lot of fun to feature some of those items at her book release event and sent several scanned pages to me.

As I plan to bake the night before the event, I needed to select some items that would hold up overnight. I ended up going with the mini tart pastries (which will most likely be filled with apple and/or sour cherry) and orange cookies.

This free event is sponsored by Largehearted Boy and will feature both Alina and musician/author John Wesley Harding reading and performing music. Come on down, get some culture and try some of the baked goods! You can RSVP here on Facebook and I look forward to meeting you!

Bloggers Bake for Hope

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Kiesha

Don’t those Oatmeal Cream Pies look good? Wouldn’t you love to sink your teeth right into one? What’s that, you say? You don’t live in the New York area, so how can you possibly get your hands on one of these?

Well, if you have the winning bid, you can get your hands on 12 of them!

I am participating in a virtual bake sale Wednesday and Thursday as part of Bloggers Bake for Hope, a sort of silent auction wherein people can bid on various baked goods donated by bloggers. The person who wins each auction then gets the baked goods baked fresh and shipped to them! All proceeds from this virtual bake sale go to the Massachusetts affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization (the organizers of the bake sale are from Massachusetts).

Beginning at 12 a.m. on Wednesday, May 4 and running through 11:59 p.m. Thursday, May 5, you can place your bid on my Oatmeal Cream Pies or on one of the many other delicious-looking baked goods available by visiting this link. Starting at midnight tonight, the bidding links will go live and you will be able to click to submit your bid.

Be sure to keep checking on the item you bid on, because other people may outbid you and you will NOT get notification.

Here’s to raising money for a good cause and getting baked goods in the mail!

Pie in the Park 2010

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Kiesha

Today I participated in the 4th Annual Pie in the Park event at Prospect Park. This event brings together bakers and eaters to raise money for various causes and people. Today’s event raised money for SCRATCHbread, a Brooklyn bakery that’s trying to purchase a new oven.

I baked a pie I called “Stars in Your Eyes Whiskey Apple Pie”, which was a basic apple pie with a healthy dose of Jim Beam and a star crust similar to my Fourth of July Apple Pie.

There were a LOT of pies at this event today. Cherry pies with bacon and duck lard crusts, lemon tarts, blueberry almond and more. Sweet pies, savory pies and even some whoopie pies.

The event was scheduled to run from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The amazing turnout led to pretty much all the pies being eaten in about twenty minutes – bad news for my friends who got there at 3 p.m. I feel that with just a touch more organization (maybe some kind of a line for the eaters, rather than a swarm?), this event could be outstanding.

Sadly, I didn’t win any of the prizes (Best Presentation, Best Crust, Best Filling or Very Best Pie), but I’m already plotting my pie for next year’s event, and expect an even bigger turnout. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t love pie???

Here are a few photos from today’s event:

Setting up.

The Worms in Dirt Pie, which won Best Presentation, and deservedly so.

Photographing pies and bakers.

Pies.

Waiting to dig in!

Congratulations to all the winners!

Here are a couple of nice write ups and photos of the event:

Snap Food

Metromix NYC

(A post about my pie will be coming soon!)

Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale Wrap-up

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Kiesha

This past Saturday, I participated in the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale, a series of bake sales held between April 24 and May 2, which promoted animal product-less food and raised money for various causes all over the world. One hundred and twenty bake sales were held during this time.

The bake sale I participated in was held Saturday, May 1 in Montclair, NJ and co-organized by my friend Jen Prochilo of Good Good Things. At least 22 bakers were involved, as well as several local bakeries who donated vegan goodies.

The sale was a huge success and at the end of the day, it raised over $1600 for the two causes it was benefiting. No, that’s not a typo. Sixteen. Hundred. Dollars. Wow!

I baked Root Beer Float cupcakes, the recipe for which can be found online here, although if you have any interest in vegan baking, I encourage you to buy the book which contains this recipe, My Sweet Vegan. The Root Beer Float Cupcakes are featured on the cover!

Here’s how mine turned out:

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