Meet the Newest Member of the 1-800-Bakery.com Family

While doing some routine cleanup behind La Patisserie yesterday, we were surprised to find that someone had taken up residence in the small patch of land outside our back door.

We haven't given her a name yet, but she's the mother to 10 healthy looking eggs, and she's become quite the source of fascination for everyone here.

It's unusual for a duck to nest in an area like this. The closest body of water is a very small river that's across two parking lots. On the plus side, stray dogs are rare in town, so the only enemies she needs to worry about are a handful of squirrels and curious middle school students who cut through the parking lot on their way home.

She's shown no interest in the potato chips that someone offered her, but she has been wolfing down any bit of La Patisserie bread that we offer (a sure sign that she's a duck of excellent taste!).

This second shot shows just how close she is to the kitchen entrance at the bakery. She's about halfway between the bakery and the sidewalk that runs in front of the parking lot. Despite the tall weeds being gone, she's still camoflauged enough that most of the people who walk by don't notice her.

We don't know how long she's been there, or when her eggs will hatch. If anyone out there wants to supply us with some information on the care and feeding of ducks, I'll share it with the bakery staff.

In the meantime, we're all keeping an eye on her and making sure she's not disturbed. I'll keep you up to date on any developments, which I hope will include adorable pictures of duckings.

Cakes Taste Better When You Save

It's that time of year again, when America gets hot and cakes get cranky. They're still tasty and nice to have around, but they don't like being stuck in a delivery van for two days, so they up and melt to show their displeasure.

We like our cakes cake-shaped and unmelted, so as of today, Overnight shipping is the only delivery method available. "Oh no!" you're screaming. "That's too expensive!"

Not if we lower the cost. While everything else is going up, including those gas prices, we're dropping the cost of Overnight shipping throughout the summer to just $19.99--the same price as last year.

This discount will only be in effect until October 1 or so, when second-day air shipping returns.

Flooding on the Plains

Our thoughts go out to the people of Greensburg, Kansas, as they recover from their losses, as well as to everyone affected by the flooding in the Plains States.

This is a big week for sending gifts, but I'd like to remind you to check with people in Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma to make sure they're at home and receiving deliveries before you send something to them. Flooding will close roads in the area, and there are evacuation orders in place along some waterways.

With luck, the waters will recede quickly and leave a minimum of damage in their wake. I'll be keeping an eye on the situation and posting updates to our Delivery Disruptions page as they become available.

Send Mom a Cake

This cake is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry. Just imagine how much Mom will love it, between her sobs of, "Oh, you shouldn't have," and "You're the best [son/daughter--pick one] ever!"

It really is a nice cake, filled with lemon and raspberry preserves, and it's got two dozen candy flowers on it. And you can only get it from us, because other bakeries don't think your Mom deserves two dozen candy flowers. Clearly they've never met your Mother and don't understand what an exceptional person she is.

For $62.95, and that includes shipping, you can send this cake to your Mom. Or you can send it to yourself and bring it to her on May 13.

Or you can get her flowers, just like you did last year and the year before that, which is why your Mom calls it "Floral Obligation Day" instead of "Mother's Day." I've got nothing against flowers, but none of the ones I've tasted are anywhere near the flavor of this cake. You can always give her the cake and flowers, if you must have a bouquet, but I think the cake covers the need for flora.

One's Red. One's German, One Isn't

There are three cakes that generate more requests on our site than anything else. At least they did.

I'm happy to welcome Carousel Cakes to the growing list of 1-800-Bakery.com partners. They've got the three cakes in question, and they're quite delicious.

First, the Red Velvet Cake, good enough to earn recognition as one of Oprah's Favorite Things in O, The Oprah Magazine. Three layers of mild chocolate cake filled and covered in a very, very rich cream-cheese frosting. This will satisfy your sweetest tooth. And in case you're wondering, this cake got its name from a chemical reaction that used to take place with chocolate in the mix, resulting in a red-colored cake. Today's chocolate doesn't do that anymore, but a couple drops of food coloring do the trick.

