Bake Me A Wish Blog

CREATIVE HOMEOWNER BAKES CAKES
August 3, 2009
Posted by Natalie Rodriguez

…But I’m personally most impressed by the hustle of cash-strapped Teaneck, New Jersey resident Angela Logan, who started baking “Mortgage Apple Cakes” or MACs and selling them for $40 a pop to pay her $2,559.54 mortgage payment so she could keep her house.

Angela managed to snag a corner in the kitchen of Hasbrouck Heights Hilton hotel to do her cooking, and now she’s selling her confections nationwide through Bake Me a Wish. She’s already received more than the necessary 100 orders to pay off that month’s due, and she’s planning on continue to bake and sell her cakes for as long as possible. Now that’s some creative D-I-Y if you ask me…

Click here to read the article.

POSTED: AUGUST 3, 2009
Wendy L. Wilson; courtesy of Essence.com

After a bad storm last December caused serious damage to her home in Teaneck, New Jersey, things for Angela Logan went from bad to worse. The contractor she hired ended up causing even more damage to her house, forcing Logan to pay $50,000 in repairs and leaving her house unfinished. The modeling agency that hired Logan went belly up without paying her several thousands of dollars for jobs she had already completed. That’s when her mortgage payments started to go downhill. Next thing the 55-year-old actress/model knew she was close to losing the house she has lived in for the last 20 years to foreclosure. That’s when she decided to set a goal and bake her way out of her financial problems. Logan was able to raise enough money to make her mortgage payments and may have even found a new calling through this experience. She spoke to ESSENCE.com about how she used her famous Mortgage Apple Cakes to save her from imminent foreclosure, who helped her get the word out and what she hopes other people will learn from her story.

ESSENCE.COM: How did you come up with the idea to sell cakes to help raise the money you needed?
ANGELA LOGAN: I met with a credit counselor who told me about a refinancing program called Making Homes Affordable. I signed up for it but it took at least three months to get a response from them. Once we did, they said, okay, now you have to make the first payment. This program was going to significantly decrease my mortgage but in order to get it I had to pay off all my bills and make three mortgage payments for the rest of the year. I had to find a way to get that money. So, I made a plan. I was going bake and sell 100 cakes at $40 per cake in 10 days.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Bake Me a Wish

Apparently, I was queen for a day in the middle east, thanks to an idea to send my shipmates over in Afghanistan a cake from Bake Me A Wish. I have a few friends stationed in Kabul for a year as Individual Augmentees (IA) for the U.S. Navy as Public Affairs Officers.

A little birdie told me that my LCDR friend had a thing for oreo cookies. Ok, I cheated and I asked her husband on Facebook. Good thing I did, because I learned she pretty much just likes chocolate cake. They have a special “Freedom Cake” that you can order for yourself, and Bake Me A Wish will send a cake to a soldier serving overseas.

Here’s the cookies and cream one I ordered for my friend. They are very courteous over the phone and the cake got there pretty fast, considering. It was packaged very nicely so it arrived fresh and delicious!

Click Here To Read The Whole Article!

by Nyier Abdou/The Star-Ledger

Monday July 27, 2009, 6:18 PM

TEANECK — Dressed in white pants and a white button-down shirt, Angela Logan blends in among the kitchen staff at the Hilton in Hasbrouck Heights. As she fetches big bowls of butter-cream cheese frosting from the walk-in cooler and lightly jabs the top of a golden cake in the oven, she seems more like a hotel pastry chef than a woman fighting foreclosure.

But that’s just what this 55-year-old actress and former dancer from Teaneck is doing: turning a much-loved recipe for apple cakes into a moneymaker that can help save her home of nearly 20 years.

In these lean economic times, acting jobs are scarce, and Logan’s usual standby, substitute teaching, has also been hard to find. A string of unforeseeable events, including a botched construction job on her home and the sudden closure of one of her talent agencies, left her struggling to pay her mortgage.

