i think the craze is already out there!!

the cake bite went really well today, and someone came in and said,"Oh, you guys do cake on a stick? I have heard people talking about these...do you also make those things, I don't know the name, something smashed in between to cookies?" I replied, with a smile..."Oh, you are thinking if Whoppie Pies.." she said "YES! that's it...everyone is talking about those.." Hmmm. I think we just might have to make those...but maybe we will do MoonPies instead...

We also got in some beautiful fresh Dublin Bay prawns....going to try something really yummy this weekend with them...honey, lime and chili, grilled on a stick...come in and see what you think...

Also, to those of you who read this, please give Taylor a little shout out, he is feeling a bit down due to the slow bread sales...they are selling, but not as fast as we would like...on the other hand the cake side of things is brilliant! So, Taylor if you are reading this keep your chin up, the bread is brill!!!

Going dancing now...

Peace

Shannen

what an idea!

so today was blessed with a great idea from a friend back in seattle, susanne. she's always lending ideas and recipes from her catering business, cameron catering. its a ball of cake with frosting mixed in and then covered in a dipped chocolate covering! who would have thought? i can see a craze coming on......

i tried it with our vanilla cake and butterscotch frosting. yum yum! (they're pictured to the bottom left of photo)

thanks suzanne!

lights.... camera.... action!

today we filmed the first episode of our cooking tutorial: cooking with queers!
this episode featured sauces we use in the cafe everyday. aioli, anchovy capers vinegrette, tartar sauce, and rocket pesto. its going to take some getting used to, but we ware well on the way. i myself was only in the background. dee was with shannen, tonight. maybe next time ill assist shan in some amazing cake baking? we'll see....
so next we have to go through editing and reshooting. and hopefully have an enjoyable glimpse into every day cooking at diva boutique bakery!
taylor

yes today was a great day!!

we had a great day of research and development!!! go to Glebe house and gardens in Baltimore, West Cork!

what a beautiful place...Thanks for the tip Rob...and to think i drove past this little gem of a place for years...taylor and i sat in the sun had a beautiful lunch and a stroll around the gardens...we then took a drive to Deelish garden center, a place where they are passionate about plants!! on the way back to Kinsale we had to pop into our favourite gourmet shop, Lettercollum Project Kitchen in Clonakilty, got a great coffee, beautiful bread and some lovely spinach and ricotta tortellini, pesto and semi sundried tomatoes for dinner! the sun was splitting the rocks...it's days like this that remind me of why i moved to Ireland....and to top it all off, I had my hair done!

nighty night

shannen

check out our links at the bottom of this page, for more info on great places in west cork.

Today is a great day

we had a delightful day off, well shan did. im working in 15minutes. but before that we drove down to a wonderful place in baltimore, glebe house and cafe. so nice! lovely fresh food, huge gardens chickens, a view of the bay, cant beat it. so we got inspired and bought some plants to deck out our planter boxes just down the road from glebe house. shan will be posting more about our visit including pics! do take the drive down if you ever get the chance!

taylor

video tutorials!

so the ball is rolling!

next week (tues) is the first filming of our cooking tutorials.
this has been a long time coming, ill have you know.
probably 2 years... we just never accomplished it. probably from laziness, but i do remember SOME attempts..... some.
anyways, the original theme that we are sticking with is called: Cooking with Queers. since there's alot around and about the cafe.. i.e. working there! and its funny, rude, catchy, and quirky.
we are hoping to bring a bit of humor and fun to cooking, as well as a few tricks.
so really, you have to watch, and tell us what you think!
there might even be drag queen cameos!

we'll see.

the first section is aptly going to be on sauces. yummy ones, easy ones, rich ones. everyone knows that the reason you eat food is to get more sauce into your mouth! never mind the survival thing.....




taylor

THE VAN!!!

so, last week i bought a van on ebay!! if any if you followed me on Facebook, you probably had a little glimpse of my journey to the UK..for those of you who did not follow me on FB but follow my blog, I will fill you in on THE VAN aka Zelma...

