​I don't want to bombard the blog with baby stuff, but since I am pregnant, I figure an occasional update is called for/appropriate.  At 16 weeks (and 3 days) I'm moving on through my second trimester, and can now reflect back on what it was like for me to bake during the first trimester.

​Baking in the first trimester really wasn't all that different for me than my normal baking.  I lucked out in terms of morning sickness and only had mild nausea and then had to deal with hot flashes.  One thing I did/do have....tiredness!  I've never been much of a napper...I have a really hard time falling asleep in the middle of the day unless I'm sick or something.  Probably because I'm too worried about what other things I could be getting done...darn you Type A personality!

Well that quickly went away because I literally felt like I couldn't keep my eyes open.  This is a real struggle when you get up in the wee hours to bake.  If I got the luxury to get home early or if it was the weekend I would easily fall asleep on the couch or chair if it was between noon and 3 pm.  And then by 8 pm I was ready to go back to sleep!  

I go to bed early as it is since 3 am rolls around in a hurry...and even though I'm no longer in my first trimester I still find myself wanting more sleep.  Not so much in the middle of the day anymore, but in the evening I just want to go to bed. I will not feel bad about going to bed early!  No sleep and late nights are on the way so I will soak up the sleep while I can!

The only other real change I made was to make a conscious effort to take breaks.  I barely ever stop what I'm doing or take a real break when I have a day full of orders.....so the first trimester left me doing "the potty dance" a whole lot! I now make sure I have my snacks and meals at times I normally would....and I sit down to eat!  Crazy I know!!  I use my stool to actually take breaks, and I use it when I'm done baking and move on to decorating.  Using a stool isn't super convenient....I have to get up a lot so there's not really much sitting, but the resting/leaning still helps.  

The above pictures are pretty blurry and I didn't take a whole lot of time editing them....but I've been trying to document week by week by just snapping a quick picture on my phone and putting some tidbits with the pictures.  So here are the pictures from weeks 8, 12, and 16!  The next update will be at the end of March....when we find out the gender!  I have no preference, just health, but man oh man I can't wait to find out!  I was fine...until the ultrasound got scheduled...now I just want to know right this second!

Before I end this post I thought I'd throw in the post I put up on my Facebook page..in case you missed it:

As I pay my yearly business taxes I must say thank you to all of my customers. You may think this is an odd thing, since businesses have to fork over large amounts of money to the government, but it reminds me that I am fighting a fair and moral business fight.
Steph's Sweet Treats got started because people beyond my friends and family started wanting my baked goods. Which is good, this is how most businesses start..word of mouth. However, as soon as I saw this happening, I made the transition to no longer baking from my home; I went through the process of opening a legally licensed kitchen. (I even rented a licensed kitchen for an order that was non family related before my bakery was ready and I paid taxes on the order).
What does this mean? I follow copyright laws, I follow the codes of the health department, I pay licensing fees and inspections, and I send a very large portion of each and every order to the government. Combine all of these things, and it makes if very hard to watch illegal bakers in the area who are not licensed, do not follow copyright, code, OR pay such a large sum to the government, grow and get away with it.
Worst of all, their customers don't realize they are only encouraging them to continue business illegally. You don't need a legal business to put up a facebook page or website, so many many people get away with it and customers are none the wiser to the persons operations.
This is why I am saying thank you for those of you who choose Steph's Sweet Treats. I urge you to continue support small LEGAL businesses. Thank you everyone who supports me; I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate it!
Sorry had to get that off my chest and out of my brain.

As always, thanks for another week of orders!

It's been awhile since I did a "story behind the order" post, so I thought I'd do the first one of 2016, third one overall.  If you've never read one of the behind the order blog posts before,  I just give you a peek behind the scenes/background on a few orders. How do I pick which orders to talk about?  They usually have special meaning to me, were particularly fun (even though all orders are fun!), were something new I got to try, or were a big hit on Facebook.

First up, let's talk about Barbie.  I'm sure most of you have seen a 3D Barbie cake at some point since they are pretty popular... despite their popularity, I had yet to have someone order one!  So I was pretty excited to make this cake.  If you haven't noticed, Barbie is tall!  Which means a Barbie dress cake is VERY large!  This cake was 4+ layers of cake....I say + because there was some carving and sculpting at the top to get the dress shape and cover enough of Barbie's torso.  Barbie's top included, the cake measured around a foot tall.  

This isn't the first big cake I've had the pleasure of making for this customer.  I got to make the super fun monster cake pictured below when they welcomed a new baby into the family.  They sure know how to order fun cakes!

