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In case you haven't heard already, we have a contest open on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/theprolificoven. It's super easy - just upload a picture of your favorite product of ours to your Facebook!

Here's exactly what you have to do, as listed on our Facebook events page:

1. Like our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ theprolificoven

2. Take a picture of your favorite item of ours. It can be anything - cakes, desserts, breakfast, lunch or dinner items

3. Upload the picture to your wall/timeline on Facebook and tag us, @The Prolific Oven, in the photo's caption

4. Get your friends to "like" the picture - the person with the photo that has the most "likes" WINS!

After you upload your picture, make sure you tag us in your caption so we can see it! Without liking our page first or tagging us in your caption, we won't be able to see your photos (privacy concerns) and therefore you won't be elligible for the contest! When you're finished, it should look something like this:

Remember, the picture with the most "likes" wins so get your friends' support! Contest is open through the rest of May so you guys can take those pictures! It doesn't necessarily have to be of your favorite item of ours, but it'd be fun to know!

Winner will receive a $50 Gift Card to spend with us at any location (except Saratoga) for any goods - cakes, desserts, breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Good luck!

Mother's Day is less than two weeks away! Plan to order your mom the very best - handcrafted cakes that are baked without added preservatives, without artificial flavors, without artificial flavors. This year we are featuring our Banana Custard Cream, a house favorite. This is actually my go-to cake, especially if we're going for chocolate-cake-alternative. Although it's a light French Style cake, it's carrying some real and natural flavors.

We specifically bake a banana-almond sponge just to craft this cake. Between the layers of banana-almond sponge lies a thick layer of fresh banana custard, which, like all of our cakes, is also handmade from scratch. The cake is then layered with freshly cut seasonal fruit, just a bit of fresh whipped cream on the sides and toasted sliced almonds.

It's light in texture but filled with natural fruit flavors, which makes this cake perfect for this spring weather and great for Mother's Day.

If you aren't having a family gathering that requires cake, then join us for brunch at our Santa Clara or Fremont locations, served until 3pm. If you plan on joining us at our Fremont location, don't miss out on our $1.99 Mimosa deal for Mother's Day only.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Wednesday! Hope everyone is having a great week so far and is still looking forward to the rest of it; we have a lot of things going on!

Let's start with tomorrow, Thursday, April 19th. If you're in the Palo Alto/Menlo Park/Los Altos area, you probably already know tomorrow is Dine Out for Packard. We'll be donating 10% of our cake sales at our Palo Alto store tomorrow to benefit Lucile Packard's Children Hospital, so make sure you stop by for some cake before the day is over. No restrictions on how many slices (or even whole cakes!) and it doesn't matter what time you stop by - anytime before closing at 10pm. We're just one of the many participants in this year's Dine Out for Packard so check out the list here to see where you can eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner to benefit the children's hospital!

And Fremont customers, we have tons of news for you. This weekend is the Grand Opening weekend of Century Theatres at The Block, right behind Costco at our very own Pacific Commons. To celebrate, our Fremont store will be extending our Friday and Saturday hours, just in case you need a late dinner or crave some dessert and coffee after your movie. Our kitchen will now be closing at 10pm, and dining room will be open until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

In addition, we want to thank you for supporting Pacific Commons and The Block at Pacific Commons. Bring in your ticket stub from the new Century Theatres right after your movie and we'll offer you a Buy One Get One Free Dessert - it's that easy! The dessert is limited to a single serving (so slices of cakes, Fruit Tarts, Eclairs, Cream Puffs, etc are all eligible but whole cakes are not) and each stub is limited to one free dessert. You must surrender your ticket stub at time of purchase and it has to be the same day you watched the movie, but other than that, it's easy! Gather your friends to watch a movie and then stop by our store afterwards for BOGO dessert!

And Fremont, if you don't already have plans this Sunday, please join us at Kidango's Taster Showcase event. We had a lot of fun at last year's so we're back again this year! For $35 (or $45 at the door), enjoy fine foods, wine and beverages for a good cause. The event is this Sunday, April 22 at the Fremont Marriot Hotel from 1pm-4pm. Purchase tickets in advance here, and stop by our booth for cake and to say "hello"!

Lastly, just wanted to quickly mention that Fremont will be changing their specials this Friday. Thursday will be the last day to enjoy our Peppercorn Rib Eye or Grilled Shrimp Pasta. On Friday you can look forward to more steak specials and perhaps a revisit to our ever-so-popular Fish N Chips! Find out on Friday.

Looking for desserts for Passover? Or fresh Hot Cross Buns for Easter Sunday? Look no further!