Next, the Black Forest Cake, which is tough to find because it takes some skill to stabilize whipped cream for shipping. Carousel's done just that, and they deliver two layers of chocolate cake filled with custard and black cherries, covered in whipped cream, and topped with Maraschino cherries. By far, this is America's favorite European import when it comes to cakes, and we're happy to have them on the site.

Finally, the German Chocolate Cake, which isn't German at all, but gets its name from a popular type of Baker's chocolate developed in 1852 by a Mr. Sam German and still available today. As the legend goes, the recipe was submitted to a newspaper in 1957 and America fell in love, with the cakes being made at a furious pace each time the recipe was reprinted, helped along by a very happy General Foods, which was only too eager to keep the Baker's German's Chocolate sales high. Apart from the creamy, mild-chocolate cake, the key ingredients are a buttery mix of pecan and coconut used for filling and topping and a thick fudge icing.

All three cakes are available in a seven-inch size, which gives us some smaller cakes on the site, another popular request. Overnight shipping is the only option on these cakes right now, but we'll have Second-Day Air available once it stops being so hot down South. That would be around October, I believe.

The Return of Rugelach

Kosher Rugelach is back at 1-800-Bakery.com thanks to our new partnership with Connecticut-based Challah Connection. It's yummy, it comes in four flavors, and it arrives in a handsome gift tin suitable for storing nuts and bolts, loose change, or small tchotchkes once the rugelach's gone.

If you don't need the tin, grab the Classics Platter, which includes rugelach and the best Black and White cookies I've ever had. So good that my coworkers had to fight me off to get at them. Plus it comes in a nifty wicker platter suitable for storing cooking utensils or the ever-growing collection of remote controls in your home.

Or you can just get a bunch of the Black and White Cookies in the same handsome tin, which will be useful if you have an abundance of nuts and bolts, loose change, or tchotchkes. Holds sewing notions, too, and you get to enjoy some delicious cookies while you think about what you're going to put in it.

Tin and platter usefulness aside, we're very pleased to have these exceptional foods on our site. We've also added Babka and several gift packages that are ideal for those sitting Shiva, including a complete Kosher Dessert Buffet that serves 50 and includes almost 15 pounds of desserts.

It Is Spring, Right?

It's a bit hard to tell what season it is, what with all the snow around here, but the calendar says April and the flowers shuddering against the snow suggest that warmer weather will soon find its way to us.

While we wait, there's baseball, which means Baseball Cookies are back for your gifting and eating needs. They're here until October, but why not enjoy some now?

If you work in an office, or you know someone who does, don't forget that Administrative Professional's Day is April 25. That's two weeks from Wednesday. We'll be taking second-day air orders for delivery on Administrative Professional's Day (or if you're old school, Secretary's Day) until 2PM Eastern on Monday, April 23, which gives you lots of time to procrastinate and then call us in a last-minute fit.

Online Ordering Tips

One of the nice things about the Internets is the way it allows e-tailers like us to automate things. Things like copying addresses into our shipping software. This frees up large amounts of valuable time that can be used goofing around on the Webs, say at The 365 Days Project.

The downside to all this automation is that it makes it easier for your orders to get messed up if you don't type them in properly. I've noticed a few bad habits that have crept in over the last few months, and as we prepare to launch a more automated order processing system, I thought I'd share some advice for online shoppers that will help your order get where it belongs, whether you're ordering from us or someone else.

1. Disable the Autofill function on Internet Explorer. It's a security risk, and it has a bad habit of putting information in the wrong places.
2. Never put apartment or suite information on the same line as the street address. Use "Address 1" or "Street" fields for the street and number, and use "Address 2" or "Apt." fields for Apartment, Suite, Floor, Building, or Internal Routing numbers. If you put them both on the same line, the second part of the address could be cut off when it gets sent to the shipping software, or devoured by the program that translates the Web data to the proper format for the shipping software. Either way, you've got a package going to an apartment and no apartment number, so it doesn't arrive on time.
3. Always include the state. Yes, some of us have fancy softwares that fill in the state based on the ZIP Code. Some of us don't have those fancy softwares. Some data-conversion programs throw out any address that doesn't include the state, because that's read as missing or incomplete data. Your order doesn't get shipped on time when this happens.
4. Always provide a daytime phone number where you can be reached. While I wouldn't recommend this for every site, at 1-800-Bakery.com, we only use them if we have a question about your order or if there's a delivery problem. In 9 cases out of 10, if we can reach you as soon as we know that UPS or FedEx can't find the address, we can get the package there that day.

Finally, here's an uber-secret tip that skilled shippers know: UPS and FedEx use their discretion when it comes to leaving packages, even if the signature is waived. If the recipient lives in an apartment building with a locked front door, or a house with a locked front gate, the package will not be left behind if it's at street level or in a high-traffic area. A rash of package thefts in an area will also cause our shippers to keep packages on the truck, but this is rare and tends to happen only around Christmas.

In this case, UPS and FedEx will leave a note for the recipient with instructions on how to pick up the package. Almost everything we ship will survive that extra day in transit, but you might wind up missing a birthday or special occasion by a day. If you know the recipient lives somewhere without a safe place to leave a package, try to have it arrive a day early and avoid Friday deliveries of our most perishable items, such as cakes, mousses, and breads.

Advantage: Basket

Before you firm up those Easter gift-giving plans, let me remind you that we're about a week out from the annual admonitions against giving kids bunnies and chicks as Easter presents. I can see the bunnies, but I'm not sure who's giving the chicks, or why they don't understand that these will someday grow up to be chickens, which are far less friendly and fuzzy.

Instead of giving something that will run up a recurring food bill and make a mess of the house, give a nice Easter Basket. They're traditional, they've got loads of tasty candy in them, and some of them even come with plush animals that won't shed or leave things that need cleaning up behind.

And if you order one from our Easter Gifts page between now and the Friday before Easter, you'll be able to get ground shipping for just $5--less than you'd pay for a 25-pound bag of Purina Rabbit Chow. Probably less than you'd pay to feed that chick for a month, not that I know what they eat since Purina doesn't have Chicken Chow, but you know they'll be eating a lot more of it soon when they're not pecking holes in the legs of your chairs.

So, to recap your gift options:

Bunny: Quiet, but sheddy and expensive
Chick: Crows at dawn (if male), leaves eggs around house (if female), pecks when irritated
Basket: Silent, no hidden costs, less risk of household damage (beware of melted chocolate on rug)

I'd say the Easter Basket wins.

Irish This Up for Me

St. Patrick's Day is next Saturday. It falls an hour earlier this year, thanks to that change in Daylight Savings Time that I've already mentioned.

Not what you'd call a major bakery holiday, certainly not on par with Christmas or Valentine's Day, but we do have lots of Irish Soda Bread made by our friend Sean Hurley. It's the closest thing to genuine Irish Soda Bread you'll find on these shores short of importing it from the Emerald Isle, which will take much more than a week, so you won't have it on St. Patrick's Day, and everyone will mock you.

We've also got something brand new to the site this year, Irish Whiskey Cake made with plenty of chocolate chunks, green Maraschino cherries, and Jamieson's Irish Whiskey. I've had many a debate with bartenders over whether it should be spelled "Whisky" or "Whiskey," but either way it goes great with chocolate. And cake. And Maraschino cherries.

We've been selling this cake here at the bakery for several years, and it's always a big seller, so we thought we'd share it with all you nice folks out there in Internets land, so long as you live in the continental United States. It may not be soaked in Jamieson's, but there's a good chance that it can ease the pain come Sunday morning, should Saturday night find you wearing the green into the wee hours.

Are We Saving Yet?

In case you hadn't heard, Daylight Savings Time starts on Sunday, March 11, a good three weeks earlier than it has since 1986. This, we are told by Congress, will unleash hitherto undreamt-of savings for the American people as we frolic in the extra hour of daylight at the end of each day for three glorious additional weeks.

It must have been a very slow day at Congress when they dreamed this up. Now that they can't build useless bridges anymore, they're forced to torment us with time changes to idle away the hours spent stuck in session on Capitol Hill. Anyone who thought about this would recognize two immediate problems:

1. We'll have to turn the lights on when we're getting ready for work in the morning, because it will be dark, even though it was light this week.

2. Computers can't handle this.

That second one is the bugaboo for businesses, such as ours. We won't get a dime in energy savings, because the lights and computers are on in the office anyway, as they are in every office where I've ever worked. What we do get is an IT bill to keep our Calendar working, which, at the moment, it isn't, at least as far as March 12 is concerned.

You see, every computer-driven device sold in North America has an internal clock. This clock has Daylight Savings Time programmed into it, so that it automatically changes on the first Sunday in April. This year, that's happening on the second Sunday in March, and since the computer's clock doesn't know that, someone has to write a bit of code to tell it what time it is.

The server that runs 1-800-Bakery.com also needs the script to make our Calendar work and enforce the 2PM Eastern Time order cutoff. Unfortunately for us, the new daylight savings time script and the Calendar aren't getting along too well, so the Calendar thinks that you can have cakes delivered on March 12. You can't, because the cakes would melt in the back of the delivery truck over the weekend. Our server doesn't know that, either, and it wouldn't care anyway, since it's a server and cares little for the fate of cake.

As a result, I've had to deactivate March 12 as a delivery date, which has the following unpleasant consequences: You can't place an order for March 13 and orders for March 14 have to be shipped Overnight, thanks to the rules of the Calendar. In reality, none of this is true. We can ship on the 13th and the 14th is available at the Second-Day Air rate, but if you want to do that, you'll need to either--

A. Wait until after 2PM Eastern Friday to place your order,
B. Read these instructions on how to place your order for any of the offending days, or
C. Join us in praying that our dev team can fix the problem at their not-insignificant hourly rate, which we wouldn't have to pay if Congress hadn't mucked around with daylight savings time in the first place

You can always call our Customer Service line at 1-800-287-9870 if you're still confused. Call your congressional representatives, too, and thank them for all the extra work they're making for us. At least the sun will be out when the dust settles on Monday.

A Question for AOL

Why, AOL, do you insist on blocking the e-mails we send to our customers? Don't you realize that our customers like to receive order confirmations and tracking numbers so that they know the things they ordered have actually shipped?

Why did we go through the process of getting white-listed with you last year, only to have this problem creep up again as soon as the calendar turned to 2007?

And how many other companies' e-mails are you needlessly blocking? Quite a few, from what I've heard from your customers. I hear from rather a lot of them, and I always tell them the same thing: Get rid of AOL, or stop using their e-mail. If they're blocking legitimate, business-related e-mails, who knows what else is getting lost.

If you're unfortunate enough to be stuck with AOL, let me recommend Yahoo!, Hotmail! or Gmail, so you're not wondering whether or not you're getting all of your e-mail. I've got quite a few Gmail invitations I can send out, so drop me a line at derek@1-800-bakery.com if you'd like one.

King Cake Alert

Another tasty image for you to ponder, our Genuine New Orleans King Cake. This is the real deal, baked fresh to order and shipped from Randazzo's Camelia City Bakery, complete with beads, doubloons, and a bag of gourmet coffee.

Want one? Want two? Place the orders now. Due to the high demand for these around Mardi Gras, as of this writing, we'll only be accepting orders until Noon Eastern, February 14. After that, no amount of pleading or bribery will enable me to secure a King Cake for you. They're running out of baking capacity on these, as they're hugely popular again this year. How popular? They're #5 on our Bestsellers list.

I don't know when we'll have them again--Randazzo's took a well-deserved month off after last year's Mardi Gras. I also can't guarantee that we'll have them until the 14th, as a spike in orders might make them unavailable before then. The important phrase here is, "as of this writing."

Remember that you can use our calendar and have your King Cake delivered on the 20th, you just won't be able to order them after next Wednesday. As of this writing.

Welcome, Veronica's Treats!

That interesting creation to the left is a Heart Puzzle Cookie from our newest partner bakery, Veronica's Treats of Middleboro, Massachusetts. It arrives unassembled with instructions on how to put it together to reveal it's hidden shape.