about 3 years ago, i began toying with the idea of having a vehicle for the cafe, we used to do a lot of markets and it is such a pain in the ass to load up my volvo, plus the car gets wrecked...chocolate and frosting everywhere plus the tables mark up the leather in the car and i mean like, big crescent shaped gouges in the leather in the door... that i just noticed last year(its from the hinges on the table and then me forcing the door shut) anyhoo, i wanted a van but a unique van(of course!), so i started looking at old 1976 Citroen vans...i think they are the funkiest vans on earth!! so, i began the search on ebay, but one of the biggest problems was getting them from france back to ireland...richard found 2 on ebay and they were so f-ing cool, one was a proper bus and the other was a van...i bid on them, but the seller did not get back to us about shipping from his region of france to where the ferry terminal is in Roscoff...so richard advised against it...if the seller was more informative, i would have bought them...

so along came Zelma! richard found her when i was bidding for the Citroen's, she is english(a Morris) and she is a runner, only 35mph, but still a runner...and she is right hand drive. she is just perfect...i will keep you all posted on her Diva transformation

happy trails....

shannen

Mixed emotions

Well well well....who whould have ever thought...btw this is my first post

I woke up this morning thinking what a crap day lets see if we can make it better...
Got to work.. switched on the PC to my new favorite radio station.....funny enuf called Diva Radio, Funky 70's disco all day long to brighten the mood and it worked... even with the shite(sorry bout that) The bloody freezer is F^$&$£ again.... welll its cleared out now.... and just pointing to Shan's post about hidden costs...this is once again part of that ...some stock has to be throwed away...such a pity as stock wastage is not marked by how much it cost to make but what u can get for it... but yet again on a brighter note, Black bean soup with cumin and jalepeno....AMAZING....pop in for ur bowl today or tomorrow. got some cake bases ready for taylor to frostitute them up.....

All in all did not land up being a bad day at all..

well that was my first post and quite mixed..

Dee

Perfect Pastries

Poached Pears in Honey and Thyme

These pears were first peeled and pitted then poached in a syrup that included honey and thyme

Pear Honey Thyme Puff Pastry

The end result is a pretty pear nestled in a blanket of fresh hand rolled puff pastry! the pastry is a two day affair of rolling and folding the dough to get even layers of butter and dough, so when the butter heats up the water inside the butter will expand the dough layers, and that my friends, gives "Puff" pastry its name. simple but tedious! the dough must be cold and the butter not too hard or your layers will break or ooze together. but its soo worth it in the end product!

the pastry then gets rolled out thinly, cut into circles, and a band is cut and placed around the edge for added height once the pastry "puffs" in the oven. then nestled in the center is the poached pear half and a bit of thyme sprig, egg wash the sides and chill 'em before baking.

taylor

communion

so its been crazy busy with orders this week!
it all has to do with communions, and yes, here goes the godless american... i dont really get the whole communion thing.
im so busy at the moment i have to get back to making communion cakes! and breads and and and.... ill chat more later....
taylor

Sorry we ran outta that....

so, it's sunday...and as you know from my previous blogs sunday can be crazy, anyhow, this sunday was good...we had a nice morning rush, and kinda kept going at a steady pace for the rest of the day...Sunday is a brunchy day. Also it is our last day of the week.

I had a customer come in, who was not our typical customer, older male big red face on him..he asked for soup. Dee took the order, but did not realize that we ran out of soup. I told the guy we were out of soup, he huffed and walked out..there were 30 other items for him to choose from..but that didn't work.

So, just to explain...I wasn't going to make another soup on sunday because we are closed on monday, tues is quiet and that is when we do a lot of prep for the week, one of those things includes making fresh stock! no packets used here....

Yes, we run out of things on the menu daily, we only order in enough for a day or two, that way it is always fresh...

