A Little About Me

After growing up making all the sweets at every family gathering and holiday, I fell in love with desserts. I chose to attend the Culinary Arts program at Brigham Young University Idaho. After graduating I have worked at various jobs making cakes and other goodies. The most recent being the Pastry Chef for the Oxford University Club, Taylor Grocery Special Events Catering in Oxford, Mississippi, and now my mom's farm-Fiddlin Rooster Farm- in Water Valley, MS. I have many family recipes and several of my own that I enjoy making and would love to make them for you.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Some treats from the Little Red Hen Bakery!

I finally took some pictures of the items I have made in the bakery. I quickly grabbed my camera the other day and took a few pictures before anyone walked up. Unfortunately it's not everything. I keep forgetting to take pictures of stuff and then it sells before I can. So I will try to be better about it and I hope you enjoy the pictures below.
Crescents and Chocolate Crescents
These tarts are filled with the same caramel I use on my apples and then have a layer of chocolate ganache poured on top.
Good old fashioned Chocolate chip cookies!
These are the newest recipe we have been making. They are a type of oatmeal cookie that tastes nothing like an oatmeal cookie! They have chocolate, pecans, and craisens inside this soft cookie!
For Fall we have been making candy apples!
And Yummy caramel Apples with or without Oreo cookie crumbs!
What would fall be like without some Caramel popcorn?
The cutest thing I have been making in the bakery is the worm bucket! How cute is this! When you purchase them you get to keep the little bucket and enjoy the dirt dessert inside!
Well that's a few of the treats at Fiddlin' Rooster Farm, so come out and enjoy some yummy treats and Fall fun!

Monday, October 12, 2009

My Mom's Farm!

I have been working for my mom for the past month at her farm. She opened a learning farm with a gift shop, corn maze, educational activities, and a bakery! So for the time being I have stoped working for Taylor grocery catering and have devoted my time to helping my mom on the farm. I have been so busy that I haven't taken any pictures or blogged about it until now. So I hope yall enjoy the new changes. Please check out the website and come visit us! http://fiddlinroosterfarm.com

This is the view from inside the pavilion looking at the general store entrance on the left and the bakery concession stand on the right.
Everything has a barn animal theme. The bakery is named after a classic children's book and was the inspiration for a lot of the colors for the bakery.

The cake display case with a few items in it. This was before I stocked it completely.
Morgan my son took the picture of my pecan pie.
Here is a look inside my new kitchen!
This was one of my customers buying some bread Saturday.
Since we opened in September we have gotten a few special orders for cakes and bread. This was a birthday cake my mom made. It is an Italian cream cake for a 98 year old's birthday!
I made sure to take my mom's picture too! She hasn't gotten to bake much since opening, but was able to sneak in for a little while to make this cake while I made bread.
Please come see the farm and keep us open!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Almond cake!

After watching the recent movie Julie & Julia my mom went out and bought Julia Child's cook book Mastering the Art of French Cooking! It is amazing! I can't believe we didn't have it before now. We have so many cook books, but we didn't have hers! So I wanted to make the cake featured in the movie, because it looked delicious! I have to say for my first ever Julia recipe it went great! The only thing I found that I need to change is the cooking time. I followed all of the directions to a t. I even whipped the egg whites by hand, something I have never done! Today's technology has prevented us from learning a lot of basic abilities and arm strength! The cake tasted great and had a wonderful flavor to it. I just need to watch the time. It was a little dry around the edges. The icing was so simple I think I didn't whip it long enough. That or it was just to warm during transportation to my mom's. (yes I had to share it with her since she bought the book) She was very surprised! The icing was really soft, so next time I will whip a little longer. All in All I congratulate Julia! I have always been a fan, but now I appreciate her a lot more! Yummy Yummy! Bon Appetite!