Each year we exclusively bake Passover cakes without the traditional use of flour; instead, we bake with potato starch and Matzo meal. The two cookie options we have, Almond Macaroons and Coconut Macaroons, are also made sans-flour.

For chocolate lovers we have our Chocolate Orange Passover cake, which can be decorated with or without whipped cream. Without whipped cream, we generously top the cake with fresh strawberries and oranges. With the cream, we cover the torte with whipped cream first then decorate with fruit along the perimeter for some color.

A chocolate alternative to our Passover desserts is our Strawberry Banana Passover cake. This banana sponge is made with fresh bananas and Matzo meal (note: because of the Matzo Meal, this cake is NOT gluten-free). Between the layers of sponge lies fresh strawberries, bananas and whipped cream. It's decorated with whipped cream, sliced almonds on the sides and topped with some fruits around the perimeter. By default this cake is sprinkled with Orange Curacao liqueur for both flavor and to keep the cake moist; but this can be substituted with Orange Juice by request. 

We'll also be making two types of macaroons! Our Almond Macaroons, made specially for this holiday, is made with almond paste. It's available in plain and chocolate flavors. Lastly, the Coconut Macaroons we have in our case everyday also do not contain flour.

Hot Cross Buns (not flourless) are also in season again! Please place your orders in advance if you know you'll be needing them. We'll also be baking our Raspberry Sandwich cookies in the shape of bunnies -- so stop by after your egg hunts!

We can't have any green pastries but that doesn't mean we won't be celebrating St. Patrick's Day! Join us at our Rivermark and/or Fremont locations on Friday or Saturday for Corned Beef specials and insanely cheap beer (at Fremont only)!

At Rivermark (Santa Clara) we'll be serving two different dishes, one for each day. On Friday we'll be serving the traditional Corned Beef & Cabbage. Our marinated Corned Beef will be served with steamed cabbage, baby carrots, red potatoes and corn on the cob. If you can't make it in on Friday, don't worry, we'll be serving Corned Beef & Hash during brunch hours (open until 3pm) on Saturday! The Corned Beef & Hash will be served with hashbrowns and two eggs any style.

At Fremont we'll be serving the same Corned Beef & Cabbage entree as Rivermark but on Saturday we'll add an added promotion of $1 Bud Light and $1.50 all other bottled beers. We are currently carrying St. Pauli Girl, Corona, Trumer Pils, Sierra Nevada, Stella Artois and Michelob.

Hope you can join us! And Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We've joined dozens of other local businesses in sponsoring One Year After, a musical event being held this Saturday in Fremont to benefit children who have been effected by Japan's devasting earthquake and tsunami exactly one year ago. Proceeds from this event will be help children in orphanages who are still in need of basic items such as clothing, baby supplies and medications.

Here is an excerpt from One Year After's website:

"March 10, 2012 (Pacific Standard Time) marks the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that destroyed tens of thousands of lives in the worst natural disaster in the history of Japan. It is estimated that it will take over 10 years and billions of dollars to rebuild the areas affected in the Tohoku region of Northern Japan. In addition to over 200 children orphaned in the disaster, thousands of children were affected due to loss of their homes, schools, and other belongings. We have an opportunity to stand and support the relief efforts in the Tohoku area, especially for the children."

A collaborative musical performance will be performed by Yoshino Taiko Emsemble and Fremont's Music at the Mission Chamber Players. The event is this Saturday in Fremont, at the historic Old Mission San Jose Church.

Join us in supporting this cause. Adult tickets are on sale for $35; students and seniors for $25. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit http://www.musicatmsj.org/oneyearafter

[EDIT: Our menus have been changed! Please see our website for the most up-to-date menus]

Join us for a meal after 3pm at our Fremont store and you'll receive a free slice of cake! Much in the same way that our Palo Alto store offers free cake with your sandwich or salad for lunch, our Fremont store is giving away the same sweet deal to any sandwich, salad, pasta or specials entree for dinner. I would hurry though, this offer won't last forever and quantity is limited every night. 

Speaking of Fremont specials, we'll be changing them again very soon. Before they go away, make sure to try our current ones: Grilled Shrimp Pasta, Mango Chutney Tilapia and Chicken Carbonara.

The Mango Chutney Tilapia is one of my favorite specials. It's served with soft white rice and homemade mango chutney that's not too sweet and not too tart (from the real mango chunks). I'll be sad to see this special go.

We'll also be changing our regular lunch/dinner menu in the next few weeks, and I'm very happy to announce that our Chicken Carbonara will now be a permanent item on the menu! As one of our most popular dishes ever, we think it deserves some space on the menu board.

