Less than 12 hours until Austin Bakes for Japan opens for business!!! We’ve already raised over $1,000 in cash gifts thanks to generous business sponsorships from Sushi A-Go-Go, Community Renaissance Market, Cake Maker 3000, Sugartooth Bakery, and Objects of Confection. Add to that the $162 from donors on our FirstGiving Page, and we’re more than 10% of the way towards our $10,000 fundraising goal for AmeriCares Japan relief! I hope you’ll join us tomorrow at one of our five bake sale locations around Austin to help us make it the rest of the way there.

Here’s our last preview of items that will be available at the bake sale tomorrow. Remember, there are three ways to give to AmeriCares through Austin Bakes for Japan

1. CASH- Please bring exact change if you are able.
2. CHECKS- made out to AmeriCares, please, with Japan in the memo line.
3. ONLINE– give via credit/debit card securely online and show us your receipt on paper or your phone in exchange for some goodies at the sale site of your choice.

Finally, don’t forget to wear sunscreen tomorrow, and to bring your camera and smart phone with you to the sale. Our donors and volunteers will be tweeting all day with the hashtag #AustinBakes, and we’ll be posting regular fundraising updates from our @Austinbakes twitter account. Hopefully bunches of people will upload amazing pictures to our Flickr group, too.

 

Lemongrass Creative Concepts is donating these sweet apple pie pops, plus these decorated cookies at the west location.

 

 

 

Does anyone else get misty when they see items decorated with the Japanese flags and cultural symbols? One of the most meaningful parts of writing these previews has been seeing the creative ways that different food artists in Austin are expressing their support for survivors in Japan.

 

 

Vegan baker Sugar Skull created these beauties, with ingredients donated by Sugar Mama’s Bake Shop. If that weren’t enough, Sugar Mama’s has donated 4-packs of assorted cupcakes, individually wrapped fudge dipped brownies and frosted cookies for us to sell at the South, East and Downtown locations. These will go fast tomorrow!

 

 

 

Vegans and non-vegans who love cowboy cookies should make a point to visit our South Austin bake sale. Blogger Jote and her daughter made cowboy cookies in adorable packaging, and blogger Sugar Skull made a vegan version of the same. There’s a car show happening on South Congress tomorrow, so we will need all the cookies we can get for the hungry passer-bys there.

 

 

SugaPlump Pastries will have mini bourbon chocolate pecan pies, along with an assortment of Patron XO Cafe infused chocolate cakeballs, red velvet cakeballs, and italian creme cakeballs at our South, East and Central Sale locations. That means no matter what part of town you’re in tomorrow, there’s no excuse not to eat a cake ball for Japan!

Aneelee has made these mini banana oat muffins in packages of six for the South location. What a creative and cute way to package them, too!

Boxing Octopus took a break from writing her dissertation to make two versions of fudge brownies for our East Austin location at Nomad Bar: salted caramel and plain. Good luck choosing just one of those!

Anyone who’s looking for savory flavors instead of sweet should plan to visit Foreign & Domestic tomorrow. Lisa is Cooking is bringing these herbed biscuits, Carla Crownover is making Beer Nuts using (of course) local pecans, and business partner Pie Fixes Everything will have some savory quiches in addition to their famous pies.

We can’t wait to see everyone tomorrow! Don’t forget to wear sunscreen, bring your camera and smart phone, bring exact change, and come with a big appetite. 🙂