Next up, a super fun first birthday cake....and again, something I've been wanting to make.  I love seeing cakes with little elephants holding balloons, so when I was asked to make one, I was excited!  There was also a lot of different fondant details in this cake which is always a fun treat for me.  The elephant and flower got made a few days in advance so they could harden up enough to go on the cake.  The other details (chevron and polka dots) were made right before decorating so they were pliable enough to go on.  The cake also went with the polka dot smash cake pictured.  It was a first birthday and golden birthday celebration that I was thrilled to be a part of.

The next order was given to my husband's aunt by my mother-in-law.  Every year she gets her flowers for her birthday...so this year she wanted to combine her love of chocolate cupcakes with flowers!  She told me to do whatever I wanted, so I took inspiration from a popular cupcake bouquet that went around Pinterest and was sent to me by several people.  I think this mini bouquet turned about pretty darn cute.

Lastly, is a cake near and dear to my heart.  I was so excited to tell my Grandpa and Grandma Carley that I was expecting and keeping it a secret for so long made me want to make it a special reveal for them.  So what better way than to use a cake and my grandma's birthday?!  They have been the best grandparents I could ever ask for....supportive, loving, and always there for me.  I can't wait for them to be just as meaningful to our little one!

Thanks for another week of orders and for making the Valentine's Day open days so amazing!

I'm sure you can tell by now, that I like to write very honestly on this blog.  In the spirit of being honest...I thought I'd write about something nobody tells you about running a business.  What am I talking about?  Dissatisfied customers! Something every business owner fears! No matter what kind of business you run, if you deal with people, you are bound to have somebody be dissatisfied at some point.  Before I go on, let me say this has not happened to me a lot, but I'm not immune; it's happened!  Most people like to keep these incidences hush, hush, but since I'm pretty darn real....so I'm talking about it!

Now if the above message (the sign on the front counter in my shop) could always be true, I would always be fine...but I'm not.  I know every business has it's critics and complaints.  Look up any company and you are bound to find lovers and haters...but of course, when I opened I was naive enough to think I could avoid it.  Wrong!  Again,  this doesn't happen regularly, but I've been open for over two years now and have had a few "dissatisfaction issues" come up.  As a business owner, I think you have to get use to the idea that they will always be there.  Why will they always be there if you have a good product?

Because people will try to get away with A LOT...if you let them.  I said "dissatisfaction issues"  in quotes for a reason.  I've had a few issues with being suckered for a gift certificate or people looking for money back when it was not warranted.  But out of fear of an upset customer, I gave it to them. I had to learn the hard way...I cannot just give people money or a gift certificate merely because they say they have a problem.  I can't throw money back at people for just anything...because that word will spread around in a hurry and I will become a doormat for people to stomp on and get money from.  So I have told myself not to...and it's hard!  Of course, if it was warranted or my fault I would of course compensate a customer. 

Like I said, I learned the hard way....I put up a sign that said any damage to an order once it leaves my facility is your responsibility, not mine ( I check to make sure everything is A-OK before it leaves; I cannot control how everyone transports and chooses to store items).  I also cannot refund based on people's personal preferences.  

This is why I did a clarification on my Facebook page recently on the difference between my vanilla cake and my white almond cake.  There's a big difference...your order should reflect on your preference/taste.  I had a very confrontational customer-well not exactly the customer, but their relative-telling me off about the order, insisting they get money, and even threatening to turn people away from me (even though I did specifically ask if they wanted vanilla or white).  But guess what?  I made several other vanilla cakes at the very same time, very same batch as this persons.  

​So of course I had to make sure it wasn't something I did wrong (in which case I would have compensated the person), so I contacted others customers from that weekend and asked them to tell me honestly what they thought.....the guests loved the cakes, complimented them, and had no leftovers.  So what am I to do???  All I can do is apologize because it is my worst nightmare to have someone upset, but I can't give them money back.  That's like going to the movie and asking for your money back because you hated the movie, but everyone else loved it. You can't do it.  

Now you may think I'm crazy, and "the customer is always right," but if I did that I would be opening my business up for a whole lot of scamming and people just looking for freebies left and right.  I've also had a few people lie about things being wrong (I know because I did my background work and checked to see if things were okay with others, or again, other matching orders for that weekend).  You can tell when someone is lying too...because if I tell them I've checked things out, they will come up with a new complaint or a problem that isn't even possible to have with their order.  

I'm by no means trying to bash anyone or say anyone who complains to a business is lying...but it happens a whole lot more than one would think.  I could never imagine doing that to a business, but maybe that's because I'm a business owner myself and I know the damage it could do to a reputation.  I want every customer satisfied always...but it's a business, and I've had to learn you just can't make everyone happy. 

