Easter!
G14A
G16A (ears provided by customer)
G17
G15
G18
A113
For Easter this year, we’ll again offer a variety of Easter cakes. We can make any design you’d like so long as it can be done with buttercream. Above are a few bunny and Easter themed cakes we’ve made in the past. You can see others if you click on the PHOTOS tab on our website and go to the section called “Seasonal Cakes”. If you like any of these, when you order your cake, be sure to reference the image number under Special Instructions.
Hot cross buns
JennyCakes will offer again this year hot cross buns for Easter. You’ll find them on the website under Seasonal Specials. They’re not too dense and filled with lots of dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, golden raisins, currants, depending on the batch). We add a thin sugar glaze, spices you can taste in each bite, and a bit of orange zest to give them a little zing. Available through Easter.
Passover!
Flourless Chocolate Cake
JennyCakes now carries on a year-round basis a flourless chocolate cake. It’s a single-layer, rich, moist cake made with our best dark chocolate. It’s covered with a not so thin layer of chocolate ganache flavored with a bit of coffee liqueur. It does have dairy ingredients, and it is not kosher, but it’s my understanding that it can be eaten at a Passover meal where no meat is served.
****
We will start carrying our spring specials, otherwise now known as strawberry-palooza (catchy, eh?), on May 1.
Happy beginning of Spring!
Jenny
Friday March 1 – Saturday March 16
Annual Cupcake Sale!
Buy 6, GET ONE FREE! But 10, GET TWO FREE!
Our cupcake sale is the perfect time to try every flavor! Believe it or not, my favorite is the yellow cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. If I’m feeling wild and crazy, I sometimes add some rainbow sprinkles. Simple is sometimes best, right? Yum!
Scroll down to see our seasonal specials, including
King cakes for Fat Tuesday
Irish kickers for St. Patrick’s Day and
Hamentaschen for Purim
Enjoy!
Happy March!
Jenny
Start your order
King Cake
KING CAKES FOR MARDI GRAS!
Fat Tuesday is less than a week away so be sure to order your king cake soon! We’ll provide the yumminess and an itsy bitsy baby for you to bury in your cake. 🙂
Irish kickers
IRISH KICKERS ARE BACK!
Just in time for the cupcake sale and St. Patrick’s Day, we’re bringing back our Irish kickers – a chocolate cupcake flavored with Guinness beer and frosted with buttercream spiked with Baileys Irish Cream and Jameson Irish Whiskey.
Hamantaschen!
HAMANTASCHEN!
We’re baking hamantaschen with apricot, poppy seed, nutella and raspberry filling throughout the month of March.
So ON TO VALENTINE’S DAY and an excuse to infuse the bakery with lots and lots of COLOR, especially pink and red! Hopefully, this will keep our winter doldroms at bay. Just think — we could be attending school in Madison, Wisconsin like my daughter is. The high there for today (Tues 1/29) will be 0 degrees and the low is expected to be -24. Tomorrow’s supposed to be even colder with a low of -30. Makes my whining about that brisk walk from the church parking lot to the bakery seem just a wee bit silly, eh?
Try to place your VALENTINE’S DAY orders in advance so we can be sure we can complete them, but we’ll also plan to have lots on hand for last-minute purchases.
We’ll again have lots of color…
Champagne Cake with Raspberry Buttercream
Tiramisu for 2
Sweetheart cake
Heart cookies
and LOTS of chocolate!
Mint brownies
Triple threat cookies
Dark chocolate cream pie
Soft sugar cookies with buttercream frosting
We’ll also have heart-shaped cakes and lots of soft sugar cookies with pink buttercream frosting.
Place your order soon at jennycakesbakery.net!
FAT TUESDAY – Tues Mar 5!
Don’t forget to order your King Cake in advance!
ANNUAL CUPCAKE SALE – Fri Mar 1 to Sat Mar 16. Buy 6, get one free. Buy 10, get 2 free.
PURIM – Weds Mar 20 to Thurs Mar 21. We’ll have lots of hamentaschen on hand.
King Cake
Cupcakes!
Hamantaschen!
I always think of THE HOLIDAYS (Thanksgiving and Christmas) as that dreaded time of year when I, the embodiment of anxiety, constantly worry that we’re going to forget something, get something wrong, or otherwise disappoint someone during an important holiday meant for wonderful family memories. Most of the time we’re successful at making sure everything goes smoothly and tastes and looks good. Occasionally we aren’t and then I’m devastated and spend a lot of time worrying about why this happened and how to fix it. It just seems like there’s so much more at stake during the holidays!
Once we hit January, although I’m still worried about making sure customers are happy with what they order and purchase from us, I notice that I start to relax just a touch and that tightness in my chest eases up a bit. With this incredibly sophisticated psychological insight in hand, I’ve decided that, even though I usually think of January as the most “blah” and depressing month of the year, THIS year I’m going to think of it as a bit more care-free, easy-going, playful and maybe even creative, especially in contrast to November and December. It’s worth at least TRYING to change my outlook, right?
This month we say goodbye until next year to: pecan snowballs, jam thumbprints, frosted sugar cookie bars, gingerbread people, buche de noel, frosted pumpkin rolls and shortbread.
BUT, we say hello to my Aunt Val’s coffee cake, mint brownies, triple threat chocolate cookies, snickerdoodles and Boston cream cakes and cupcakes.
Then in February, we’ll bring back tiramisu (for 1 or FOR 2 because, you know, Valentine’s Day), mini dark chocolate pies (again Valentine’s Day idea), lots of frosted heart cookies and sweetheart cakes (4″ cakes with Valentine’s Day designs on them).