We've actually been working with the great staff at Veronica's since last autumn on our corporate orders, and we're very happy to launch them onto our retail site just in time for Valentine's Day. There's an exceptional level of creativity in the things they make, and they're as delicious as they are different. Along with the Puzzle Heart, we've also got chocolate-covered Heart Brownie Bites and my personal favorite, Brownie Roses, rose-shaped brownies dusted in red sugar. I'm going to ask that you take seconds out of your busy day and click that link to see them. You don't have to buy any, but you'll probably want to.

We've greatly expanded our Valentine's Day selection this year, and there's still a couple of exclusive products here at La Patisserie to come once we've got the finishing touches just right--look for them by this weekend. And since Valentine's Day has the good sense to fall on a Wednesday this year, second-day air delivery will be available on February 14th.

As always, though, I'll caution you to order ahead, as quantities are limited and items will sell out. Valentine's Day tends to be a very last-minute thing for a lot of people, but when you were falling in love with that special someone, did you wait until the last minute? Of course not. Nothing says, "I love you," quite like ordering ahead.

Need a "Little" Christmas?

I should have posted this days ago, assuming I had the ability to rise above my post-Christmas torpor, a consequence of several hundred packages, an allergy to styrofoam peanuts, and perhaps a bit more Harvey's Bristol Cream than most doctors would advise.

Tomorrow or tonight is Twelfth Night, also known as "Little Christmas," depending on which version of the calendar you choose, and may be either the real date of Jesus' birth or the date the Magi arrived in Bethlehem, depending on which version of the story you follow. Everyone seems to agree that January 6 is the Epiphany, but whether that's the date of Jesus' birth or the date he was revealed to man is the subject of a debate that has split the Christian faith into various churches. Even the mighty Wikipedia can't seem to get it straight.

In a more practical sense, the arrival of Epiphany means that Mardi Gras is on the way, and we've got our genuine New Orleans King Cakes back and available for delivery Tuesday through Friday. We'll be adding a smaller size and a four-pack of individual King Cakes, all with a toy baby baked inside, in the next few days.

As we get closer to Mardi Gras, which falls on February 20 this year, the demand for King Cakes will be high. Place your orders early to guarantee delivery. We received so many orders last year that we had to stop taking orders a week before Mardi Gras, as there's only so many hours in a week for baking.

So very, very close

It's been a holiday tradition around here that our Stollen ends December as our top-selling product of the year. Looking at it back at the start of December, I didn't think it stood a chance, as we'd sold so many Chocolate and Vanilla Birthday Cakes.

It managed to eclipse the Vanilla Birthday cake at the start of this week, but I'm sad to report that we're 17 Stollen sales short of unseating the mighty Chocolate Birthday Cake.

Now there are still a few days left in this month, and I know that when people have a taste of Stollen on Christmas morning, they're going to want more, so we're extending our send two and pay shipping for one discount through the end of the year.

And lest you think this is some old Stollen we're trying to get rid of, we sold all but two of this week's batch, and we're making more for our retail store in Winchester, so they're nice and fresh. It's just as delicious on New Year's Day--or as an appetizer or buffet item at those New Year's Eve parties you're planning.

Just 17 Stollen. I'm sure we can do it.

Now How Did That Happen?

Site development is an imprecise science, in much the same way that computers are an imprecise science--they work often enough that we tolerate them without too much complaint.

For those who've never done this before, relaunching a Web site involves taking the existing site, moving it to a development server, upgrading it, then moving everything back. Since it's an imprecise science, some things can get lost along the way, like our separate Cakes and Tarts categories, which seem to have morphed back into Cakes, Pies, and Tarts, ruining all the bookmarks you've set.

Now I'm going to ruin them again by putting things back the way they should be. No more Category changes after this one for the rest of the year. Promise.

Major Changes

Today marks the culmination of almost a year's worth of development for us here at 1-800-Bakery.com, as we unveil the biggest public-facing part of our newly enhanced site. Pick a product, any product, and take a look at the calendar at the bottom of the page. Not only will it tell you when things will arrive, it will allow you to compare shipping methods and pick the delivery service that offers you the best price.