For this reason, I've created a binder full of thank yous, positive emails, reviews, etc.  For the days something brings me down, brings me to tears, makes me doubt whether or not I'm good enough, or all of the above.  My husband is there to pick me back up; make me stop crying; remind me that I am great at what I do; tell me every business has to deal with this kind of thing; and I go through the binder to remind myself the positive FAR outweighs any negative I have ever gotten.  

Which brings me to the next thing you may not think of when running a business..the internet!  Everyone has instant power to make or break your business with a click of a button and a few taps on the keyboard.  You never know if the person behind the review or post is being honest or not.  I can look at some of my favorite places on Facebook or other websites and find mean reviews or experiences that are completely different from my own with the company or restaurant.  

When I first started my Facebook page the mobile version was different than it currently is.  You'd go to my page (or any page) and the first thing you'd see was stars for reviewing.  This setup meant a lot of people were trying to scroll down or "drag" the page and would unintentionally click a star rating....low ratings!  Since these were left before I even opened or at the very beginning of my business, I knew most of these people had never heard of me or had anything I had ever made before...so I contacted them.  Most people wouldn't go that far, but lets face it... internet ratings make a big impact on a business.  Every one of those people had no idea they left the ratings, it was a mistake, and they deleted them.  

That is all except for one.  If you go to my reviews on Facebook, you'll notice a one star review.  Now why am I calling this reviewer out??  Well one, they'll never see this...and two, it's bogus.  I have figured out who the person is, but they have never met me, never had my baked goods, and just want to hurt my business.  Why?  For very childish reasons.  The person is the ex mother-in-law to my cousin.  Crazy right?!  Apparently the relationship didn't end well and she wanted to take it out on my cousin and their family...even if we've never met, never had an issue...and even if I know nothing about the situation...it was still taken out of me.  I've tried several times to have them take it down and tried several different ways.  First I messaged them and they proclaimed "oops" and they'd remove it...nope.  Nothing has worked, so I've given up.  It's just another example of how people can take down a business whether what they say or do is the truth or not.

If you operate a business you can probably relate...if you can't, then you have been beyond lucky and I bow down to you.  I hope you've enjoyed this bit of honesty; it's been kind of therapeutic I must say!  Dealing with any negative makes all the positive I get regularly receive that much more cherished.  Thank you all so much for all the love and compliments you send me; and thanks for another week of orders. 

Sorry for the long-winded post!  Hope to see you Friday and Saturday for your Valentine's Day cupcakes!!

 If you've seen the Steph's Sweet Treats cupcake menu, you know I have created a lot of flavors.  When I first opened Steph's Sweet Treats,  I printed the menus on legal sized paper and even that took a few sheets to fit them all.  I felt like I was endlessly printing and didn't like the "unprofessional" aspect of it....so I had actual menus printed....1000 of them!

My theory when ordering such a large quantity was: if I order 1000, I'd have to resist creating flavors until I ran out and had to reorder...wrong!  I think it only made it worse!  I still have menus to get rid of before I print updated ones; and at this point I may just have to take a loss on them because I've created a whole lotta new flavors!

Before I give you the run down on all the new flavors; I also made changes to some of the cupcake names.  Since I am so strict on licensing laws, (I promise I won't go on a rampage on all the bakers breaking these laws-if you want to read about that click here), I wanted to stay away from any brand names in the cupcake names themselves, like: twinkie, snickers, oreo, etc. So the cupcakes (or fillings) are the same, but their names may be slightly different when I reprint.  Examples:  twinkie filling is called marshmallow filling, almond joy cupcakes are called almond cheer, etc.  I still use the brands in the descriptions, so people know what I'm talking about, but not the actual cupcake names.

New Flavors: These flavors are not in the current printed menus that are in my shop.  They are on the updated version I send people via email and Facebook message and can be ordered.  You may have already tasted some of them since a few have been featured at recent open days.  I promise to print new menus soon!  (and this time it will be alphabetized- don't ask how that one slipped my mind the first time around!)