I know I say this every January, but THIS JANUARY I really am going to experiment with recipes for gluten-free cookies and vegan cookies. I know many of you with restricted diets are getting tired of just the cupcakes/cakes we offer, so I’ll work hard to expand our offerings. If you happen to have a recipe for either kind of cookie that you LOVE and are willing to share it with me, please feel free to email it to me at jenny@jennycakesbakery.net.
We continue to offer the HadiCakes, both at the bakery and online for special orders. If you haven’t heard of this effort before, the HadiCake is in memory of Hadi, an incredible kid who we were lucky to get to know through his amazing family and especially the posts of his mom Saira Sufi. Among many other things, he loved blueberries, rainbow sprinkles and Star Wars. So these are blueberry cupcakes with buttercream sprinkled with blue rainbow nonpareils with a silver star added on top. In celebration of Hadi, $1 from each cupcake will go to bethematch.org.
Also, stay tuned for a new round of Meet the Staff with some updates on current staff members and some new staff member entries. ?
Have a fun January and February!
Jenny
Modified schedule for Christmas holiday:
Mon 12/24 — OPEN 8am to 2pm
Tues 12/25 to Tues 1/1 — CLOSED
Weds 1/2 — Back to our usual schedule so OPEN 8am to 7pm
Gingerbread men
Chocolate cupcake with peppermint buttercream
Decorated cutout cookies
What’s Available at the Bakery Now
As we head into the holiday season, we are already stocking our cases with lots of goodies, including gingerbread men, chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream, frosted sugar cookie bars, decorated cutouts, jam thumbprints, pecan snowballs, Scottish shortbread and rum bites.
During this season of kind gestures, think about giving a neighbor, a favorite teacher, a co-worker or anyone else who you appreciate – or simply want to reach out to – a holiday cookie box or a festively wrapped loaf of banana or pumpkin bread.
Pumpkin and banana bread
Small and large holiday cookie boxes
Buche de Noel
Christmas Orders!
We hope to accept Christmas orders through Mon 12/17, UNLESS WE REACH CAPACITY BEFORE THEN. I will post something at the top of our website if we close out orders before Mon 12/17.
Please pick up your order no later than 2pm on Mon 12/24.
The specific items available for Christmas orders are listed below.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday!
Jenny
Christmas cake
Poinsettia cake
Frosted sugar cookie bars
Christmas Goodies
-
buche de noel
-
pumpkin roll (with or without toasted pecans)
-
pecan pie (with or without bourbon)
-
apple pie with streusel
-
pumpkin pie
-
dark chocolate cream pie
-
key lime pie
-
any of our cakes (if you like the Christmas Cake or Poinsettia Cake in photos above, order under All Classic Yellow or Chocolate and mention “Christmas Cake” or “Poinsettia Cake” under Special Instructions)
-
any of our smaller items, such as cookies and cupcakes, BUT ONLY IN BATCHES OF 12 OF A PARTICULAR FLAVOR/BAKED GOOD (or in batches of 24 if ordering mini cupcakes)
For the smaller items, if you would like a wider variety, please consider stopping by the bakery on Mon Dec 24 between 8am and 2pm. We will be fully stocked and you will be able to pick and choose. We would suggest you come early though because we are likely to sell out quickly. Thanks!
Time for Thanksgiving!
We’re doing things pretty much the same way we’ve done them the last few years.
We hope to be able to accept Thanksgiving orders through Sat Nov 17. If we have to close out orders before then, I will post something at the top of the website.
Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie
Apple pie with streusel
All orders must be picked up no later than 7pm on Weds Nov 21.
Our schedule for the week of Thanksgiving, and the list of specific items available for Thanksgiving orders, are below.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday!
Jenny
JennyCakes schedule for week of Thanksgiving:
Mon 11/19 CLOSED
Tues 11/20 CLOSED (except for special order pick-ups) so we can prepare Thanksgiving orders
Weds 11/21 OPEN 8am to 7pm for special order pick-ups and walk-in traffic
THUR 11/22 CLOSED
FRI 11/23 CLOSED
SAT 11/24 OPEN 8am to 7pm for Small Business Saturday!
Thanksgiving Goodies!
Cakes, pies and smaller items in batches of 12
Caramel apple cake
Iced pumpkin cookies
Pumpkin roll
Baked goods available for Thanksgiving orders:
-
pumpkin pie
-
pecan pie (with or without bourbon)
-
apple pie with streusel
-
dark chocolate cream pie
-
key lime pie
-
pumpkin roll (comes with cream cheese frosting on the inside and a thin layer of cream cheese frosting on the outside together with a sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice)
-
any of our cakes
-
any of our smaller items, such as cookies and cupcakes, BUT ONLY IN BATCHES OF 12 OF A PARTICULAR FLAVOR/BAKED GOOD (or in batches of 24 if ordering mini cupcakes)
Cheddar cheese crackers
Spiced pumpkin muffins with mini chocolate chips
Pumpkin cheesecake bars
Several new yummy items available in that “smaller items” category:
-
cheddar cheese crackers – great as a Thanksgiving appetizer
-
pumpkin cheese cake bars – my current irresistible treat
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Ingrid’s apple pie bars – my daughter Geneva’s current irresistible treat
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spiced pumpkin muffins with mini chocolate chips – yummy and incredibly moist
For the smaller items, if you would like a wider variety, please consider stopping by the bakery on Weds Nov 21. We will be fully stocked with our usual items and you will be able to pick and choose. We would suggest you come early though because we are likely to sell out quickly. Thanks!
