White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

12 ounces white confectionary coating
1 lb cream cheese, softened
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Melt candy coating.

Allow coating to cool slightly, stirring occasionally (don't let it set up)

In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth and creamy.

Stir a small amount of the cream cheese into the melted candy coating to temper the chocolate.? Beat in the tempered chocolate to the cream cheese until blended and smooth. Beat in the butter and lemon juice.

Lemon Curd

2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon grated lemon rind (optional)
4 large eggs, lightly beaten

combine first 3 ingredients, and lemon rind if desired, in a heavy saucepan, cook over med. heat, stirring constantly until butter melts.
Gradually add one fourth of hot mixture into eggs; add to remaining hot mixture, stirring constantly.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, 10 minutes or until lime mixture thickens and coats a spoon.
Remove from heat; cool. Cover and chill at least 2 hours.

Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Cream together:

1/2 pound butter
1/2 pound cream cheese
1 1/2 cups sugar

Add:
4 large eggs
1/3 cup lemon juice

Mix in:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Bake at 325 convection for 30-35 minutes.

COMFORT BAKING COMES TO EASTON

Years ago, living in New York City on meager means, Susan Trankle wanted to get holiday gifts for her friends but couldn’t afford much. A simple box of dog-eared index cards held the answer. The box held secrets of her youth, the family recipes passed on from her mother, whom she spent countless days baking with as a child. Within a few days, she had baked dozens and dozens of cookies, and her friends now count on them as an annual holiday tradition.

Trankle, who calls what she does “comfort baking,” has taken these and other recipes into a professional kitchen for the first time when she opened Suzie’s Mixing Bowl in early April 2005. The shop actually opened the day of the great flood, and as fortune would have, river-watchers flooded in that day. “I couldn’t have arranged for better visibility or publicity – for us, the disaster turned into deluge of success. Despite our good fortune, I felt terrible for those not as lucky that day.”

As for the comforts, “I don’t do no carb, low carb, or no sugar,” she says. “It’s all eggs, sugar and butter… lots of butter. People work so hard these days that they should feel good about treating themselves or indulging friends and loved ones – that’s why I’m here.”

After getting the baking bug that fateful winter in Manhattan, she expanded her range by making birthday cakes for friends. One thing led to another and during any breaks she had from her day job in the fashion industry, she began to hone her skills with local Wilton cake decorating courses.

A few years later a family move to Washington derailed her fashion career, and while surfing the web one day she came across information about an annual convention for cake decorators from around the world. Seeing that it was taking place in Portland, Oregon, just a few hours from where she lived, she jumped in the car and changed her life. Inspired by the world she discovered, Trankle found the Wilton School of Confectionary Art in Chicago and traveled back and forth between Illinois and Washington, taking Masters Course classes in cake decorating, chocolate artistry, and cakes for catering, among others.

When she and her husband had the chance to move back east, Trankle saw this as the opportunity she was looking for. “I decided then that if I was going to work for someone it might as well be myself,” says Trankle. After visiting Easton, she and her husband fell in love with the area, saw the revitalization opportunities in the town and wanted to be a part of it.

“I’m really looking forward to using this shop as a creative outlet,” Trankle says. “It’ll feature the kind of baked goods your mother or grandmother would make. Or you wish they made.”

Suzie’s Mixing Bowl is located at 34 North 2nd Street, Easton, PA 18042. For more information, contact Susan Trankle at 610-253-3255.