• Batter up- chocolate cupcake, brownie batter and cookie dough filling, swirl of cookie dough and brownie batter frosting. (Refrigeration required)
•  Better than anything: chocolate cupcake soaked in condensed milk and caramel, topped with whipped frosting, a caramel drizzle, and toffee bits. (Refrigeration required)
•  Caffeine sweetie– coffee cupcake with caramel filling, topped with mocha buttercream, toffee bits, and a chocolate covered espresso bean. (Refrigeration required)
• Candy cane- candy cane bit cupcake with red and white swirl peppermint frosting and peppermint candy bits.
• Candy craving-chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting, topped with m&ms, rolos, butterfinger, peanut butter cups, snickers, and milky way pieces.
• Cappuccino- vanilla cupcake infused with cappuccino powder, topped with cappuccino whipped frosting.
• Caramel cookie crunch: vanilla cupcake with shortbread cookie crust, caramel filling, chocolate frosting and a Twix candy piece on top. (refrigeration required)
• Caramel latte: espresso infused vanilla cupcake with caramel whipped frosting and caramel drizzle.
• Champagne: champagne cupcake with champagne infused buttercream.  Only available for orders over 50 cupcakes.  This one is not "new", but was never printed on the menu before due to needing to large minimum order
• Chocolate caramel heaven: chocolate cupcake with caramel filling, topped with chocolate and caramel swirled frosting and mini chocolate chips. (Refrigeration required)  Also not "new", but it somehow missed my menu the first time around!
• Chocolate covered peanut: vanilla cupcake with peanut butter filling, chocolate frosting and chocolate covered peanuts.
• Choco-mallow: chocolate cupcake with caramel marshmallow filling, marshmallow frosting and caramel drizzle. (Refrigeration required)
• Chocolate strawberry cheesecake– chocolate cupcake with, oreo crust, strawberry filling, cream cheese frosting and strawberry drizzle. (Refrigeration required) 
• Circus animal: vanilla cupcake with circus animal cookie frosting and a circus animal cookie on top.
• Cookies ‘n’ cream cheesecake: vanilla cupcake with oreo crust and filling, topped with cream cheese frosting and oreo crumbles. (Refrigeration required)
• Cotton candy: vanilla cupcake infused with cotton candy flavor, soaked with cotton  candy glaze and topped with cotton candy buttercream.
• Dark chocolate pistachio- dark chocolate cupcake with pistachio buttercream.
• Dirt cupcake: chocolate cupcake with Bavarian cream filling, topped with vanilla buttercream, oreo crumbs. (Refrigeration required)
• French toast: almond flavored cupcake with cinnamon sugar swirl, topped with maple cream cheese frosting. (Refrigeration required)
• Golden cookies n’ cream: vanilla cupcake with golden cookies n cream filling, topped with vanilla buttercream and cookie crumbles.
• Nut roll- yellow cake with marshmallow filling, topped with vanilla buttercream rolled in salted peanuts.
• Nutty caramel goodness- (like a snickers) chocolate cake with caramel peanut filing, topped with caramel frosting and a piece of candy nougat. (Refrigeration required) 
• Oatmeal cream- brown sugar spice cake, marshmallow filling, topped with marshmallow buttercream and cinnamon brown sugar sprinkle.
• Oatmeal raisin cookie- brown sugar oatmeal cupcake with raisins, topped with oatmeal cookie frosting and raisins.
• PB&J– peanut butter cupcake with strawberry filling, topped with peanut butter frosting and strawberry drizzle.
• Puppy chow– chocolate cupcake, peanut butter filling, vanilla buttercream dipped in powdered sugar and topped with puppy chow.
• Rocky road: chocolate cupcake with marshmallow filling, chocolate almond frosting, topped with almonds, mini marshmallows, and chocolate drizzle.
• Strawberry toaster pastry- vanilla cupcake, filled with strawberry, topped with strawberry toaster pastry frosting.
• Turtle cheesecake: chocolate cupcake with oreo crust, filled with caramel pecan mixture, topped with cream cheese frosting and topped with a chocolate and caramel drizzle and pecans. (Refrigeration required)
• Tutti frutti- vanilla based cupcake with fruity pebbles mixed in, topped with frutti pebble buttercream.    

​Is that enough yet??? Nope!  Here's flavors may be coming soon that just haven't been tested yet:
          Autumn spice        
Banana caramel
Cannoli
Cookie butter
Creamsicle
Crumb cake
Good morning
Hummingbird
Lime in the coconut
Root beer float
Snickerdoodle
Strawberry blonde
Strawberry lemonade
Strawberry margarita 
Tiramisu
Whatever else I come up with between now and printing :)

I apologize if you feel like I have too many cupcake options, but creating flavors is something I LOVE to do. It is also part of what makes Steph's Sweet Treats so unique. I get that it can make choosing flavors to order harder for you, but I like to think that having so many fun options is also a good thing.  Plus, it allows me to fill open days with a different variety of cupcakes every month!

Don't forget Valentine's Day pre-orders are due this Friday, February 5th.

Also, before I go, I want to clarify something on last week's blog.  I've had some people be confused by the way I worded things. My pregnancy was planned.  When I said that I'm type A and like to plan everything but things didn't go as planned, I didn't mean the pregnancy was a surprise.  I actually meant we had some bumps along the way, I just didn't go into those details; so instead of being due during "slow" season, I'm due during wedding season.  Anyways, thank you all sooooo much for all the congratulations and such; it means a lot to me! (and Aaron)

Thanks for another week of orders and I hope to see you at the Valentine's Day open days!!