You probably aren’t aware of this but standing behind our big mixer Mon through Fri from 7am to noon is someone who is INCREDIBLY gifted as an FX makeup artist specializing in horror and haunt makeup. This past Sunday afternoon, Helen Snell invited 5 of our employees to a photo shoot for her portfolio. So, to get you in the Halloween spirit, below are the AMAZING results. Anyone who can guess which of our employees are in these five photos gets a free cupcake!
Here’s what we now have on hand for the fall season:
Caramel apple cake
Caramel apple cakes and cupcakes — a cupcake chock full of apple pieces, frosted with cream cheese frosted, drizzled with caramel and then sprinkled with toasted pecans. Always a crowd-pleaser in cupcake or cake form.
Pumpkin cakes and cupcakes – a pumpkin cupcake flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and a bit of orange juice, frosted with cream cheese frosting with the same spices and a bit of orange peel, then sprinkled with nutmeg. These took a while to take off but last year people FINALLY discovered them and we couldn’t keep up with the demand!
Iced pumpkin cookies
Iced pumpkin cookies – a pumpkin cookie frosted with a big dollop of vanilla frosting. A perennial favorite. As you can guess, we don’t skimp on the frosting!
Pumpkin mini-loaves – from the recipe I discovered last year. We make these plain, with toasted pecans, with mini chocolate chips, with cranberries and if we’re really feeling crazy with Mary’s cinnamon sugar crust baked on.
Spiced pumpkin muffins — NEW THIS YEAR. We think we’ve finally found a recipe that is tasty but also results in big fluffy muffins. Stop by and try one!
Pecan pie bars
Pecan Pie Bars – our ooey gooey pecan pie filling on top of a buttery shortbread crust.
Ingrid’s Apple Pie Bars — my personal favorite, especially as in the way we now servie them. Because they were so messy as bars, we now cut them into pieces and place them in a plastic cup. Then we cover them with whipped cream and add a pinch of nutmeg. Heaven!
And of ourse Halloween is coming up! Love this holiday! We’ve started making Halloween decorated cookies and hope to have some always on-hand at the bakery through Halloween. Don’t forget our Halloween decorated cakes. My decorators, especially Don, have a lot of fun with this holiday!
THANKSGIVING ORDERS: On or about November 1, I’ll send out a Constant Contact email that describes what we will be offering for Thanksgiving and how to place your orders. If you’d like to be added to our Constant Contact email list, feel free to email me at jenny@jennycakesbakery.net.
Enjoy the fall!
Jenny
A reminder that we’ll be closed from Sun July 22 through Mon Aug 6. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
JENNYCAKES NEWS:
After a fun and very busy spring, we’ve finally gotten organized enough to switch over from our spring goodies to our summer goodies.
So, we’re back to making blueberry crumb bars, lemon ricotta cookies, key lime mango cupcakes, glazed lemon cupcakes and lemon bars.
Blueberry crumb bars
Key lime mango cupcakes
Chilled lemon ricotta cookies
Glazed lemon cupcake
We will also continue to offer our recently-introduced and instantly popular raspberry squares, a recipe that was developed by manager Mary 🙂 , as well as our summertime ice cream cookie sandwiches.
Mary’s raspberry squares
Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich
And we’re having a LOT of fun experimenting with a new cupcake that I’m really
excited about. It’s a yellow cupcake flavored with orange zest that is frosted AND filled (yes, a first for us!) with an orange flavored whipped cream cheese frosting (like our regular cream cheese frosting except lighter because we fold whipped cream into it). Thinking about adding a little slice of orange on top like on the cupcake shown to the right, a yummy-looking one from My Baking Addiction. Keep an eye out for this new cupcake coming soon!
Stuff that is coming up!
Labor Day (Monday, Sept 3) when we hand out free chocolate chip cookies after the parade!
Savor this wonderful and usually way too short season!
Jenny
We are already in the midst of spring at JennyCakes! Such a lively time of year with so many things to celebrate — moms, dads, teachers, confirmations, first communions, graduations, the end of a fun sports season, and of course BIRTHDAYS! We’ve been busy, busy, busy so be sure to place your orders well in advance so we can be sure we can do them for you. We recommend a week ahead of time but we can sometimes do a cake with less notice — it just depends on how busy we are that particular week. Here’s what’s new and returning at JennyCakes.
Strawberries!
They’re finally tasty and reasonably priced. So we’re back to making these strawberry items:
Strawberry shortcake
Strawberry bread
Strawberry icebox pie
Cassata cake
Lemon bars
Lemon stuff!
We’re bringing back our lemon bars now and the lemon cupcakes and lemon ricotta cookies will be back in mid to late June.
Brown sugar pecan cookies
An old favorite!
Brown sugar pecan cookies (Ingrid’s favorites) are back! They’re a melt in your mouth brown sugar shortbread with a brown sugar frosting with a few toasted pecans sprinkled on top.
Our first raspberry flavored item!
Mary’s raspberry squares
Mary’s raspberry squares are literally FLYING off the plate we’ve been placing them on at the bakery. My new favorites, these have a yummy moist crust on the bottom and streusel on the top, both oatmeal in them, and then a combination of raspberry jam and fresh raspberries in the middle. The fresh raspberries give them a nice strong raspberry flavor while the raspberry jam gives them this really great tang. We can’t seem to bake them fast enough. Thanks to my manager, Mary Williams, for creating the recipe for them!
A new crazy, decadent cake!
A very kind man hoping to make his Ferrero Rocher-loving wife happy on her birthday asked us to make one of these and I couldn’t turn him down despite how busy we were. 🙂 So after a few shopping trips to various stores for ingredients and some experimenting, we came up with the Ferrero Rocher cake. It’s four thin layers of our chocolate cake frosted with smooth and fluffy hazelnut buttercream in between the layers and on the outside, with some slightly softened hazelnut wafers in the middle (to give it the touch of crunch that the Ferrero Rocher candies have), topped with dollops of hazelnut buttercream and Ferrero Rocher candies, then cover the sides with chopped hazelnuts. So beautiful and so yummy!
Ferrero rocher cake
Enjoy the rest of your spring!
Jenny
Passover!
During Passover, JennyCakes will offer again this year our flourless chocolate cake. It’s a single-layer, rich, moist cake made with our best dark chocolate, then covered with a not so thin layer of ganache flavored with a bit of coffee liqueur. It does have dairy ingredients, and it is not kosher, but it’s my understanding that it can be eaten at a Passover meal where no meat is served.
Flourless Chocolate Cake
Easter!
Our usual crazy amount of experimenting went into these hot cross buns. Really happy with them now — they’re not too dense and nice and browned on top, and they have lots of dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, golden raisins, currants, depending on the batch), spices that you can taste in each bite, and enough orange zest to give them just a little zing. Available through Easter.
Hot cross buns
And don’t forget our Easter cakes. We can make any design you’d like so long as it can be done with buttercream. Below are a few bunny and Easter themed ones we made last year. If you like any of these, when you order your cake, be sure to reference the image number under the Special Instructions.
G15
G18
A113
Happy Spring!
Jenny
Hamantaschen!
We’re heading into spring at last! Here’s what’s up at JennyCakes!
JennyCakes is selling hamantaschen with apricot, poppy seed, nutella and raspberry filling through and including Saturday March 3. Price is $1.50 each. Click on photo to place an order!
Our Annual Cupcake Sale will be Thurs March 1 through Sat March 17 — Buy 10 cupcakes, get 2 free! Buy 5 cupcakes, get 1 free!
Irish kickers
Just in time for the sale and St. Patrick’s Day, we’re bringing back our Irish kickers – a chocolate cupcake flavored with Guinness beer and frosted with buttercream spiked with Baileys Irish Cream and Jameson Irish Whiskey.
In anticipation of the coming warmer months (we’re SO ready for them), our JennyCakes t-shirts will also be on sale from Thurs March 1 to Sat March 17.
Usually $12 each. Now $8 each.
And the following goodies are doing their swan song until next year so if you’re going to miss them, order some now!
Champagne Cake / Cupcake with Raspberry Buttercream
Tiramisu
Boston Cream Cake / Cupcake
Have a wonderful end of winter. Here’s to a fun spring and summer!
Jenny
One quick thing before I start in with the fun stuff. All of a sudden we’ve been having trouble with our emails and order confirmations landing in our customers’ spam folders. So, if you emailed me and didn’t hear back, or you placed an order and didn’t receive a confirmation, please check your spam folder and “whitelist” jennycakesbakery.net. Thanks! Jenny
Fun holidays are coming up and we’re getting ready to celebrate!
King Cake
FAT TUESDAY – Tues Feb 13!
Don’t forget to order your King Cake in advance!
VALENTINE’S DAY – Weds Feb 14!
Place your orders soon so you can be sure we’ll be able to complete them. We’ll also aim to have lots of goodies on hand for walk-in customers.
We’ll have lots of color…
Champagne Cake with Raspberry Buttercream
Tiramisu for 2
Sweetheart cake
Heart cookies
and LOTS of chocolate!
Mint brownies
Triple threat cookies
Dark chocolate cream pie
Soft sugar cookies with buttercream frosting
We’ll also be baking heart-shaped cakes and soft sugar cookies with pink buttercream frosting.
Place your order soon at jennycakesbakery.net!
Jenny
Christmas cake
Buche de Noel
Gingerbread
Peppermint cupcake
Modified schedule for Dec 22 to Jan 1
Fri 12/22 – OPEN 8am to 7pm
Sat 12/23 – OPEN ONLY FOR SPECIAL ORDER PICK-UPS so we can prepare Xmas orders
Sun 12/24 – OPEN 8am to 2pm
Mon 12/25 – CLOSED so our staff can recover from the holidays! to Mon 1/1
Tues 1/2 – Back to our usual schedule – OPEN 8am to 7pm
What’s Available at the Bakery Now
As we head into the holiday season, we are already stocking our cases with lots of goodies, including jam thumbprints, pecan snowballs, Scottish shortbread, frosted sugar cookie bars, decorated Christmas cookies, chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream, gingerbread boys and girls, and rum bites and cupcakes.
Pecan snowballs
Decorated cut-outs
Scottish shortbread
Rum bites
Christmas Orders!
We hope to accept Christmas orders through Sun 12/17, unless we reach capacity before then. I will post something at the top of our website if we close out orders before Sun 12/17.
All orders must be picked up no later than 2pm on Sun 12/24.
The specific items available for Christmas orders are listed below.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday!
Jenny
Christmas Goodies!
- buche de noel
- pumpkin roll (with or without toasted pecans)
- pecan pie (with or without bourbon)
- apple pie with streusel
- pumpkin pie
- dark chocolate cream pie
- key lime pie
- any of our cakes
- any of our smaller items, such as cookies and cupcakes, BUT ONLY IN BATCHES OF 12 OF A PARTICULAR FLAVOR/BAKED GOOD (or in batches of 24 if ordering mini cupcakes)
For the smaller items, if you would like a wider variety, please consider stopping by the bakery on Sun Dec 24 between 8am to 2pm. We will be fully stocked with our usual items and you will be able to pick and choose. We would suggest you come early though because we are likely to sell out quickly. Thanks!
