Welcome to The Baker’s Dozen with Home Cake Decorating Supply

EDITION #01

The Baker’s Dozen

Rebecca is the new owner of Home Cake Decorating Supply in Maple Leaf Seattle

Hello, Baking fam!

Welcome to the Baker’s Dozen Newsletter!

Wow. I am so thrilled to be here. It’s been four months already (how?!) and I finally feel like I can run the register, order products, and find (most of) the stuff that’s in the back room. Seriously, there’s so much to learn when you take on a shop that’s been running for 65+ years! I want to honor the work that’s been done to keep this place running all that time and the memories that many of you have with this shop and our previous owners. I’m proud to continue sharing your experiences and supporting you with your baking projects.

Have we met yet?! Hi. I’m Rebecca. I just took over the shop in January. I have met many of you, and I’m excited to meet the rest of you soon! I’ve got a winding backstory of retail, tech, and nonprofit work, along with a deep love for baking, talking about baking, and figuring out how to solve any problem you throw at me. I’d dare you to challenge me, but y’all are so creative, you’re bound to stump me! You’ve already had me at fish head cakes, race tracks through a cake, and oh so many book cakes!

Just a few weeks ago, I assembled a fabulous crew to help glam up the shop — new carpet, fun paint, and a whole new layout. And let me tell you, it’s BIG in here. There’s so much more space than I imagined.

We’ve got all the same products you’re used to and a few new ones! Some items have moved to the back room to accommodate the new layout. Just ask and I’ll grab you anything you need (I’ve gotta get my steps in)!

The Proving Box: Burn Cakes and the Heated Rivalry Party!

I haven’t had a ton of time for baking recently, but we had a Heated Rivalry themed party (of course! How many reheats have YOU had?!), so we made cookies and cupcakes with a variety of designs. For the cupcakes, I made them into mini Burn Cakes. It was so fun!

A burn cake is where you put two layers of edible paper on top of a cake and then light the first layer so that it singes away and reveals the other design. Home Cake has both wafer paper and frosting sheets needed for these and we can print your designs on both.

On our cupcakes, we printed a bunch of HR and hockey team logos and then the reveal showed pictures of the characters.

How I made the burn layers

Put a thin layer of frosting on the cupcake to give the frosting sheet something to stick to. Pipe a double tall layer of frosting around the edge. Then gently place the wafer paper layer on top of the frosting wall. Pipe around again (optional, just to hide the edges). I made mine on the day of the party because the edible papers don’t like moisture, so if your cakes need to go in the fridge, I’d recommend waiting for this part until the cakes are coming out of the fridge. To start the burn, use a long grill lighter.

For edible prints, send your designs to images@homecakedecorating.com and let us know what size the cake is. We can print as big as 7.5”x10.5” or set up round cake images or cupcake images. More info and instructions are on the website.

heated rivalry themed cupcakes made into burn cakes

Curious Crumbs: What’s a Bakery Emulsion?

First, why is vanilla extract in literally everything?!

Vanilla extract earned its place as the default baking flavoring for a simple reason: it works reliably in almost everything, it's shelf-stable for years, and it plays beautifully with other flavors without competing with them. It’s a great flavor enhancer that makes chocolate taste more chocolatey and butter taste more buttery. It also became deeply embedded in American baking culture through the late 19th and early 20th centuries when companies like McCormick and Watkins made it widely affordable and accessible, essentially training generations of home bakers to reach for that little brown bottle out of habit.

But have you ever tried Bakery Emulsions?

If you've ever pulled a beautiful vanilla cake out of the oven only to find the flavor had all but disappeared, you've experienced the #1 frustration with traditional extracts and the reason bakery emulsions exist.

Extracts are flavor compounds suspended in alcohol, which is great for shelf life but terrible for baking. Heat causes the alcohol to evaporate, and it takes a significant portion of your flavor right along with it. Bakery emulsions solve this by suspending flavor in a water-based solution instead. The flavor molecules are locked into tiny droplets held stable by emulsifiers, so they don't “cook off” the same way. What goes into the oven stays in the finished product, giving you a brighter, truer, more intense flavor in your cakes, cookies, pastries, and breads.

We currently have 24 different flavors of LorAnn emulsions in stock! Some new additions are Buttery Sweet Dough, Brown Butter, and Princess Cake & Cookie. Swap with vanilla or add? Up to you — remember vanilla is a flavor enhancer, so sometimes layering in the emulsion adds the wow factor to an already great recipe!

The Community Table: Donations and Popups!

Thank you so much to the folks who purchased Trans Visibility Day edible cupcake topper prints in March and April, supporting the It Gets Better Project! Together we donated $100!

For April and May, we’ll be donating to Camp Ten Trees, the PNW’s only residential summer camp programming for LGBTQ youth, their allies, and kids of LGBTQ & nontraditional families. In addition to camp activities like swimming, archery, and nature hikes, campers engage in age-appropriate workshops exploring identity, issues of oppression/privilege, youth coalition building, social justice, and more. I volunteered and worked with Lambert House, an LGBTQ youth center in Capitol Hill, for almost a decade and many of our youth deeply valued their experiences at Camp Ten Trees.

🌈🌲🦄 Home Cake will donate $15 for each sheet of our Pride designs edible print cupcake toppers purchased in May and June. Let’s help LGBTQ youth have some amazing outdoor adventures this summer!

About that table in the front of the store…we recently had a bouquet popup with Flowers by Dr. Jo and I would love to have more folks in here who have cottage or small bakeries, craft businesses, or anything else that our baking community might enjoy! Send me an email or text the store phone if you’ve got some ideas or would like to participate.

Shop Notes: New Merch Alert!

I found these cool 4-cupcake boxes that are oblong rather than square for a unique look. We now have bento box inserts for your cake + cupcake orders. And for those of you who do large cupcake orders or are making multiple dozen for a big party, we offer 24-cupcake inserts for our half sheet boxes.

Many of you have been asking for chocolate bar molds so we brought in a bunch with fun patterns, including a deep mold for Dubai chocolate bars.

Our bread baking supplies have expanded a bit with new bannetons in three shapes (round, short oval, and long oval), lames, a baker’s couche, and we still have Pullman loaf pans in two sizes (9” and 13”).

The Mystery Ingredient: It’s a mystery, but for now it’s a tool.

If you’ve made it this far, then you have a chance at a prize! Somewhere in the shop is a this helpful little tool. It really has only one purpose, but it could make your cake decorating go quicker.

To enter for this month’s prize, drop by the shop to submit your guess by May 23rd. I’ll randomly select one winner from all correct entries (no purchase necessary) and announce the answer and winner on social media and in the next newsletter. Happy Baking!

mystery close up image of an item in the store

So excited for you to be following along with us! See you soon at the shop and don’t forget to show me all the fun stuff you’re baking! Rebecca 🖤🧁

Call or text us 206-522-4300 with questions! hello@homecakedecorating.com