My apologies to those customers who come in for one thing and we are out of it, we do try to have everything, but when we run out it's out! hopefully we can entice you to try something else on the menu....

shannen

new rolling pin

i woke up last night and realized that my wrists hurt. and ive been actually waiting for this to happen..... being a baker requires manual labor, these days bakeries have tools to help with the strain this field causes on the body i.e. sheeter machines that roll dough out for you. we are still in the 50's, we use the ol' rolling pin, which is fine! i like being that much more hands on with the dough. except our rolling pins are dinky, and weigh nothing! we really need a heavy ass rolling pin, preferably 10 pounds, if im going to keep rolling croissants and puff pastry at the pace im going! or we need to up the price of our pastry to pay for my future carpel tunnel surgery! 25% of sales go to future doctor visits! ha. instead, ive been online searching or rolling pins all day.

sincerely,
desperately seeking commercial rolling pin,
taylor

God's of the cafe world answered my prayers!!!!

remember a few blog's ago? when i wrote that there was no one in the village?? well the cafe gods answered my prayers..and we were busy busy busy!!! yay, i can now pay a few bills!! for those of you who do not have your own business, this is what it is like...well, at least in the food industry, in a village, you just never know when you are going to have a bit o dosh! you hope and hope that you will, and that you will be the best business owner in the world and pay all of your bills when they come in...but the reality is, sometimes they have to wait...so it is such a good feeling to have the funds to pay what is due!!

I will say one thing, it was a hard weekend, all of my staff were brilliant and worked their butts off, but we earned every cent that was brought in..and when i mean that we earned every cent, sometimes you can be busy and for some reason everything flows beautifully..customers are staggered, they all order the same thing(or some version of), it sucks when you get an order like this: 1 breakfast wrap 1 lamb burger 1 brioche french toast 1 waffles and 1 cod and chips! we have a small fryer and a 4 burner stove...so timing is everything...i love an order like this! : 4 diva fry and a breakfast wrap! that is bliss...

so a quick funny story...on the bank holiday monday, i was meant to collect Dee, he lives in town and the sunday night of the rugby 7's is a nightmare and no one can sleep, so he was worried that he wouldn't wake up. I had left my phone at the cafe and was out on sunday night, i thought i would meet up with him at some point but we didn't...so monday morning i am up and slightly hung over...went to collect d at his house, and i couldn't wake him up!! i do=idn't have my phone and i forgot his number, so i was thinking shit!!! what am i going to do, we are screwed without Dee!!!! but i had to get to work and i thought that if i couldn't wake him up he wouldn't be much use t me anyway...so out i drive to work, psyching myself up for hell and i look in the review mirror...and guess who is behind me in a taxi?! Dee!!! whew...that was close... the reason why i couldn't wake him up was because he wasn't there!!! ha..

off to work now...oh yeah, please give us some ideas of what you would like to see on the baking video!!!

ciao for now...

shannen

ideas and updates...

so shannen has repeatedly brought up to me the idea, of posting baking videos. i think its a good idea but we really havent come up with a consensus on what we are going to video! so ill post ANOTHER poll with a list of recipes that we would like to try out. and whichever wins thatll be the first diva cooking show! should be fun. stay tuned. if you have any ideas of what you'd like to see us make, comment on this post or write it on our facebook page!

also it looks like greek was the most popular world cuisine on our last poll. lets see what shannen whips up in the cafe for the menus special dishes!

thanks again to everyone who came in last weekend. we were busy! im ready after a days rest to et back in there and bake! cake orders are piling in! why not put one in yourself?! 2 days notice is appreciated!

Baking Tip:
if a recipe calls for cake flour(which is much lighter in nature,) try this handy substitute.
take 1 cup of all purpose flour and remove 2T of the flour and sub another 2T of corn flour(corn starch!) its really that easy! remember to sift the flours together, which makes every cake lighter in the end!


taylor

Sunday, of The may bank holiday...

It's half past nine in the morning, i got home at half one in the morning last night, i was doing a "market" at a fundraiser for Haven(a NGO in haiti that builds home for the homeless), it was super cool...at little MayFair...but i sold very little and froze my butt off...now its Sunday, and if it was anything like yesterday...YIKES...we are down one person again, 4 of us in total, we will see how it goes....