Time for Thanksgiving!
We’re doing things pretty much the same way we have done them the last few years.
Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie with or without bourbon
Apple pie with streusel
We will accept Thanksgiving orders through Sat Nov 18, unless we reach capacity before then. I will post something at the top of the website if we close out orders before Sat Nov 18.
All orders must be picked up by 7pm on Weds Nov 22.
Our schedule for the week of Thanksgiving, and the list of specific items available for Thanksgiving orders, are listed below.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday!
Jenny
Baked goods available for Thanksgiving orders:
Caramel apple cake
- pumpkin pie
- pecan pie (with or without bourbon)
- apple pie with streusel
- dark chocolate cream pie
- key lime pie
- pumpkin roll (with or without toasted pecans)
- any of our cakes
- any of our smaller items, such as cookies and cupcakes, BUT ONLY IN BATCHES OF 12 OF A PARTICULAR FLAVOR/BAKED GOOD (or in batches of 24 if ordering mini cupcakes)
Iced pumpkin cookies
For the smaller items, if you would like a wider variety, please consider stopping by the bakery on Weds Nov 22. We will be fully stocked with our usual items and you will be able to pick and choose. We would suggest you come early though because we are likely to sell out quickly. Thanks!
JennyCakes schedule for week of Thanksgiving:
Mon 11/20- CLOSED
Tues 11/21 – CLOSED (except for special order pick-ups) so we can prepare Thanksgiving orders
Weds 11/22 – OPEN 8am to 7pm for special order pick-ups and walk-in traffic
Thurs 11/23 – CLOSED
Fri 11/24 – CLOSED
SAT 11/25 – OPEN 8am to 7pm for Small Business Saturday!
We’ve slowly been rolling out our fall specialties:
Caramel apple cakes and cupcakes – a cupcake chock full of apple pieces, frosted with cream cheese frosted, drizzled with caramel and then sprinkled with toasted pecans.
Pumpkin cakes and cupcakes – a pumpkin cupcake flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and a bit of orange juice, frosted with cream cheese frosting with the same spices and a bit of orange peel, then sprinkled with nutmeg.
Iced pumpkin cookies – a pumpkin cookie frosted with a big dollop of vanilla frosting
Pumpkin mini-loaves – from a new recipe I’m FINALLY happy with, we make these plain, with toasted pecans, with mini chocolate chips, with cranberries and if we’re really feeling crazy with Mary’s cinnamon sugar crust baked on.
Pecan Pie Bars – our ooey gooey pecan pie filling on top of a buttery shortbread crust
Ah, and Halloween is just around the corner! Such a fun, and as I’ve said before, family angst-free holiday! We’ve started making Halloween decorated cookies and hope to have some on-hand at the bakery through Halloween. Don’t forget our Halloween decorated cakes and cupcakes. My decorators, especially Kristen, have a lot of fun with this holiday!
THANKSGIVING ORDERS: On or about November 1, I’ll send out a Constant Contact email that describes what we will be offering for Thanksgiving and how to place your orders. If you’d like to be added to our Constant Contact email list, feel free to email me at jenny@jennycakesbakery.net.
Enjoy this calm before the storm — the December holidays will be upon us in a flash!
Jenny
Another reminder that we’ll be closed from Sun July 30 through Mon Aug 14. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
JENNYCAKES NEWS:
Return of some favorites!
Making their triumphant return to the bakery line-up are the lemon ricotta cookies, the key lime/mango cupcakes, the blueberry crumb bars and our ice cream cookie sandwiches. *** Don’t forget to check out not only our two cases, but the refrigerator right inside the front door where we keep some of our goodies that melt easily in this weather. ***
Blueberry crumb bars
Cookies and cream ice cream cookie sandwich
Key lime mango cupcakes
Chilled lemon ricotta cookies
New stuff I’m working on!
Fluffy cheesecake bars with a thick graham cracker crust — something like these but even fluffier.
A tres leches cake with fruit.
A mandarin orange cake/cupcake based on a really yummy grapefruit Brown Derby cake that a customer asked me to make for him this past winter. Here’s a preliminary attempt at one — tasted great, especially the longer it was chilled, but need to work a bit on appearance!
We’ll let you know when we’re happy enough with these to start selling them!
Stuff that is coming up!
Labor Day (Monday, Sept 4) when we hand out free chocolate chip cookies after the parade!
Our final installment of Meet the JennyCakes staff!
Meet my husband Doug, daughters Lily and Geneva, as well as staff members Gabi, Anna, Sam and Payton.
My husband Doug!
When I proposed opening a bakery to my logic-driven husband Doug, he had all kinds of reservations. After lengthy discussions about the pros and cons of doing it, he finally said, “But it WOULD mean that on Mondays I could bring leftovers into my office. Hmmm…” That’s when I knew he was on board. He has helped in every difficult aspect of owning and operating a bakery — from negotiating the initial lease and acquisition of equipment from the old bakery to dealing with a long-term incredibly-frustrating plumbing problem (which appears to at last be resolved) to figuring out how and whether to expand into the space next door. But most importantly, every three months or so he has found a way to calm down a wife who periodically falls apart because she is having trouble figuring out how to own and operate a bakery! He works every Saturday from 4 on, pretty much single-handedly washes and folds the millions of aprons and rags we use at the bakery, hauls nearly all of our recyclables home every week and does many more things around the house than I do even though he’s a full-time partner at a law firm! Obviously, JennyCakes would not have happened and would not still be here today without the incredible amount of support he’s given it. Thanks, honey!
Lily!
