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[00:00.38] Todd: So Meg, I hear that you’re quite the baker. You like to bake brownies, cookies, things like that.

[00:05.63] Meg: Yeah. I love to bake. It’s pretty relaxing for me, and kind of fun, kind of a creative outlet, baking.

[00:12.88] Todd: Well, everybody notices it in the office when we see you bringing brownies for your students, and we’re all jealous.

[00:18.13] We wish we were in your class. So what is it with baking? Like is it just something you do to relax?

[00:23.88] Meg: Yeah. Well personally, I love sweets. Like I would eat only sweets if my body could handle it.

[00:32.63] Todd: Right.

[00:33.13] Meg: But I try to eat regular food, too. So I think I inherited that from my mom.

[00:36.63] So because I love sweet so much, it ends up being really fun making something like brownies or cookies.

[00:43.38] And for the creative aspect, I love to make cupcakes or cakes and – I don’t know if you’ve heard of cake pops – and decorate them.

[00:53.13] Todd: No. What’s a cake pop?

[00:54.13] Meg: A cake pop is like a little piece of cake on a stick coated in chocolate.

[00:58.63] Todd: Oh really? That sounds pretty good.

[01:00.63] Meg: Yeah. So in America right now, they’re getting pretty popular. Some people are saying it’s the new cupcake.

[01:06.13] So I don’t know if you know, a few years back, cupcakes got pretty popular. And so now, we have cake pops.

[01:13.13] And I was in the process of starting a little cake pop business before I moved to Japan.

[01:16.13] So, it’s really fun because you can make the cake pops, and it takes a while but then you can decorate them in all these really creative ways for different holidays or parties or birthday or just cute things, so.

[01:29.38] Yeah, so the creativity plus something sweet makes it fun for me.

[01:33.88] Todd: That's awesome. But what – cake pop, is it like a corn dog but like a cake?

[01:38.13] Meg: No. It’s just like a little round piece of cake. So the process is you should bake a cake like normal.

[01:45.38] Todd: Yeah.

[01:46.13] Meg: And then sift it up, so it’s just tiny little crumbs.

[01:49.13] So ruin the cake that you’ve made, sift it up until it’s just crumbs and then mix in just a little bit of like cream cheese frosting.

[01:55.38] And it makes kind of a formable, moldabledough. And then you mold balls, put it on a stick, dip it chocolate, and then you can decorate it.

[02:05.63] So it can be chocolate or like a vanilla-colored type, you know, you can have different colors, things like that.

[02:11.38] Todd: Wow. Cake pops.

[02:12.38] Meg: Yeah. Yeah. So cake pops are probably my favorite thing to make but also decorating cakes.

[02:18.63] I took a couple of cake decorating classes and making frosting and, you know, using the special frosting tools to swirl it on the cupcakes or whatever. So yeah.

[02:29.63] Todd: So have you ever made like a wedding cake or anything like that?

[02:33.13] Meg: I did actually make one wedding cake.

[02:35.63] I never really wanted to make wedding cakes because they’re very complicated and there’s so much pressure for it to be extremely perfect because it’s someone’s wedding.

[02:44.38] Todd: Yeah.

[02:45.63] Meg: And so – but there was a couple that I knew who were just doing really like low-budget cute wedding, and they weren’t too concerned about it being a huge cake. They just need something smaller.

[02:55.38] And so, I did a couple of tiers and I was actually a chocolate cake. So it wasn’t even white.

[03:01.63] So I did one chocolate cake but I have a done cake pops for a few weddings as like favors for the guests.

[03:06.88] Todd: Wow. The cake pops are just the thing.

[03:08.38] Meg: Yeah, because they come out so cute. I actually have a cake pop set that I can make where it looks like a little bride and a little groom like a little tuxedo.

[03:18.38] And so those are probably my most popular ones for weddings.

[03:20.88] And I also, before cake pops, I was making truffles.

[03:24.38] So that’s another thing that you can also decorate in a cute way.

[03:29.38] Todd: Wow. Well, actually we’ll talk about that more in the next interview. I’d like to ask you some questions about truffles.

[03:33.88] Meg: Sure.