Introducing: Have Your Cake!
Your new go-to for real estate design and consulting
What’s this?
Have Your Cake Realty & Design is my new taste-making service for people looking to buy/sell or those needing for interior design services. So many people own homes that need a little vision to bring them to life or are looking to buy a house that needs work. With four years experience as a buyer’s agent, I will be able to guide people towards houses with potential and see it through the design process to completion. What’s the point of having cake if you can’t eat it?
Home Buying
I’ve been helping rad folks find houses that they LOVE for over 4 years now. So far, I have specialized in working with first time homebuyers, often with limited budgets. This usually goes hand in hand with homes that need a little work. It always felt a little odd to give the keys of a fixer-upper to clients that I’ve become friends with and then hope for the best. Hope they can see the vision I so clearly can. Now, hopefully I can continue to hold client’s hands through the re-envisioning and remodel process long after they close! So many houses are out there with character waiting to be unveiled, or sometimes solid homes that need character to be reintroduced. Being able to see what needs to happen is a muscle I can help you flex.
For those who don’t need my design services, I will still be fully available to help you buy or sell a home. My opinions, contractor, and referral network are always free if you work with me. I really become pals with everyone I work with and I want you to have a home that you adore, so there’s never any gatekeeping. Feel free to negotiate with me, pay me in installments, send me a referral, or whatever needs to happen for us to continue working together after I help you through the home buying or selling process.
Design
There's no better time to hire an interior designer than during the house hunting process. When I was looking to buy my first home, I wanted something with potential that I could put my personality into. I was able to build my dream space and create 200k in instant equity. Is it still considered sweat equity if the only sweating I did was over a checkbook? At that time, I hired my own interior designer (Korinne James, you actual angel!) to walk me through the process and it was invaluable. I’m now ready to offer those services to my clients, no matter how big or small the project is. Sometimes you just need help making a million relatively simple decisions and I would absolutely love to give you all my opinions. Or, perhaps you need help sourcing and ordering deliverables, like the perfect artisanal towel rack or bespoke garbage can. Here I am, ready to scour Facebook Marketplace to find the vintage side table of your dreams. Or, maybe you need more than that plus a cheerleader, unlicensed therapist, and project manager for a large scale renovation while you go slightly insane amidst the construction dust. I am here for you!
Let’s Party!
In celebration of my big new venture, I am throwing a giant PARTY! There will be sandwiches, salad, mimosas, and flowers from Colibri. There will be a table long cake! There will be the amazingggg Maxine Sferra doing tintype portraits. Flowers, good tunes, amazing food courtesy of No Saint…need I say more? It will be July 14th 11-2pm at No Saint at 1603 NE Killingsworth. Come for a little, stay for a while, fill your belly up or just come to give me a hug and chat with other clients or industry peeps. Please RSVP here if you know you will be coming.
Recipe
Okay so every newsletter I will walk you through a favorite recipe of mine that is very in the moment. Right now, hood strawberries are popping off and cherries are about to hit their peak. This cake is good with any roasted fruit, so keep it in your back pocket throughout the year for whatever is in season.
Almond Cake
This cake comes from Hannah Ziskin who ran the Nopa SF pastry kitchen like it was the navy. We briefly overlapped in our time there and even just two weeks working for her (and trying her then-pop-up Quarter Sheets) changed the trajectory of my pastry life forever. If you’re ever in LA you have to try her cake!
7oz Almond Paste
135g Sugar
In a food processor, pulse the sugar and broken up almond paste until is is coarse sand.
Room Temp 2 sticks (8oz) Butter
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar paste mixture with the paddle attachment.
4 eggs and 1 yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla paste
Beat the eggs, one at a time, into the whipped sugar and butter. Add the vanilla.
100g All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1.5 teaspoon Salt
Scrape down the bowl and add the dry ingredients all at once. Mix it just until the flour disappears. Put it into a greased and papered 8 or 9” cake pan (either works, just make sure if it’s smaller that it has some room to grow in the oven). Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35+ minutes until it is no longer jiggly in the center and it springs back to the touch.
Roasted Fruit
1lb fruit, left whole or halved and de-pitted
Brown sugar, white sugar, salt
Olive Oil
Vanilla paste or better yet, a bean split and scraped
This is less of a recipe and more of a way of life. Depending on the fruit, you will need more or less sugar. Brown sugar is less sweet than white so you will need more of it. I like to do a healthy mix of both, coating the fruit evenly in a drizzle of olive oil and sugar mixture. just a small sprinkle of salt over top and a vanilla bean laying over top finishes it. I often will coat the fruit in an 8x8” baking dish so there’s no bowl necessary. Cherries benefit a lot from this treatment, it’s truly to die for. Roast in a 450 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until the fruit is bubbly and syrupy and a little burnt on the edges but not so cooked that it loses its shape. Strawberries will need less time while apricots or stone fruit can roast for longer.
Assembly
1 cup Cream
Creme Fraiche
Once the cake is cool, whip the cream with some powdered sugar and vanilla. When it’s nearly ready, add a hefty spoonful of creme fraiche and finish whipping to soft peaks. Place the cake on a nice plate and spread the whipped cream on top. Then, place the cool jammy roasted fruit on top of that. Serve immediately.
Newsletter
Thank you for signing up for my newsletter and sticking around to this point. From here on out I will be posting here twice a month thereabouts in a less formal capacity. Bits about life, design, real estate musings, and of course recipes! I will also be featuring a local business/creative monthly so if you would like to be featured let me know :) I love supporting small businesses so I would love to use this space to bring awareness to local events and such. We have such a vibrant community here and I am so so lucky to be a part of it.
Thanks for reading and as always, reach out if you have any questions or would like to have a coffee and chat real estate <3
-Erica