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dog cakes & the cake conceptualization process
Every once in a while I receive cake orders that are extremely specific. A customer might email me saying, “I’d like a 6-inch strawberry cake with vanilla frosting, decorated with three red buttercream roses, seven green buttercream leaves, and yellow sprinkles around the top edge.” But most of the time, the orders I get are…
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floral christmas cake
“Why did Lena make a Christmas cake if she’s Jewish?” “Why is Lena posting a Christmas cake on January 18th?” “Why hasn’t Lena posted anything in five months?” Good questions, reader! First off, I made this cake for a friend to bring to a Christmas party. I spent Christmas Day driving to New Jersey with…
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painting cakes
While I’ve always loved cake decorating, my interest in baking is rooted in my desire to make things taste good. This blog has evolved into a creative outlet for my photography and writing, but at its core is a chronicle of the recipes I’ve spent years testing, developing, and perfecting. Over the past few months,…
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dark chocolate caramel cake
if you’d told me a year ago that my favorite colors would become pink and yellow, i would’ve laughed hysterically. my wardrobe consisted of blacks, grays, dark greens, and the very occasional light blue. my bedroom was literally 50 shades of gray. but something changed, and now i can’t get enough of bright colors. it’s…
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petit prince petit four
i played the desert flower (not the rose!) in a production of the little prince during my freshman year of high school. these were my lines: desert flower: good morning. pilot: where are the men? desert flower: men? i think there are six or seven of them in existence. i saw them, several years ago.…
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#metoo cake
#metoo, obviously. i don’t know a single woman who hasn’t had a “me too” experience. i know i’m a bit late to the game — i haven’t posted the hashtag before now for a number of reasons. one is because i’m frustrated that the burden is on women to open up and share our personal,…
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burnt honey cake with blackberry jam and marzipan
there are few cakes that cross my mind as often as the pink champagne cake i made two years ago does. i think this is due to a combination of three things: 1) it’s one of the prettiest cakes i’ve ever made, 2) my life was in complete turmoil when i made it, and 3) the…
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iced sugar cookies
i took the red-eye megabus home from d.c. last thursday night and arrived in durham friday morning, bleary-eyed but ready to bake in my own kitchen. i scrolled through pinterest and came across molly yeh’s adorable sugar cookies, which seemed like the perfect way to start off my holiday baking, but after reading the recipe,…
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dark chocolate plum cake
today marks a month since i moved in to college! here’s a timeline of some (lena’s lunchbox-related) events that have happened so far: august 28: i started marketing immediately, plastering my door with cake photos and posting in the GW facebook group. i figured it would take a while to get my name out there, and…
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kanelbullar cake
after visiting denmark a few days ago, i’m doing my best to embrace the danish concept of hygge (hue-gah). hygge roughly translates into coziness — ideally a coziness that leads to a sense of well-being and contentment. imagine sitting around a fireplace and drinking warm apple cider with friends, or curling up with a blanket and a book while…
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LENA'S LUNCHBOX 