Lily, my daughter who is now age 17, helped convince me to open the bakery way back in 2012 when she was 12. Our brains are scarily in sync. When we work together at the bakery, I’ll say, “Lily, can you…” and before I get any further with my question, she’ll say, “Yep, I did that” and she has! She is great at keeping track of several things at once and she quickly picks up on all the little detailed things we are constantly tweaking. I personally love having her at the bakery because it’s the only time she admits that I can occasionally be funny. 🙂
Geneva!
Geneva, my daughter who is now age 15, helped convince me to open the bakery way back in 2012 when she was 10. She knows how to do literally everything at the bakery from checking the oven to doing dishes to making batters to answering the phone to running the front counter. But she won’t let me pay her. Her reasoning cracks me up: she doesn’t want the pressure of keeping up with her bakery work at the expense of being able to chat with everyone there! When we first opened, one of my favorite things was to listen to Geneva and Kara Knips (a beloved bakery alum) play the “Question Game”.
Geva: Kara, what’s my favorite color? Kara: Green. Geneva: Right!
Kara: Geva, what do I plan to have to eat at my wedding reception. Geva: a Chipotle buffet! Kara: Right!
The game spilled over to other people at the bakery and became a fun way to get to know each other during the somewhat quiet hours of Sat morning before it got crazy. And by the way, Kara is getting married sometime around New Year’s and she is NOT having a Chipotle buffet!
Gabi!
Gabi came to us when she was just 14 through an internship program at her school, The Siena School. One cold, dark night when her mom was picking her up from her internship, I remember running out to her car to ask her mom how much free time Gabi had during the year because I REALLY wanted to hire her RIGHT THEN! And when I get a bee in my bonnet, it’s hard to distract me. 🙂 So, since her internship Gabi has worked for us, fitting us in around an already busy school schedule. Now, at the ripe old age of 16, she is essentially in charge of the final weekly clean-up of the bakery every Saturday afternoon.
Anna!
Anna (pronounced Ah-na when you see her!) joined us last fall after I saw a cake she did on facebook with buttercream rosettes. Because she has been very active in ice hockey, dance and lots of Einstein HS activities, we haven’t been able to involve her much in the decorating side of things yet, but hopefully we’ll be able to do that a bit this summer. During the course of this year, she has demonstrated that she’s a hard worker on Saturday afternoons when we do our weekly “deep cleaning” of the bakery, but she’s not above having a bit of fun. Rumor has it that on occasion she will do a few dance steps in the kitchen when she thinks no one but Gabi is looking. 🙂
Samantha!
Samantha began working at JennyCakes this past spring. She is a fierce froster of cupcakes and great at keeping track of what is needed in our cases. She’s incredibly smart, hard-working and fastidious about getting done what needs to get done. I can hand her a list of outstanding orders on Saturday morning and an hour later, everything is completed and done perfectly. We are really going to miss her when she heads to the College of William and Mary in the fall.
Payton!
We sure wish we found Payton earlier than a couple months before her graduation from WJHS! Such a find. AMAZING at frosting and decorating our very popular cut-out cookies (much to the relief of Ingrid and Kristen who had been splitting their time between 10,000 cakes and the cut-out cookies), quick to catch onto all the ins and outs of the bakery, great under pressure and fun to be around, she has been a HUGE asset. We will be really, really sad when she heads to the University of Charleston in the fall and we REALLY wish her university would ease up on the amount of time given to students for vacation so she can come back and work for us more during her breaks. Is that selfish?
Welcome to JennyCakes Bakery, a tiny bakery with a BIG heart! We opened in April 2012 with the hope of creating a cheerful place where people could buy baked goods that look and taste like food baked in a cozy kitchen at someone’s home. We love it that we know the names and favorite orders of many of our customers. We love being nestled into such a bustling community and finding ways to support the many local schools and charities. And we love it when our customers exclaim “these are just like my grandma used to bake!”
Stop by sometime and see what’s baking!
Jenny
It’s springtime and we’re all about strawberries — strawberry ice box pie, strawberry bread, strawberry shortcake, strawberry buttercream. I love seeing so much color in our cases!
I’ve been having a strange burst of desire to come up with new stuff for the bakery. I love the challenge of prowling the internet for a recipe I like, making whatever changes I think will make it better, and then practicing it enough times that I know everything that can go wrong and how to fix it! Recent new things include:
King Cakes — loved the taste but will probably leave the decorating to my experts — Kristen and Ingrid — next year!
Hot Cross Buns — a collaborative effort with bakery neighbors Steve and Anna McHale — I love these not too dense, not too fluffy, nicely browned, full of dried fruit buns
Flourless Chocolate Cake — has a deep rich chocolate flavor with a REALLY moist texture — good for a non-kosher, non-meat meal during Passover and for true chocolate lovers any time
Egg Cups — we add veggies or sausage/bacon/proscuitto to a mixture of eggs, milk, cheese and lots of seasonings — a response to some customer feedback about having something else savory (besides the cheese muffins) available for breakfast 
Creme de Menthe brownies — a layer of moist rich brownie, then a layer of mint buttercream, then a layer of chocolate ganache — seriously, what’s not to LOVE? Thanks to customer Elise LaPrade for encouraging us to make these!
April 5th marked our 5-year anniversary. We’ve come a long way from working with one 5-quart mixer in a space the size of a postage stamp (OK — that’s a slight exaggeration) to the recent renovation of our new additional space and the recent purchase of a commercial 20-quart mixer! Thank you to all of our wonderful customers who kept buying stuff from us — some of you have been with us for 5 years! We couldn’t have stayed open if you guys didn’t keep coming!
I’m excited to introduce you to 8 more prized JennyCakes staff members!
