Happy Sugar Baking Land

Buttercream Shirts Have Arrived!!! *Updated*

Our first shipment of the official Merci Beaucoup "Buttercream" t-shirts have arrived and are ready to order!  As seen on WE tv's Amazing Wedding Cakes, these are the chocolate brown shirts with pink writing as worn by our favorite buttercream fanatic, Marc!  

Order today at our Big Cartel storefront!!

**UPDATE**

Inventory status as of May 3rd: Over half of our XLs have been ordered, nearly the same for Larges.  A third of our Mediums are gone as well!!  

We've also responded to some requests for larger sizes.  If you need something bigger than a 2X, simply order a 2X and then write in the notes what size you want.  We will be special ordering some bigger sizes from our printer, but only for those who have already purchased, so essentially you are "pre-ordering."  I will not be getting extra of these larger sizes.  (the same goes for the Fondant pre-order, just put in the notes what size you want and I will order those when they are printed)

Still on track to expect Fondant shirts in early June.

Merci Beaucoup Flashback: Reva's Sweet 16!!

I was searching through boxes and boxes of old photos recently in an attempt to drive myself crazy/organize them, and I came across some great pics from Reva's Sweet 16 birthday shindig featuring her cakes!!  Check out this slice of Merci Beaucoup history...

Teenagers... always hungry!!  Look at all that cake!!  The big day took place at a club owned by Reva's dad called The Limelight and Madonna played!!  No, that's not true, I made that up, but I wouldn't have put it past her to ask!  The cakes came from Clarice's in Newhall, CA, a great little place that sells supplies and teaches classes as well as making cakes.  It was just a few blocks from our first shop and I've made many a run to Clarice's over the years.  

Here's a close up of the cakes:

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the theme involved pink.  And Reva would like everyone to know it was the "hottest invitation in school that year."  Oh science, when will you give me a time machine?

Silly Cake News: Nazis, Knitting, Portal 2 & More Royal Wedding

What's occurin, my cake nerds?!!  Husband Mic here and with Spring in full swing, we couldn't be more interested in being outside the bakery!  We were in San Francisco last weekend for WonderCon and it was gorgeous!  Thanks to everyone at the convention for a great time, but now it is time for SILLY CAKE NEWS!!!!  (read that with a big echo in your head please)

Our first slice today comes from the pastry mecha of Austria, where a local baker is apparently offering hate with his buttercream.  A holocaust awareness group is outraged to discover images of Nazi confections in the shop's sample books, including a swastika topped cake and a pie with a Nazi soldier giving salute to Hitler!!  WTF?!  We've been asked to do some weird cakes, but never in a million year would we do that!!  The worst part is the baker defends himself, even staying topical by saying if someone asked him to make a cake of Gaddafi, he'd do it.  Uh, dude, sometimes the customer is NOT always right.  Click the link to see pics cause I'm not gonna post them here, but you'll see the true horror of the cake.... his piped swastika looks like crap!  Well, that and being racist Nazi propaganda. 

The second slice is a lie!!!  Now that we've put the crazy Austrian behind us, let's move onto more serious silly cake news: video games.  This piece is for my serious gaming cake nerds.  The game Portal notoriously encouraged players with promises of cake only to have you discover graffiti throughout the game telling you "the cake is a lie."  What a horrible lie!!  Anyhoo, the sequel Portal 2 is about to hit stores and a comic book bridging the gap between the two stories is out and promises clues as to where to actually find the infamous cake in the game.  To be honest, I've never played the game, but the meme makes me laugh and I love the cake touch from the game designers.  If anyone discovers the cake, let me know!

For our final slices today, let's take yet another look at the impending royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  It's close isn't it?!  And with the cake designer chosen, those wacky Brits are still going out of their way to add their own slant on a royal wedding cake!  

Take for example this awesome sculpted marzipan cake topper of the royal couple.  Made by Terry Lang and his daughter Leanne, baking company Renshaw commissioned the duo to make the topper as a present for Will and Kate.  They obviously spent a lot of time on it, knowing their inspirations would see the final product, and I think they did a smashing job!

But actually using edible product is so last week!!  Feast your eyes on the future of cake, yarn!!!  That's correct, yarn.  A 74 year old woman with way too much time on her hands spent approximately three hours a day for two months to craft this three foot tall knitted royal wedding cake!  Holy smokes!!  With 100,000 stitches, this is one intense craft project and frankly, we want one.  I might have to commission this lady to make something for Merci Beaucoup!  Bravo!!

And that royal wedding is a mere three weeks away now!!  We better book our hotel!  Enjoy your weekend my friends!  

 

How To: Start a Cupcake Business

We get asked for advice all the time and when we can, we love to help out!  Obviously, one of the biggest questions concerns setting up a cupcake business.  I mean, everyone is doing it, so why not join in!!  All you have to do is following these simple rules and you'll be on the cusp of the dessert zeitgeist in no time!! 

1. Think of a cutesy name!!  Call everything cute and remember, replacing "Cs" with "Ks" enhances your wacky quotient!  So, on second though, think of a "kutesy" name!!
2. Outfit you and your "cupcake ambassadors" with skimpy aprons abundant with pretty frills and girlies colors.  These will do nothing to protect you during the baking process, but are a must when dealing with image concious trophy wives or posing for calendars!
3. Purchase the Magnolia Bakery cook book.  Hint: If you call yourself a pastry chef, the recipes taste even better!!
4. Cupcake shops only use one of about half a dozen script fonts and basic clip art for a logo, so mix and match yours today!  For best results, over pay your BFF's "computer genius" kid to do it for you!
5. Start convincing everyone you know that cupcakes are the "it" trend, even though we all know New York was over them a decade ago.
6. Make sure you're skinny and attractive.  Fat people don't sell cupcakes!!
7. Always lie that you use "natural ingredients."  If you're not organic, you're an afront to humanity!
8. Buy Packaging that is no less than 8 times the size of the cupcake.  Nothing justifies a $5 price point like a container you can upscale to store winter coats!
9. Get cast on Cupcake Wars and "win."  This is actually surprisngly easy, just make sure you adhere to rules #2 and 6!
10. Put the word "velvet" on the end of every cupcake!  People love "velvet" flavor, it's so much classier than eating chocolate cake!
11. Cash the check from your rich husband or family and get to it!!

 

April Fool's!!!!  

Obviously by now you can tell this was meant to be funny.  If it wasn't funny to you, then I probably hit a little too close to home.  Sorry about that.  There's nothing wrong with running a cupcake business, we love cupcakes, and if you can make any business successful, you're a rock star in my book.  But you have to admit, the explosion of cupcake only storefronts is getting a little silly, so we're just having a little laugh to start our April.

And yes, we do get asked about cupcake businesses and our serious advice is always this: if you have to take out a big loan, don't.  Have a great April Fool's everyone!!!