Cottage Industry Part 2

Ahhh, cheesecakes.



No dessert can gain you notoriety so quickly.



As Alton Brown put it in one of his cookbooks, "someone who can make a cheesecake well can walk into a room with his head held high."



My head is scraping the 8' ceilings right now, and almost too big to fit through the doorways!



I blogged about what kept me busy over the winter holidays. And I was indeed busy.



In that 6-week period, I made sold almost 100 cheesecakes for friends.



When you consider I can make 3 a day, you can see that it was an every-morning-at-5am endeavor.



I also had the pleasure of creating some new recipes.



My two pride-and-joys are the Vanilla Chai cheesecake (Tea-infused cheesecake with notes of cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger poised on a vanilla cardamom cookie crust) and the Chocolate Cow cheesecake (A homemade brownie layered with Kahlua-spiked cheesecake and topped with rich dark chocolate ganache).





But once the New Year had passed, and everyone (self included) started their post-Christmas body detox, if I wanted this to continue I was going to have to take it to the local restaurants.



So last week 4 Samplers went out. 2 no-responses, one negative response (from the restaurant that had just asked me for my list of ingredients, isn't that interesting?),



And A YES!



Sakai, our local sushi house/HIbachi Palace has asked me to make them a special cheesecake for their menu. Green Tea. Oh, I'm so excited! AND they want the Chocolate Cow and a Raspberry Lemon Curd (homemade lemon curd and raspberry syrup made from these raspberries). Doubly exciting when you understand that the chef said he probably wouldn't be able to sell anything but green tea, and then changed his mind after sampling my product.



My foot is officially In. The. Door.



Praise God! He is amazing. He will always take care of us!

Stepping Out In Faith

Generosity has been the topic in church these last few weeks.

It's a conviction that's constantly stabbing my heart. It's been a long time since we've had an income to tithe from. I hate not being able to give what I owe, especially to God.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving, God spoke to me. He asked me to believe in Him, to trust Him.

My little cheesecake venture was just getting off the ground.

So I promised Him that every penny I took in between then and the next Sunday would go into our church's harvest offering.

That was so hard. Especially when I needed ingredients to fill incoming orders and didn't really have the money to pay for them. It felt like Satan was tempting me at every turn that week.

But I kept my promise. I walked proudly and tearfully to the front of the church that next Sunday with my husband at my side, our envelope containing our widow's mite clutched in our hands.

I believed that God would bless me for my faithfulness. I believed that it would be a blessing in the form of more cheesecake orders.

And it was. The few days between Sunday and Wednesday were exhausting. I made and sold 24 cheesecakes in 4 days. I am so grateful to God for His faithfulness.

But that wasn't all. I don't necessarily believe in prosperity gospel, but God made a solid argument for it Monday.

The church secretary stopped at the store to give Yasar and I an envelope that was left for us at the church.

An anonymous envelope. Containing $500 cash.

If I could explain the thoughts and emotions that I experienced, opening that envelope. My Father cares so deeply for me. How He loves us!

I know He will carry is through this next test. The one that's no longer on the horizon. It's here.

The store is failing. Whether it's due to the economy, or the new competition moving into town, it doesn't really matter. We've had two of the worst weeks imaginable, and no resources to pull from to make it up. We need a miracle of Biblical proportions to keep the business going.

And I think about the foreclosure, and the fact that our house is up for sheriff's sale, but is not yet on the list. I wonder if this isn't God's timing. His plan. It all fits together a little too conveniently to pass it off as coincidence.

My mom told me yesterday that my dad's got an appointment with the heart specialist this week. That his PCP ran an EKG on him and must have a concern with the results. A few years ago he had a quadruple bypass, and he's an uncontrolled diabetic.

I wonder if God's not setting the stage for us to move back to Pennsylvania.

I trust Him. Whatever is coming, He's shown me in a very palpable way that He's in control.

Stepping out in faith is becoming a habit.

Cottage Industry

What's been keeping me so busy lately?

Why, cheesecakes, of course!

You all know how hard these last few months have been for us. Between the economy, the cheap-o competition moving into town, bankruptcy, losing the house, losing Leila...wow, I'm really glad I'm not one of those people compelled to write an update letter to send with my Christmas cards!

Anyway, I prayed. I want to get this certain game for Andrew for Christmas. And, with no income to speak of, I was pulling my hair out, trying to figure out how.

As always, God provided.

When we built this house, my husband wanted to honor my creative side and spent $2300 on an almost-top of the live oven. And I spent about a year perfecting my cheesecake method.

(perfecting - that's funny. many times they still don't come out perfect!)

I threw it out there on Facebook, asking friends if they would be willing to purchase my cheesecakes.

That was about a week ago. Since then, I've sold 15 cheesecakes, and have another 10 orders behind it.

And I'm happy, you know?

It's so nice to feel like I'm doing something productive. I get up at 5am, plug my mp3 player in my ears, worship and talk to God. My kitchen is so much cleaner.

Of course, it makes it hard to stay on Weight Watchers. But I'm working on that.

So, that's why it's been so quiet here. If you're nosy (I sure am!) and on Facebook, you can look up my menu by searching for "cheesecakes by emily". Leave some input - what do you think would be a great cheesecake flavor? Or just leave a little note of encouragement. Those are always cherished. And while you're there, make me your friend. :)