Christine!
Christine Tenorio — Christine is a student at Walter Johnson HS. As you can see, she has a winning smile! She also has a quiet, cheerful and calm disposition, which is VERY handy at a bakery as busy as ours. In addition to her stellar baking skills, she also loves to reorganize things — a quality I can TOTALLY relate to!
Henry!
Henry Vaccaro — Henry is one of our truly treasured employees. Every Thursday and Saturday morning, we all walk into the bakery and say “Ahhhhh” when we see how beautifully he’s mopped the floor. He is incredibly consistent and conscientious and goes the extra mile by reminding me when I’m out of something. We are so grateful to him for the work he does!
Kat!
Kat Duckworth — Kat is one of our newest staff members. She has quickly fit right in and become a pro at making a wide variety of items at the bakery. She’s our current expert on baking banana bread, which is wonderful because we never seem to have enough of it! Kat has two beautiful children and in her free time at home she likes to bake, frost and decorate beautiful cakes. Go figure! So far we’ve seen photos of two of her gorgeous cakes and we’re looking forward to seeing more photos and hopefully getting her more involved in the decorating side of the bakery!
“K”!
Kristen (“K”) Perera — K (as we call her since we already have a Kristen!) walked into the bakery one afternoon and said “I’d like to work here” in a way that sort of sounded to me like “I’m going to work here”. And just like that she started working here! She’s a huge asset — catches onto things quickly, juggles lots at once, figures out on her own what needs to get done next. Oh, and in addition to this job, she holds another full-time job at a pizza restaurant and volunteers at the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department. We’re lucky to have her for the hours that we do!
Martha!
Martha Deale — Martha is an old, OLD friend of mine, or rather a LONG-TIME friend. She’s not THAT old. 🙂 She lived in the house directly behind us when we moved to Kensington 23 years ago! The longevity of our friendship is conducive to lots of ribbing each other when we work together. Martha knows more about the Nationals than anyone else I know. And, bless her heart, she’s also a Caps fan so Mary and I have someone to commiserate with during this difficult playoff season!
Mason!
Mason Saphire — Mason came to JennyCakes and jumped right in with both feet. Within half an hour of coming in for his try-out, we offered him the job. We felt comfortable with him instantly and it seemed like he’d work here forever. He’s good at everything — from keeping track of orders to helping to frost and decorate cakes and cookies to making bars and quiche to helping customers. He has a particularly nice manner with customers so he’s starting to take the lead on answering the phone. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to talk to him!
Susan!
Susan VanHorn — Susan starting working at JennyCakes last fall. A mother of two kids at Kensington Parkwood, Bonnie and I particularly enjoy the fact that she keeps us apprised of KP gossip. She’s a terrific worker and she has great baking common sense so she can do pretty much anything in the kitchen. She has a wonderful manner with customers and seems to already know a rather huge number of people who come in. It’s truly a joy to have her here with us at JennyCakes!
Vincent!
Vincent Wilson — Vincent not only makes our floors sparkle (literally and I’m not even kidding!) four times a week, but he helps with the gigantic chore of keeping us stocked in folded boxes. In addition, we recently found out how willing he is to help out in a pinch! During a recent rainstorm our ceiling in back started to leak huge — and I mean like trash-can sized — amounts of water. As we all pitched in to put buckets, trash cans and any other container we could find under the area where the water was leaking, I looked to my side and there was Vincent in there with us hauling water to dump outside, sweeping up water that leaked on the floor, adjusting all the buckets so they were under the worst leaks. Needless to say, he’s willing to go way above and beyond the call of duty and we so appreciate that!
Stay tuned for one more round of meet the JennyCakes staff. Then you’ll all be tested on their names and skills. Get ready!
Jenny
As Doug and I were driving to the wedding of former JennyCakes employee Janine Joly, we started talking about all the great employees JennyCakes has had since it opened nearly 5 years ago. Doug thought we should have a section on the website that includes info on current staff as well as updates on where previous staff are now. I think this is a GREAT idea!
So below is part one of Meet the JennyCakes Staff (parts two and three to follow in the next two blog posts), but first I have to tell you about some new fun stuff at the bakery.
First, we’ve started making tiramisu! It’s so much easier than I thought and I love the process of perfecting it so that the coffee, custard, whipped cream, alcohol and soaked lady fingers come together in such a way that I’m hoping you’ll have to say “oh my”! We’ll be selling tiramisu in double helpings so think about it for Valentine’s Day!
Second, we’ve started making granola! We’ll have two kinds: mine, which includes toasted pecans, dried cranberries, unsweetened coconut, maple syrup, honey, oatmeal, and Mary’s which includes almonds, coconut oil, sunflower seeds, oatmeal, dried cherries and honey. For a while, we’ll be selling both in little bags ($1.50 each) with just 1 cup in them so you can try them out. Later, we’ll be selling bigger bags of it.
Third, a few old things have come back, including Boston cream cake and cupcakes 
(made with the classic custard of egg yolks, fresh cream and butter in the middle and chocolate ganache on top), perennial favorite snickerdoodles, bran muffins with mixed dried fruit and toasted pecans, and triple threat chocolate cookies (yes, three kinds of chocolate!).
Come by and check out the new stuff! See below for fun info about eight of our staff members!
Jenny
Bonnie!
Bonnie Lutz — Bonnie has been with us since Labor Day 2012! I remember cornering her at Kenmont Pool, after observing her get-it-done skills at the snack bar, and asking if she would consider (oh please please) working at JennyCakes. We are so lucky to have her! She’s the master of great customer service and efficiency. She was sick one day and I had to fill her shoes. I was so proud of myself when the entire cupcake case was nice and full and I could finally take a breath… until I realized she also handles all the cookies! I have no idea how she does it all, but she does! Little known fact about Bonnie: her other job involves gardening!
