Always having a copious amount of treats in the house may seem like it’s the best part of baking and blogging, but becoming friends with other bakers is definitely the sweetest part of what I do. Vancouver might not be the biggest city when it comes to blogging — for the longest time, I’ve been watching home cafes and cookbook clubs hosted in cities like New York and LA, wishing that something similar would take place here — but the bloggers that do live here are some of the best people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting through a little hobby that has become so much more.
I met Steph (i am a food blog), Lyndsay (Coco Cake Land), and Tessa (Style Sweet) a few years ago, but it wasn’t until recently that we decided to bake, meet up, and host our own little home cafe in celebration of one of the best seasons of them all — cherry blossom season. Cherry blossom season is a beautiful one in Vancouver, so we all decided to make treats inspired by the flavours and colours of the season. What started as a makeshift Instagram group chat blossomed into a wonderful afternoon at Lyndsay’s home, filled with both sweet and savoury baked goods and of course, lots of laughter.
Here are some tips for hosting your very own home cafe (from a girl who has only done it once, but thinks any home cafe is the best home cafe):
- Choose a theme: you don’t need a theme other than ‘home cafe’, but having a theme will help tie everything together. A theme will also help others plan what they’re bringing to the home cafe.
- Bake your treats in advance: the day of home cafe should just be a simple set up and most of the time should be spent enjoying the treats and the company. Bake as much as you can ahead of time and add the finishing touches the day of. If the treats you want to bring are only good the day they are made, prep all your ingredients the day before (mise en place!), so you only have to bake it off in the morning and bring it to the gathering.
- Prepare beverage ingredients ahead of time: you do not want to be fussing over syrups and drink components when you should be focused on trying what everyone brought to home cafe. Most drink components can be prepared ahead of time, so take advantage of the days leading up to the big day,
- Have a variety of treats: chat with your group about what everyone is bringing to the gathering. Even though no one would mind having 16 types of cookies, having a variety of treats — textures, flavours, temperatures — adds to the experience. Because most people will be bringing a sweet treat, having a savoury item or two will be smart (and well appreciated) move.
- Have personal touches: a personal touch, whether it’s hand written menus or signage for the cafe, adds so much to the cafe experience. It makes your home cafe… yours!
- Don’t overthink it: you will overthink it and over-stress about it all, but keep in mind that this is suppose to be fun. You are your own worst critic and no one will think your cheesecake was over-baked by 30 seconds or your cookies are not all perfectly round.
- Have fun: this is the main goal of hosting and attending a home cafe, to have fun! And don’t be afraid to take many photos and videos, you want to be able to revisit this beautiful experience whenever you want.
Here is what we all brought to ‘Cherry B Home Cafe’:
🌸 Strawberry matcha marble cake (Tessa)
🌸 Matcha pistachio strawberry linzer (Tessa)
🌸 Brown butter ruby strawberry cookie (Lyndsay)
🌸 Adzuki matcha strawberry parfait (Lyndsay)
🌸 Hwachae punch (Lyndsay)
🌸 Honey butter toast with matcha cream (Steph)
🌸 Fuffly focaccia (Steph)
🌸 Brown butter sprinkle Miffy cookies (Steph)
🌸 Strawberry matcha basque cheesecake (Amy)
🌸 Matcha neapolitan sugar cookies (Amy)
🌸 Cookie butter taiyaki (Amy)
![day two: sparkly matcha neapolitan shortbread cookies ✨
the instructions might seem confusing, but if you watch the video to see how the different flavour layers are stacked, it will make much more sense! these slice and bake cookies freeze extremely well so you can make the dough now and bake them off when you want to gift them. (makes 40-44)
vanilla dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
matcha dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp culinary matcha powder
1/4 tsp salt
strawberry dough
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g 6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tbsp freeze-dried strawberry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg white
coarse sanding sugar
for the vanilla dough, combine butter and powdered sugar in a bowl. mix until smooth. add vanilla. add flour and salt and mix until no dry streaks remain. do the same for the matcha and strawberry doughs in separate bowls
place one portion of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll into a 5 x 9-inch rectangle that is about 1/4-inch thick. slide rolled out dough onto a baking sheet and freeze for 10 min until firm. repeat this step with the other portions of dough
remove the top piece of parchment from each slab and stack the strawberry, vanilla, and matcha dough layers. cut the slab down the middle the long way to form two 2.5 x 9-inch rectangles. with one half, carefully swap the order of the layers (example: if the first half of the dough is stacked svm, swap the second half so it’s msv. this will ensure that same flavour squares don’t stack on each other). stack the halves. press the layers gently to adhere them. return the stacked dough to the freezer for another 10min
[recipe cont’d in comments]
#christmasbaking #christmascookies #holidaybaking #holidaycookies #cookiedecorating](https://constellationinspiration.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
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