Welcome to
NIQUI BAKES
Niqui Bakes is the name of my new home baking business here in El Dorado County, California.
Though my experience is long, the business is new, and as always, a one-woman show. It has a basic structure, and we will see how it evolves.
In short, my food story is: I am an Italian expat, and I used to be a chef/restaurateur when I still lived in Italy. Until I burned out, which is when I moved to Hawai'i.
I have recently returned to baking as a way to calm me and soothe my soul, and simply could not stop. Yielding to encouragement from family and friends, I started offering my baked treats to the neighborhood. The response was quite enthusiastic, so I made the jump, and here I am.
Who is Niqui? I am.
Niqui is a nickname, the short version of Monique, which is what my mum sometimes calls me.
DISCOVER
the baked treats I am offering
Cookies.... lots of those
I really enjoy baking cookies the most. They give me great satisfaction. They are like art in a bite.
The ones you see in these images are only few. My repertoire is rather large and keeps expanding, especially
as I tweak and update my old recipes from my restaurant years.
Cakes
Round cakes, loaf cakes, bundt cakes, small, medium and large.... and always what I enjoy eating myself.
Of course I am constrained by the California cottage license food list, but you can still do a lot within those parameters.
Tarts & Tartlets
Tarts large and small will begin to happen as soon as I have reworked my recipes to be compliant with the California cottage food requirements. That means no pastry cream, no fresh whipped cream and all that good stuff. Sigh!
ABOUT MY BAKING
how the process works
I bake everything fresh and from scratch.
The ingredients I use are as organic as possible. The eggs are usually local, but always from pasture raised chickens who eat well.
My baked treats are therefore 95% organic, even if I cannot label them so.
This is how I eat, so this is how I bake.
In a way, baking for me is like a meditative process. It soothes me and brings me joy. I would like for it to continue that way, because the joy and love is transferred to my baked treats.
And seriously, I bless the food and infuse it with energy each time, so I'm not kidding.
I bake what I love and what I enjoy eating myself. There is a lot of baked goods I love, and I like variety in everything.
What I don't like to eat or bake will not happen in my kitchen.
I bake a couple of days a week, usually so that fresh baked goods are ready for Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.
I bake something different every week, as that keeps it fun and interesting for everyone, myself included. I also like to follow the seasons as well as use herbs in my sweet treats.
Everything is beautifully packaged and presented, so they can also make wonderful gifts.
Though often it is quite spontaneous, pre-announced bakes or baking schedules do happen sometimes, and can be found at this page.
If you are local and are interested in reserving or requesting something of what I bake, you can e-mail me at niquibakes@lifeoutofbounds.com. You can also find me in the local NextDoor chapter, and the El Dorado County Chat group on Facebook.
I would now like to invite you to enjoy browsing around this beautiful blog where, among many other things, you will find a lot of my recipes.
You can easily start from the latest posts below, or go to the main menu at the top of the page.
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