Click here to read the article!

Angela Logan and her “mortgage apple cake” have hit the big time.

The Teaneck actress, who two weeks ago began baking apples cakes for friends in an effort to stave off foreclosure — and then was overwhelmed with orders for the $40 confection after a Record article ignited a media storm — is now partnering with an online seller of special-occasion cakes.

Logan has signed a contract with BakeMeAWish.com that will allow her to use the company’s baking plant on Long Island to fill her backlog of hundreds of cake orders. BakeMeAWish employees will prepare the cakes under Logan’s direct supervision, and the privately held company will handle shipment, said BakeMeAWish founder and President Josh Kaye.

Logan, who was planning to visit a FedEx office Thursday to send off a crucial $2,559.94 check to her lender, currently is baking at the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton hotel, which offered a corner of its kitchen last weekend. The apple cake operation will move to Long Island as early as next week.

After Logan fills her pending cake orders, which are coming in from around the world, she will continue a business relationship with BakeMeAWish, said Kaye, who founded the company in 2004.

Kaye said mortgage apple cake eventually will become part of the company’s product line — the Web site was taking orders for it Thursday — and that proceeds from its sale will help other homeowners in financial distress.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

(High Point, NC) – June 11th, 2009 – This past Lent, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic church’s Faith Formation  honored our Operation: Birthday Cake cause by having a charitable drive for the soldiers.  This wonderful group used very special “Easter Eggs” to help involve their congregation and it’s children.   Each egg had a request for the child that day, including “Give someone a hug who needs it today!” and “Clean your room without being asked!” For each task completed, the child dropped the egg into a basket along with a quarter.

No doubt, The Immaculate Heart of Mary received a tremendous response to their outreach, raising hundreds of dollars to ensure that no Soldier would go without a cake on their birthday – no matter where they may be.  Thank you Immaculate Heart of Mary!  You are a role-model on what we should be doing in our own communities for Lent and throughout the year.

You too can get involved in Operation Birthday Cake!  Setup a special event: silent auction, bake sale, whatever it may be!  OR simply order a Freedom Cake from Bake Me A Wish!

I just wanted to thank you for the birthday cake that you sent.It meant a lot to me.Two Soldiers commented independently that while eat ing the cake  “If you close your eyes, it’s like your home!” It was that good. It is a very thoughtful thing you do sending birthday cakes half-way around the world for service members who are stuck in the day to day grind of operations over here. I just wanted to thank you.
Very Respectfully,

Brian Taylor

(New York, NY – Wednesday, March 11^th, 2009)

This past Monday, Bake Me A Wish! visited the Friends of Island Academy (FOIA), a NYC based non-profit that reaches out to troubled youths, ages 16-18, prior to being released from Riker’s Island. Upon discharge, FOIA provides job training, counseling, education, mentoring, and youth leadership development so that these young men & women may begin rebuilding their lives. FOIA has been exceptional at reducing recidivism in young teens. To read find out more about FOIA, please visit their website.

This past Thanksgiving, Bake Me A Wish! had turkey dinner catered for these wonderful youths, and our president, Josh Kaye, could not resist doing more.

“I know what it’s like to have a difficult life; to come from so little and to feel like the world is working against you,” Josh regaled. “The important thing to remember is there are people who care for you and who will support you in your life. You are not alone. You can make it with determination and hard work. It’s our hope to empower you so that you too will be in a position to give back to those less fortunate than you.”

As a gesture of support, Josh handed out Kids Freedom Cakes to each of the youngsters in the group.

Not only did they enjoy the delicious S’More Brownie cake, but were thrilled that Bake Me A Wish! is donating birthday cakes to soldiers in their name, through our partnership with Soldiers’ Angels. They also get to write a letter to their adopted solider! We immediately took to the computers and guided the teenagers through writing their letters online at BakeMeAWish.com.

We’ll have more to come on this story as it develops!