Last week was INSANE for us! Especially this last Saturday!

We decided to offer samples for our grand opening day so that everyone could get a taste of a few different flavors. The best part? It was only $3.50 to fill up a box of 4! We had a steady line of people waiting outside from 12-4pm which our friend Karine Brighten helped to organize. By 4:00pm, we were SOLD OUT! Covered in frosting and toppings, we all beamed with excitement. Despite the crowd, everything went pretty smoothly. The Cinnaholic staff joined the Veg News crew next door at Saturn Cafe for lunch afterward. It was also their opening day. A quick burger and some fries later, it was back to the shop for clean up. We decided to take a breather on Sunday to replenish our stock and soak our feet.

Rested and rejuvenated, we were up bright and early on Monday morning. 4:30 am to be exact! Throughout the week we seemed to have a pretty steady flow of people. We had our rushes, our slower times, and of course our dead times. Our staff did an amazing job managing everything and everyone.

Because this is our first business, of course we made some mistakes which resulted in learning… a lot. There was a point in time where during a rush, we might have forgotten to add the “butter” to the recipe, maybe we ran out of a few ingredients a few times and maybe our POS system was acting up. Despite the difficulty we had with some of our suppliers, our deliveries, our equipment and… eh hem…operator error, we are really proud of our staff and ourselves for managing to get through everything without pulling our hair out.

We know that every business that’s starting up has some kinks to work out. We took a lot of notes and listened to a lot of suggestions this week. We hope that everyone who stopped by was satisfied and for those who may not have had a life changing experience, we hope you were forgiving. We are so thankful for our staff, our investors, our vendors, our friends, family, and most of all, for YOU! Our customers.

We REALLY appreciate all the positive Yelp reviews and we’ve taken all of your suggestions into consideration. We’d love to hear anymore feedback that you might have. Please send us a message or leave us a comment here on the website.

Thanks again for all your support. We look forward to seeing you in the shop!

Love,

Shannon & Florian

Cinnaholic is proud to announce our grand opening!

Assuming our final inspections pass next week, we plan to officially open up shop on Saturday, July 17^th!!! Please stop by from 12pm – 4pm and check out all the delicious treats we have in store for you.

We bake everything on-site and allow you to customize your own cinnamon roll! Feel like a Pina Colada or a Rootbeer roll? Perhaps a Rocky Road or a Banana Nut are more your style? Whatever you like, you got it!  And you know what the best part is? As a thank you for celebrating with us for our grand opening, we’ve decided to offer you any roll for just $3.50!!!

We couldn’t have fulfilled our dream of serving you tasty treats without the help of friends and family. We are so grateful for our investors who made this all possible, to our grand opening organizer Karine Brighten of Karine Brighten Events, to our new staff, to the press for spreading the word, to those who have supported us by attending local bakesales and events, and to YOU for your kind words and business.  We are honored to be the Bay Area’s first gourmet cinnamon roll shop (and vegan ta’boot)!

For the latest updates on our offerings and specials, please sign up for our newsletter! You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

We look forward to meeting you on Saturday, July 17^th!

A couple months ago I was fortunate to meet Annie Shannon through mutual Facebook friends. I quickly realized we shared a mutual love of fashion, had a passion for animals and more importantly, an immense love for FOOD! When Annie started her blog ‘Meet the Shannons’, I was beyond stoked! It was a relief to know I wasn’t the only one who could strangely relate to the movie Julie and Julia.

As I read through her recipes, of course, the Caramel Sticky Rolls stood out. The challenge was on!

I followed the majority of the instructions on Annie’s blog for the most part.

I found the dough to be much tougher when kneading it than the dough I’m used to working with. However, this made the dough very easy to handle as far as rolling went. Skeptical, I pressed on.

When it came to making the caramel sauce, I realized I was out of powdered sugar. Crap. I substituted regular cane sugar instead. The first time I boiled it and let it cool, the margarine separated from the sugar. I boiled it a second time and it blended just fine. I also added a half teaspoon of Madagascar vanilla bourbon extract for extra flavor once I removed it from the heat. YUM.

Much to my dismay, I realized I was out of cranberries for the filling as well. I ended up using a half cup of crushed pieces of sweet, candied pecans instead. I also found that the brown sugar filling wasn’t enough to cover the area I was working with (about 10″x15″). I added an additional 1/2 teaspoon on cinnamon and 1/4 cup of brown sugar.

After they were baked, it was judgment time! They came out much softer than I had anticipated but also much more flakier than I’d hoped. I guess I had expected them to be more chewy since the dough was tougher than I’m used to. Overall, they came out really good. They were evenly baked, soft, not too much filling and just the right amount of sweetness.

The caramel sauce? OMG. This stuff is no joke! I made the mistake of drizzling the sauce over the rolls while they were still hot resulting it 90% of it sliding down the sides and forming pools on the parchment paper. Thankfully, once the sauce had cooled, I was able to scoop it up, lay it on top of the roll again and watch it form a perfect shiny glaze over the top.I think next time I may even melt a few chocolate chips into the sauce.

I definitely recommend you try this recipe!

Thank you Annie for sharing your blog. You are an inspiration to those without a clue how to veganise “normal” food. If you ever decided to put out a print version of your recipes, reserve me 5 copies!!!