Cupcakes 101: Teacake Bake Shop Introduces Boutique Baking Classes

Bake With Teacake Teaches Trade Baking Secrets to Home Bakers

Emeryville, CA – November 13, 2008 –Teacake Bake Shop just introduced a new series of weekly baking classes available at the Lafayette retail location. “Bake With Teacake” classes feature actual Teacake Bake Shop recipes, and are kept small and personal with no more than eight participants and two instructors for optimal hands-on learning. Participants may choose from Cookie Classics, Cupcake Classics, or Seasonal and Themed Classes depending on the holiday season.

The Cookie Classics baking class is a beginner’s course in cookie preparation, including demonstration and hands-on learning. In this class, participants will learn how to prepare four types of cookies, including hand-rolled and drop cookies. The menu includes cookie sandwiches, cookie sandwich filling, buttercream-frosted soft sugar cookies, shortbreads and chocolate chunk cookies.

The Cupcake Classics is a beginner’s course in cupcake and frosting preparation including demonstration and hands-on learning. In this class, participants will learn how to prepare three types of cupcakes and one type of buttercream, as well as learn how to frost and decorate with two additional types of buttercream. The menu includes vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, pink velvet cupcakes, vanilla buttercream, chocolate buttercream and cream cheese frosting.

For the 2008 Holiday season, Teacake Bake Shop will be offering Cookies to Sweeten the Season and Cupcakes to Sweeten the Season. Please visit www.teacakebakeshop.com for additional seasonal and themed classes being offered.

“Cookies to Sweeten the Season is a great way to start celebrating the holiday season,” says Agnes Hsu, founder of Teacake Bake Shop. “In this class, participants will learn how to prepare four types of cookies, including hand-rolled and drop cookies, as well as how to decorate with festive holiday decorations. We are hoping that our techniques and recipes will be passed down from generation to generation. Scratch baking is one of my family’s favorite traditions.” The Cookies to Sweeten the Season menu includes sugar cookies in classic holiday shapes, Gingerbread Men, Mint Cookie Sandwiches with Mint Creme filling, and soft Pumpkin Patch Cookies drizzled with caramel icing and chopped pecans.

With Teacake’s Cupcakes to Sweeten the Season class, participants will learn how to prepare three types of fun holiday flavored cupcakes and one type of buttercream, as well as learn how to frost and decorate with two additional types of buttercream. The menu includes gingerbread cupcakes, pumpkin cupcakes, chocolate snowball cupcakes, cream cheese frosting, cinnamon cream cheese frosting, and vanilla buttercream.

Teacake Bake Shop team members, Sarah Meyeroff and Anne Roach, along with support from owner Agnes Hsu, created the “Bake With Teacake” program. As a result, the classes have become very popular with Teacake’s customers. “With all but two sessions booked until the end of the year,” Hsu explains, “it seems as though our baking classes have sparked a new passion for baking with our customers. We're thrilled they are filling up so quickly and believe they are a great extension of the Teacake Bake Shop experience, and our mission to ‘Sweeten your Day.’”

All baking classes are three-hour, hands-on sessions, and typically held on Wednesday evenings from 5-8 PM (please check individual class times). Each session is $75 for adults 18 and over, and $45 for children 6 and over. Each participant will take home the baked goods they have prepared, Teacake Bake Shop’s recipes, and a $5 gift card good at any Teacake Bake Shop retail location.

Founded in Emeryville, California in 2005, Teacake Bake Shop takes its name from sweet, buttery, fragrant “teacakes,” a word that, once upon a time, described little cakes (cupcakes) and cookies. Teacake Bake Shop’s current retail locations include Corte Madera, Emeryville, and Lafayette, all in California, and it ships nationwide through its online store. Using only the finest ingredients – imported Belgian chocolate and Dutch cocoa, Madagascar Vanilla, pure sweet butter, locally sourced eggs – and baked from scratch in small batches, Teacake Bake Shop’s mission is to “sweeten your day,” one bite at a time. For more information please visit www.teacakebakeshop.com.

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