What a long cold winter!  I remember crossing Armory Ave from the Safeway garage on my way to the bakery on a few of those low-digit mornings and feeling like I was walking through a freezing cold wind tunnel as the wind swept from the train tracks down Armory toward Town Hall. Brrrr!

I’m VERY happy to be moving on to spring!  We’re a little late in sending out a spring post because we got distracted by a stretch of time when the bakery was plagued (or cursed, as my staff likes to say) by a broken dishwasher, a refrigerated display case that stopped working, problems with our hot water and several other frustrating woes.

But NOW all is well and we are happy, happy, happy! The dishwasher is at last fixed. We have a new refrigerated display case, thanks to Suburban Trading (who sold it to me) and Mario (whose crew from the Kensington Gas Station on Antique Row did amazing work in fitting a 35″ wide display case through a 35″ wide door three days before the Easter rush). We have a new hot water heater and in general things are functioning smoothly, knock on wood!

And what’s even better, we have been busy, busy, busy! The last month or so included a very busy Easter, a crazy Mother’s Day and lots of beautiful First Communion, graduation and wedding cakes, thanks to the efforts of Kristen Kellogg, our unique and pink-haired cake decorator.

We have one new addition to the bakery, Gali Sapir. Gali is from Israel — she works very hard and is a joy to have with us at the bakery. She specializes in fondant, but don’t worry, we’ll still be using buttercream for the most part. We just may add some fondant accents from time to time.

We are so sad that Julie Howard will be leaving us soon to focus on finishing up her teaching degree, but she has promised to come in on Friday afternoons for a couple of hours from time to time. I am thrilled to welcome back my pretend daughter :), Ana Caceres Hernandez, who was a student at the University of Maryland during the school year.

But OK, enough about us! Here’s what’s new for you at the bakery. We’ve brought back the blueberry crumb bars (or blueberry slabs, as Jason Swain, the Town’s public works supervisor, calls them — I think it’s an Australia thing) and strawberry icebox pies (graham cracker crust and lots of fresh strawberries).

We’ve added strawberry bread (one of my staff members, Kara Knips, calls it one of our “damn you, Jenny” baked goods) and strawberry buttercream (which, after many failed attempts, at last has the big kick of strawberry flavor I wanted without watering down the frosting too much).

And last but not least, we will be introducing Hillary’s heart healthy bran muffin. Based on my dear friend Hillary’s recipe for incredibly yummy and moist bran muffins (with dried cherries and toasted almonds), I’m still tinkering with this one, but we’ll get there. I’m bound and determined to have one truly healthy yet delicious thing on the menu!

Once again,  happy happy spring! Enjoy this short season and check back in with us in a month or two for new things happening for summer!

Jenny