The new calendar also allows us to bring back Monday delivery, this time with a much larger group of products than were previously available. It also allows us the flexibility to introduce seasonal items earlier and keep them available on the site longer. Plus, it explains why certain shipping options aren't available for certain days of the week, and automatically blacks out days when there's no shipping.

It may look simple, but as you can see, it does a lot, and it's been a lot of work getting it to do all the things it needs to do. We think it's the best calendar-based ordering system online, and we'd love to know your thoughts. Love it? Hate it? Leave me a comment.

Over the next two weeks, we'll be rolling out additional enhancements. Some of them you'll see, some of them will just work quietly in the background to make life easier for our Bakery Partners. As with any site enhancements, there may be the odd moment of downtime or something that doesn't quite work the way it should. If you experience any problems with our new site, please call us at 1-800-287-9870, and we'll resolve them as quickly as we can.

Thanksgiving Desserts

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays--number two to Christmas most years--but let's face it, if you're cooking dinner like I am, it's a ton of work. Other people might be out watching football, but I'm straining to pay attention to the Macy's parade while I'm buttering and stuffing an obstinate turkey.

One of the great things about this job is that I don't have to give a second thought to dessert. Chef Steve shows up with a variety of pies from La Patisserie, and everyone gets a slice of their favorite. After spending all day checking on the bird and making sure the squash is cooked, the mashed potatoes aren't lumpy, and the onions aren't cooked to mush, it's nice to know that I don't have to jump up after my second bite of stuffing and make sure that a pie is cooking.

I can't say enough for letting someone else make dessert, and we've got some good ones. No, we don't have the tradtional pies online, but if you're near the Winchester, Massachusetts area, we've got them in our store--stop by and order by November 20, please, or call 781-729-9441 and we'll be happy to help you.

We do have petits fours, cookies, our fabulous, amazing, astounding Turkey Cookie Centerpiece (pricey, but very impressive), pumpkin cheesecake, and pumpkin and pecan tarts. You'll find them all on our Thanksgiving Desserts page.

Without going back and rereading all my old posts (mildly amusing but largely painful), I'm pretty sure I promised to have pies by this Thanksgiving. I tried to find some--oh, how I tried, knowing that I could hardly call this a full-service bakery site if we couldn't meet your pie needs.

Then we got caught up in a site development cycle, and football season began. So no pies.

But we've got tarts! Tarts, I say! Really extraordinary tarts. And what is a tart, if it's not a pie in a butter cookie shell with a saucier name? And let's admit it--you're sick of pie in the same way that you're sick of turkey year after year. So once you've ordered your Turducken, why not order a tart? I've even made that easier for you by setting things up so you can get two of our pecan or Rum Pumpkin tarts and pay shipping for one, as long as they're going to the same address. If you're expecting a big crowd, that'll save you money, money that you'll need when you realize on Thanksgiving day that you're out of Bell's Poultry Seasoning and have to go buy some at the gas station, which has opportunistically stocked it for the holidays.

It's That Holiday Closing Time of Year

As we head into the autumn months, we've got a few holidays coming up that will affect our delivery schedule. Take a moment to check the dates below before you place your order.

October 2, 2006--Yom Kippur
Bittersweet Pastries and Steve's Mom will be closed to celebrate the holiday. There will be no deliveries from either of these bakeries on Tuesday, October 3, and orders for delivery on Wednesday, October 4 must be sent Overnight.

All of our other partner bakeries will be open and operating on a normal delivery schedule. If you really, really need a birthday cake on October 2, please call me at 1-800-287-9870 by 12PM on September 27, and I'll be happy to get one out to you.

October 9, 2006--Columbus Day
1-800-Bakery.com will be open and on a regular delivery schedule.

Looking a little further ahead, we'll be open as usual on Veteran's Day, and closed on Thanksgiving and the Friday following Thanksgiving.

We'll also be moving our ordering deadline ahead as we get closer to Thanksgiving, so that we can manage the volume of orders that come to us during that time of year. I'll have more details about that in the coming weeks.