This week we are doing what we LOVE at TASTE! We are in the back kitchen of the café cooking and baking for our guests and preparing for various upcoming events.

It looks like this is a great week to have been born!
We have two 16 year birthday cakes ordered for Thursday and Hannah will be celebrating her birthday on Saturday. Curious
about our plans for the cakes? Well, we have to keep some surprises, but one of our cakes will be lovingly decorated with a denim and sunflower theme, perfect for a summer baby!

This weekend we will also be catering a 20 person dinner party for a 69th birthday! Hannah will be celebrating her birthday on the same day as we serve a fresh veggie platter, chicken satay with a peanut sauce and gorgonzola crostini, followed by a boeuf bourguignon and a whole poached salmon. The crowning glory of the occasion will, of course, be the birthday cake! The theme of the party is Spode–so the food and sweets have been designed to match!

This past weekend Hannah made the trek out to Green Bluff in the search for fresh fruit and veggies! We are in the midst of the summer fruit season and can’t wait to put our new goodies to work in the kitchen. This week we’ve got a Cherry and Nectarine upside down cake and Nectarine Frangipane tarts. Back to the kitchen to dream up some new tastes…

In the minds of most, an amazing cake both tastes great and is decorated well—the cake is frosted with care, possibly some fresh flowers are placed delicately on top and the words “Happy Birthday” or “Happy Anniversary” are inscribed in colorful script. Now, by all means a traditional cake is a wonderful thing, but at TASTE we love to push the box a little bit. The best requests are those that challenge our minds and our fondant.

On Monday we delivered an Alice in Wonderland birthday cake complete with Alice, Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar and the rest of the gang!  In the past fashionistas have inspired Louis Vuitton cakes and blue Tiffany’s box fondant covered rice krispie treats. Take a look at our mini-Cake portfolio and feel free to dream up your own custom cake…we’d love to take you up on the challenge!

At last—outdoor seating has arrived! We have been waiting for months and can’t wait to share our new patio with you. It has been wonderful to see guests already enjoying the patio with a glass of wine or beer, just soaking up the sun.

So, come and snag a table out on the patio. We’ve got refreshing salads for lunch and Happy Hour every Friday from 4-6!

A gourmet barbecue is right up our alley at TASTE. Last night we provided the salads and the desserts for The Purple Turtle’s BubbleQ. We made 150 pasta, pesto and pea salads, 100 potato dill and 150 fresh vegetable salads. Hannah worked incredibly hard on making chocolate tarts with gold flakes and lemon tarts with raspberries. At the end of the night, all 400 salads and desserts were gone!
Next time you’re doing your own “BubbleQ” at home, stop by TASTE and we will send you with some great sides and sweets!

Yesterday we delivered beautiful, unique hat cookies to The White Room for the Polo Classic Press Conference. The Cobra Roofing Polo Classic is famous for its hat competition, so we made mouth-watering sugar cookies in the shape of hats. Hannah and Dawn decorated our cookies to replicate the hats at the competition with flowers, buttons, feathers and ribbon–all created with fondant.

We will also be catering some salads and desserts for the The Purple Turtle’s BubbleQ on Thursday. The BubbleQ is a gourmet barbecue and champagne event for the Polo Classic sponsors. We will be serving three salads: Pasta, Pesto and Pea, a Fresh Veggie Salad and a Potato Dill. Perfect sides to a gourmet barbecue. To top it all off, Hannah will be making dessert, lemon tarts with raspberries!

an interview with Hannah, our pastry chef and the artist behind our signature sweets & pastries

Q. What inspired you to become a pastry chef?

Q. What is your personal favorite of all your pastries and sweets?

A. The brownies. The chocolate I use for them is extra special and very addictive.

Q. What is your favorite ingredient?

A. Almond paste. It adds an extra dimension and it is all round amazing!

Q. What’s the most exciting thing about working at TASTE?

A. The challenging orders that come through the door whether it be a large quantity or something extremely intricate. I like not having a clue how I am going to accomplish something and pulling it off well.

Q. What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

A. When people stop me in the cafe and compliment my pastries. Nothing makes me feel more special than being told they like what I have created.

Q. What is your favorite memory from the back kitchen at TASTE?

A. Having all the amazing chefs in town here for the Grilled Cheese Grill off. I loved listening to the kitchen banter, watching the talent, and trying to keep out of the way.

Q. Do you have any fun stories about baking flops?

A. Lots of them! Imagine just about anything you can mix up or do wrong baking and I’m sure I have done it at least once. It comes with the territory.

A. To become a Spokane staple. I want people to know us for good quality and great food and keep coming back because they like what we are doing and supporting a local business. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Have you dropped your business card into our pot lately? You could win a free lunch on TASTE! When you come in for that morning scone or midday cookie just remember to drop off your card. We draw names every Friday and are coming up on our fifth drawing! Last week’s winner was Alan B Eschenbacher, the pastor from All Saints Lutheran Church of Spokane. Congrats Alan!

Our famous chocolate chip cookies!

Lorie Hutson’s review in the July 1st edition of the Spokesman was a wonderful piece and we are so thankful to her for her kind words about TASTE and our food! We love to cook and bake, but smiling faces amidst crumbs from chocolate chip cookies can arguably be defined as the best part of the job. Thanks Lorie!

Since we have Lorie and her colleague raving about our chocolate chip cookies and yesterday Hannah had to bake five times (!) the normal amount of cookies…we thought we might share some of the cookies you’ll find behind the case!

Our most popular cookies are our secret chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, jam thumbprint, white out, peanut butter milk chocolate!

But…our TASTE sweets don’t stop at cookies! We offer a variety of specialty cakes for birthdays and other occasions too! We have chocolate, mocha, lemon, coconut, red velvet and our signature carrot cake! Don’t forget about our delicious cupcakes “swirled high with vanilla buttercream frosting” (and other homemade frostings)!