Kristen!
Kristen Kellogg — Kristen is one of our amazing decorators. She’s been at JennyCakes since July 2013 so, like Bonnie, she’s a long-timer! Kristen has the gift of gab, which is especially appreciated when we bring new people in to check out the bakery and when we come in sleepy and non-communicative on Saturday mornings. She brings to the bakery incredible exuberance, fierce opinions, and a scary amount of knowledge about Broadway musicals. Amazingly gifted as a decorator, she’s done phenomenal designs from a wonderful depiction of Darth Vader fighting Elsa (yes, someone requested this!) to a huge variety of My Little Pony designs. And if you really want to make her happy, ask her about the musical “Title of Show” (it’s her favorite).
Mary!
Mary Williams — One beautiful spring day last year, a woman named Mary came to us! She has been a tremendous asset to the bakery. She’s remarkably productive while somehow remaining kind, calm and compassionate (not something I accomplish very often — at least the calm part!). She’s an avid Caps fan (yes, that’s the sport that allows hand to hand combat as a part of the game!) and knows everything you could want to know about CORSI, the most recent players brought up from or sent back to Hershey, which lines Trotz is running in the next game, etc. Next time you come in, duck into the kitchen and see if a pretty woman with a high bun is at the mixers, and if she is, say “How ’bout those Caps?!?”
Ingrid!
Ingrid Ramos — Ingrid, our other gifted decorator, has worked at JennyCakes since December 2014. Immediately, she jumped right in and sometimes it scares me how reliant we all are on her to know what’s happening at the bakery, where everything is, and how to do anything that needs to be done. She does incredibly artistic and beautiful decorating, is super efficient, and has this wonderful aura of lightness and kindness that surrounds her. She is the first to sense when someone is stressed or out of sorts (OK, that’s usually me) and figure out a way to help. If you want to make Ingrid’s day, ask her how her new kitten is!
Karen and Abigail (Gali’s baby)
Karen Richardson — With us since September 2014, Karen has become the master of all cookies, bars and batters. She is always eager to help me puzzle through ways to make the bakery run more smoothly. Some of her favorite things are: daily walks with several long-time friends, visits to her sister in Boston, classic, jazz and blues music and old rock and roll, and sparring over politics with our wonderful former manager Gali Sapir.
Jim!
Jim Gordon — Yes, you’ve seen him making pizzas at Frankly Pizza as well but he ALSO likes (at least a bit) doing a weekly stint at JennyCakes. He handles our inventory and runs the front counter on Saturday mornings with incredible calm and poise, as in I’ve never heard him speak above a whisper! Rumor has it that he likes the Halo series of video games so ask him about that next time you come in on a Saturday morning!
Melanie!
Melanie Donohue — Melanie has been with us since the spring of last year. She’s a local mom who works not only at JennyCakes but at Sage, a really cool store on Antique Row around the corner from us. She brings with her lots of general baking knowledge and experience, as well as a very gentle and kind manner with other employees and customers alike. Very fun thing: we’ve recently discovered she’s amazing at decorating cookies and cakes!
Tully!
Tully Hudson — We really lucked out on this hire! Not only does Tully have a wonderful manner with our customers at the front counter and a quickly-acquired acumen in the kitchen, but he’s done a great job of supervising the preparation of the hundreds of boxes the bakery goes through each week.. Extra bonus: he keeps us stocked in toffee at Christmas. Funny how an entire bakery staff can be so excited about toffee in the face of so many other available goodies!
Christmas cake
Buche de Noel
Gingerbread boys & girls
We have lots of goodies on-hand now at the bakery, including jam thumbprints, pecan snowballs, decorated Christmas cookies, chocolate cupcakes with peppermint buttercream, gingerbread boys and girls and, MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE (I’m not even kidding), rum bites and rum cupcakes.
Our schedule for the week of Christmas:
Mon 12/19 – CLOSED
Tues 12/20 – OPEN
Wed 12/21 – OPEN
Thur 12/22 – OPEN 8am to noon so we can start preparing Christmas orders
Fri 12/23 – CLOSED so we can prepare Christmas orders
Sat 12/24 – OPEN 8am to 1pm
Rum bites
Thumbprints
Decorated cut-outs
We will accept as many orders for Christmas as we possibly can. I don’t think I’ll give a deadline because it always seems like we have to cut off orders earlier than whatever date I say. To make sure we’ll be able to complete your order, please submit it through the website sooner rather than later. I’ll post something across the top of the website and on facebook if we decide we can’t take any more orders.
All orders must be picked up no later than 1pm on Sat Dec 24.
Here is a list of baked goods that we will be offering for Christmas this year:
- ONLY IN BATCHES OF 12 OF A PARTICULAR FLAVOR/BAKED GOOD for any of our smaller items, such as cookies, bars, muffins and cupcakes. We’ve found it’s difficult to prepare variety packages when we’re doing such a large volume of orders. But we plan to have our cases fully stocked on Sat 12/24 so you should be able to pick and choose then. Come on the early side because we may sell out of some items quickly.
- buche de noel
- pecan pie (with or without bourbon but with a different, drier filling than we did for Thanksgiving because I think the pecan pie bar filling we used then was too moist for a pie crust — my apologies!)
- apple pie with streusel
- pumpkin pie
- dark chocolate cream pie
- pumpkin roll (with or without toasted pecans)
- any of our cakes, full size pies or full size quiches
We hope you have a wonderful holiday!
Jenny
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