Thursday, August 27, 2009

Wedding

Hanna Baskin's wedding:
I finally took the pictures off my camera and found these. This wedding was a few weeks ago in New Albany, MS. I only got a few pictures, but I think the whole wedding turned out great.
This is the fruit and vegetable display.
We had 2 tables that look just like this one, the only difference is the other one had shrimp on it instead of the spinach dip.
I made 2 cheese balls. One was savory with pecans on the outside and this one which had craisens and almonds.
I think the wedding was beautiful and hope that they all enjoyed every bite!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Baby Blessing cake for the Britt's

Well it has taken me too long to post these pictures. I have had a few day's off work but I just haven't touched the blog until today. I made this cake for a friend who was blessing her twins at church. She had family in town and wanted something special for them. The cake is a lemon cake with lemon butter cream icing. I decided to decorate it in the colors she used in her nursery. The fun part that I found out after making the cake is that each boy has a blanket in there color just like the teddy bears are holding. I am so glad they had me make this cake for such a special occasion.
I sprinkled the tops of the cake with sanding sugar to add a little bit to the flat off white color.
Each teddy bear is made out of fondant and then painted to look more real.
I'm sad that the pictures came out so fuzzy the blankets were scored to look like a quilt.
Thanks again Britt family I hope yall enjoyed every bite.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Aiden's birthday cake!

Happy Birthday Aiden!
Every now and then I get to work on a cake with my sisters. This one was for my nephew Aiden who turned 7 this past week. He had a sponge bob themed birthday party. Usually his mom, my sister Jamie, makes all of there cakes (you can see her work herehttp://southernsweetcakes.blogspot.com/). Unfortunately she was sick and couldn't touch anything in the kitchen Christie my talented younger sister made the cake and while she did that I made sponge bob and his friend Patrick. Christie also has a site to show her work here http://christiescakes.blogspot.com/. I wish we lived closer so we could open a shop together. We are kind of like Ace of cakes in the aspect that we each excel in different areas of the pastry world. When we combine our talents we create these wonderful edible creations.
I made sponge bob out of fondant and gum paste.
Patrick was fun because he looked the most like himself! We kept imitating his voice saying, "Hey Sponge bob!" And then we would dance him around the counter.


I can't wait to make another cake with the girls it's so much fun!


Monday, July 20, 2009

Taylor Grocery Meet and Greet!

On July 14th we held a meet and greet reception at The Taylor Grocery restaurant. It was to share with some of the event planners in oxford some of the new things we are doing. Most people associate Taylor Grocery with catfish only; however, we do much more!

This is me with my mom Rhonda Webb. She helped me with the groom's cake and took all the pictures that night. We made the groom's cake look like the ole miss football stadium.
Here the owner, catering manager, and myself are getting our picture taken for the Oxford Invitation magazine!

This is me and the catering manager Butch Scott.
I think the cake turned out great!


The theme was rustic to match the store and we used chocolate brown and yellow linens with sunflowers for decorations. So I decided to design the wedding cake around that theme.
I used a chocolate fondant to cover the cake and piped on some sunflowers. The ribbon is made out of fondant that is painted with a sunflower orange edible powder.




I made the fruit arrangement with grapes, blueberries, and strawberries.
We served pecan tassies, and fruit cups as some of the desserts.



These are key lime tassies.
We also served hors d'oeuvres.
These are our chicken salad cucumber bites and tomato salad cups.
My pictures are a little out of order. Here are some more desserts. We made chocolate bites, some in white chocolate and some in milk.
I'm a little sad the some of the pictures looked great on the camera but when we put them on the computer they were fuzzy. I had to include some though because I still think they look OK even with the fuzz.

Everyone raved over my fruit dip garnished with some fresh mint from my mom's garden.
We served this raspberry lemon punch for our non alcohol guests such as myself.
All in all I think it was a great evening and we have gotten a few events from it, so I think it was well worth the work. For those who came or helped in anyway thank you so much. And I hope all those who missed out can book there next event with us and enjoy some of the same wonderful food!