But with the addition of some new items comes the removal of others. Although it is one of my favorite dishes of all time, unfortunately we'll be removing our Salmon Beurre Blanc from the menu. Since we refuse to use frozen Salmon filets, it's just been too hard to keep fresh fish on hand with such low demand of this entree. But if you haven't tried it yet I strongly urge you to stop by for it. It's a dish you would expect to find at a fine-dining restaurant but we serve it for only a fraction of the price!

These changes will be made pretty soon so stop by this week if you can. And remember, come in after 3pm and you'll receive a free slice of cake with your entree! Limited quantities and limited time only (restrictions may apply).

To stay up to date with promos like this one, make sure to follow us on Twitter @TheProlificOven

Stay tuned for an update on our new specials next week!

Happy New Year to all! The holidays are never long enough, are they?

But now it's time to get back to business. With a new year ahead of us, we're very excited to be making some new additions! We'll be busy in the kitchen stirring up some new recipes. I've got a few in mind... maybe some sugar-free products, some gluten-free - although no promises! What's tough about these two kinds of cakes and pastries is we refuse to stray away from our philosophy: using the highest quality ingredients to bake the highest quality final products. We don't want to cut any corners, which makes baking sugar-free and gluten-free very challenging. 

Any other suggestions or recommendations? Over the holidays we were receiving numerous phone calls asking about Lemon Cake. We do bake a fabulous Lemon Poppyseed Cake as well as a Lemon Custard Cream and a Lemon Rum Cream, but I think a plain Lemon Cake would be nice too. Another request I received is for Coconut Cake, so I'll be working on that too.

What do you think? Anything else you would like to see our bakery carry?

Check out these new boxes we now carry for cookies! Pick as many cookies as you'd like - of whatever assortment - and we'll box them for you with a great bow -- super fun and easy gifts!

So now there is a choice of Cookie Tins, Cookie Boxes or Cookie Bags (not pictured)!

Our Gingerbread cookies are very popular this time of year. We make a variety of shapes and sizes, including angels, boys, girls, trees and more. Pictured below is our Large Man next to some regular-sized Gingerbread.

And two more cookies that we feature during this time of the year: Spritz Cookies (Swedish butter cookies) and Mexican Wedding Cookies.

Last couple of days to get your orders in! Please call in by Friday to have your orders ready on Christmas Eve. Remember, we will be closed Christmas Day. 

Christmas Eve hours:

Palo Alto: 7:00am - 6:00pm, lunch until 3:00pm

Santa Clara: 7:30am - 6:00pm, kitchen closing at 3:00pm

Fremont: 7:30am - 6:00pm, kitchen closing at 3:00pm

Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday!

In addition to my last post on Holiday Gift Ideas, here are a few more ideas that are especially, although not exclusively, great for companies. Among the most popular are the Cookie Tins and Fruitcakes, but there are a few baked goods that can be ordered in large quantities that will work just as well, if not better.

1. Mini Dessert Platters

We make a variety of mini desserts including fruit tartlets, lemon tartlets, Eclairs, Cream Puffs, Napoleons and Grand Marnier Balls. Feel free to create an assortment with as little or as many desserts as you like. We can pack them in our standard bakery boxes or on party platters. We do offer special pricing for 25 pieces on a tray, limited to one kind of dessert per tray. 

2. Morning Pastry Boxes

With a large variety to choose from, there's something for every office! For your convenience, we have five preset boxes to choose from. Of course if non of these assortments are to your liking, we can also make custom boxes. Almost all of our morning pastries are also available in mini sizes.

4. Buche de Noels and Yule Logs

While we are already on the topic of gifting cakes, why not kick it up a notch? Our Buche de Noels and Yule Logs are exclusively made this time of year. They're a bit more extravagant, but can really brighten up an office party. Your clients will really be surprised and appreciate this one. Find more details on our Holiday Special Occasions page here.

5. Bags of Cake Bites

Since the launch of this product a few months ago, we have been getting tons of positive feedback! With these Cake Bites, there's no hassle of delivering a full-sized cake while having the same quality and taste and having enough to go around. They can be individually bagged per person or packed in a box (think box of donut holes!) or party platter (picture aboved). 

6. Box of Cupcakes

Each box holds six cupcakes, pick and choose the kinds you want: Chocolate with Chocolate icing, Chocolate with Mocha icing, Chocolate with Rum icing, Carrot, Orange Almond, White Cake with Chocolate icing and/or White Cake with Orange icing. Bow is complimentary :)

Or just send a whole bunch to the office!

Hope this helps. If ordering in large quantities, please place orders in advance. Please leave a comment or call our stores if you have any questions!

Happy Holidays :)