UMMOYER'S BAKESHOP: Team Bandana

In honor of Manny’s 3^rd Half Marathon this weekend in Miami I sent him a little Refuel and Replenish care package. Running 13.1 miles is amazing, exhilarating and a milestone anyone should be proud of completing. I ran the SF Half Marathon in July 2009 and loved to hate it or was it hated to love it!?! Regardless, those hills were killer, but I did it and I’ll probably do another one at some point.

Unlike me, Manny is on a roll. I’m really proud of his determination and new found passion. Getting up at 4:30am every Saturday morning is a miracle for anyone, especially for a guy that LOVES to sleep! And I think it’s important to support my friends in any passion they might have so I was happy to put something together and send it on its way.

Sending a care package with some yum-yums was my way of giving him a high five at the end of the race! HIGH FIVE MC! And after 13.1 miles everyone deserves a little bundt cake, especially you since I have no doubt you'll beat your last race time of 2 hours and 20 minutes. The Refuel and Replenish care package included my signature Kahlua Bundt Cake, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake, Milk Chocolate & PB Pretzel Bark, Kahlua Cookie Cake Bites and some yummy snacks from Trader Joes to enjoy during training.

For the Kahlua Cookie Cake Bites I used some of the Kahlua bundt batter to make flat “cookie cakes,” some of which I dipped in melted chocolate and covered in colored sugar sprinkles and others I decorated with icing – “Team Bandana,” “Go Manolo,” “RUN,” and “ING.” The icing didn’t travel as well as I had hoped, so I’m glad I snapped a photo before sending them off on their long 3000 miles journey.

And when making my signature Kahlua cake, I firmly believe in using top notch ingredients – Kahlua, obviously and then top shelf vodka like Belvedere really enhances the flavor. See pic below:

The chocolate bark was just another experiment, something worth testing again. I’ll have to wait and hear from MC on whether it’s a winner or not. And then to complete the package I made a run over to my local Trader Joes becuase they always have amazing trail mixes and snacks that are great to munch on during training. When you’re on the go, you need to pack little snack bags of healthy, but tasty snacks that also have some protein to keep you going. In this case, I found a good trail mix that had baby PB cups mixed in for a pop of flavor.

Here some pics of care package: