Nurse Appreciation Week

It takes a special kind of person to become a nurse!! We really appreciate healthcare workers and all that they do for patients!! They give up so much to take care of others and that’s true sacrifice.

Last week, we had a drawing for a 1/2 sheet cake for a department!

Below are team photos of who entered In the drawing and what they do.

 Froedtert Internal Medicine Clinic where we do primary care taking care of all adults 18 and older with all medical problems and needs

Aurora Grafton Day Surgery! We get patients prepped for surgery and recover them after. When the time is right we send them home, most of the time. If not we send them to Medsurg 1 for Hailey and her team take care of♥️♥️

Aurora Grafton Medsurg 1 (part of the team) we work inpatient in the hospital. We take care of patients who have had general surgery, have a GI or GU problem or are sick and need to be hospitalized.

Some of the Children’s WI day surgery nurses! We get kids and their parents ready for surgery, do our best to ease their nerves, and make sure they are safe and ready to go home after surgery.

Aurora Medical Center Grafton-Cath/EP Team-First Watchman Implant done in Grafton 🙂

Thank you to the Cardiac Cath/EP Lab of Aurora Medical Center Grafton. A very experienced and dedicated team helping cardiac patients of our community!

Regardless of age, birthdays are to celebrated❤️❤️

Thank you for the beautiful, tasty cookies! They helped make our 89th birthday celebration for my father, Dick, and my mother-in-law, Rhea a wonderful occasion! We will definitely be purchasing bakery from you again.

PS. I also had several people ask me what bakery we used!

Thanks agan

Karen

This blog is in honor of Dr. James J Ansfield

Whether you addressed him as Dr. Ansfield or Jimmy Blue, he had the biggest heart, a sense of humor and a great smile. To you, he may be Dr. Ainsfield, but to me, he will always be Jimmy Blue.

Our story begins a few years ago when Mila’s received a call from Jimmy Blue who wanted to order a chocolate cake for his 79th birthday. On September 15th 2021, a man in a bright blue outfit with a big smile and cheery voice walks in.

We spoke for a while and immediately formed a bond. Then he shows me photos and even danced for me. His energy, humor and friendliness was contagious. Others in the store including Mila, noticed his positive energy and love for life. Afterwards, I called a friend to tell her of my fun experience with Dr. Ansfield aka Jimmy Blue. Immediately, my nurse friend knew who he was and only had positive words to say about Dr. Ansfield.

On September 15, 2022 a bright Jimmy Blue, whose favorite color is blue, comes to the bakery on his 80th birthday for another chocolate cake. Again, we talk, laugh and have a good time.

On April 10th 2023, Dr. James Ansfield also known as Jimmy Blue passed away. I was fortunate to know him and honored that he loved Mila’s chocolate cake very much. His son, Johnathon ordered a chocolate cake full of blue hearts for the shiva. Dr. Ansfield was full of love, laugher and a huge heart for so many. Cherish each other, enjoy life and stay fit like Jimmy Blue. Most importantly, celebrate birthdays and eat chocolate cake❤️❤️❤️

May his memory be a blessing and in our hearts forever.

Regards,

Anna Bakalinsky

Building an Easter Charcuterie Board

This article was written by the newsroom at Milwaukee CBS 58.

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- As families get prepared to celebrate Easter, one of the first acts of preparation is to figure out which sweets will adorn Easter baskets and dessert dishes.

Anna Kofman Bakalinsky, owner of Mila's European Bakery in Thiensville, joined us on Thursday, March 23 to discuss the bakery's unique seasonal offerings to sweeten the holiday.

Among the featured products are the eye-catching Three Colored Easter Bread, available in long or round shapes, as well as Easter Nest Raspberry Coffee Cake with rich Danish dough filled with raspberry and topped with buttercream, coconuts and jelly beans.

Mila's European Bakery will also offer themed cakes, such as the Lamb or Chick Face Cake, and Individual Easter Egg sweet treats. Easter-themed cupcakes are also available in large chocolate or yellow varieties, decorated with unique designs.

More information can be found by visiting www.milasbakery.com/easter

A Golden Birthday is celebrated in style🌟🌟

Laasya celebrated her Golden 9th Birthday on March 9th with Mila’s tres leches cake filled with raspberry. We all loved the cake. She had fun filled day with games, we did diamond art keychains as activity and at last she blasted off a piñata filled with golden birthday scratch cards. We also ordered cup cakes for her school treats and kids enjoyed them at school.

Birthdays are special, even more when they are golden!! Thank you so much for celebrating with Mila’s and making us a part of your special day.

Everybody loves Mila’s!!

My family and I highly enjoyed these marble with chocolate frosting Mila's cakes! One had buttercream filling for my 46th birthday and the other had strawberry filling for my mom's 70th birthday. The cakes hardly made it through the night they were so good! (Usually we have some left for a few days.) Great job Mila's! We'll be back for my daughter's 26th birthday this weekend :') Thank you for being fabulous. Qiana Ramsey

Thank you Qiana for your kind words. It is very special that you had a joint celebration with your mom with cakes from Mila’s. You will remember this event. It was our pleasure to brainstorm the cake order and details with you for our decorator to create perfection. Thanks for sharing the memories with us.

#sayitwithmilas

All the best,

Anna

Harry Potter

Who loves Harry Potter? Birthday celebrations are always a hit with a specialty cake from Mila’s.

Thanks for making me lose part of the special day❤️❤️

Capture the moment with videos

As many of you know, I love photos. At times, I’m guilty of taking snapshots of everything and maxing out storage space. My kids get annoyed of all the photos of them so now my photos are mainly of bakery and my dog, Blossom.

For me, taking a photo, captures the moment that will never come back. Some people just want to enjoy the moment, while I want to enjoy the moment and also capture it with a photo.

These photos are then turned into a video and enhanced with music for entertainment. Mila’s decided to create a video page where all of our videos are together. www.milasbakery.com/videos

Mila’s European Bakery also has a YouTube Channel with other videos. Feel free to find us on YouTube..

The videos show wonderful moments in the life of Mila’s!! Life is sweet with Mila’s so eat some cake. www.milasbakery.com/videos or click on videos under the menu tab when using your phone.

#sayitwithmilas

Enjoy,

Anna

COOKIES TURNED INTO AN ART PROJECT

Homestead's National Art Honor Society Chapter gathers monthly to explore art service opportunities, special art making activities and organize our annual Gallery Night. At our holiday party today, members received a white glazed almond cookie and played with liquid watercolors to customize how THEY celebrate the holidays. They had a lot of fun! Thank you for the cookies!

Kat Hustedde

Sweet Treats for Valentine’s Day

We all say Happy Valentine’s Day, but do we know it’s all about? Many say it is a Hallmark occasion to give out cards and candy. What do think? Valentine’s Day is really a Western Christian feast day to honor Saint Valentine. This is day for love and affection.

With Valentine’s Day on February 14th, Mila’s has been busy creating desserts to please everyone. Check out all the selections for the perfect Valentine’s Day. I decided to gather all of Mila’s Valentine’s options so that you can see them in one spot, instead of individual social media posts.

Who loves chocolate?? Yes!! Who thought of chocolate on a stick? It is a great concept for chocolate perfection on a stick. This is a great gift for friends, kids, neighbors and teachers. Most importantly, treat yourself to this dessert. Why not? Why yes!!!! These chocolate cake pops are available while supplies last. My kids love them although there isn’t a photo to prove it.

Another option is a Cream Cheese Almond Cookie kit which includes 12 cookies, 4 pastry bags and yummy toppings. This is a fun and creative way to engage kids and adults. This is also a way to get some kids off of electronic. Pre-orders are necessary. Sometimes, we have a few extra kits in the store.

Let’s have some fun, get creative and learn to decorate cupcakes and cookies. The best part of the event is that you go home with a masterpiece of what you decorated to share with loved ones or just yourself. Come learn a few decorating skills that you can always do later on your own. Sign up is required by calling 262-242-1404 ext 1. Sign up with friends and kids so that we have fun together. Cost is $35 per person.

If you like, just enjoy a hand decorated cookie. We have them available-while supplies last. Say it with Mila’s!!

Our final creation is a selection of Valentine’s Day Trays. There are many ways to express your feelings on this day, depending on your stage of life. We offer 3 selections for your perfect way to #sayitwithmilas.

Thank you for your business! We appreciate it! We love our customers.

Let’s party like it’s 1988

The wedding season is in full bloom with brides searching for the perfect everything!!! The “I DO” is the easy part, but planning the venue, picking out decoration, deciding on the music and other details can be stressful. I just stressed myself out describing the details and had flashbacks in my head of my wedding 22 years ago.

Instead, let’s take a walk back to memory lane in 1988 when Lori and her mom came to Mila’s to inquire about a wedding cake.

“I could smell the wonderful bakery aroma as soon as we entered. Mila told us about all of the different types of cakes and flavors and we came up with this tiered cake design and size to accommodate size of wedding. I showed her the cake topper (🙄very 80s I guess) that would be used.

Growing up in Mequon and being very familiar with the Thiensville area. We knew that was the bakery was the place to go to. It may also be because my parents were also immigrants from West Germany in the 50s. Having a taste of a European bakery would be the best. My Tante Hilde , and Onkel Helmut came from Germany for the wedding as well .” Lori reminisced.

Thanks Lori for sharing these photos and kind words. It is so heartwarming to hear customers share memories when Mila and Mark ran the business. Their love and kindness is still remembered after all these years. #sayitwithmilas is a perfect 2023 hashtag. I don’t think hashtags existed in 1988, but say it with Mila’s still continues!!!

Today in 2023, brides are having tiered cakes with sheet cakes to be cut for the guests. Times are changing and Mila’s European Bakery is here for your wedding needs. Mila’s wants the day to be perfect! We can’t control all the other details except the perfect sweet table, cookies and wedding cake. You can count on us!!!

Cheers,

Anna Bakalinsky

Cheers to many many years!

Wedding wedding wedding!! The wedding season is upon us and all the brides are out there searching for the perfect everything! #sayitwithmilas

When brides call to inquire about a wedding cake, I help them with all of their questions and let them know their cake from Mila’s will be the best!! They can worry about everything else involved with the wedding, but rest assured, we will take care of their beautiful wedding cake.

“We enjoyed working with Anna at Mila's European Bakery for our wedding dessert. We ordered a small tiered cake that turned out beautifully and a couple sheet cakes to serve the majority of our guests. Anna was a pleasure to work with - she told us, "Planning a wedding is a lot of work, but you do not have to worry about the cake!" Mila's went above and beyond to ensure our cakes were beautiful and tasty. They loaned us a cake stand and offered to bake the large sheet cakes in separate layers so we could have both a chocolate layer and a yellow cake layer. The result was delicious! Not too sweet, not too buttery, with just a hint of chocolate paired with a refreshing raspberry cream filling - I'm not sad to have a few pieces leftover. Mila's also made cookies for our wedding favors, which were gone so fast that I didn't even get a chance to look at them! All of this for a stunningly low price, a mere fraction of what you might pay elsewhere. We really felt like we got the friends-and-family treatment at Mila's. . It has been a joy to work with you as we prepared for our wedding and we will be back for more cake and other goodies whenever an opportunity presents itself!” Sincerely, Laura

Thank you Laura for your kind words!! Weddings are always magical and memorable so we appreciate your trust in us.

See you for more cakes and more memories!!

❤️❤️ Anna

New Year's Resolution-Cardio2Core

This week’s blog highlights Corley Davis who had a dream to start a fitness gym and did with lots of sweat and tears. What started as thought on paper turned into a reality for Corley. Congratulations girl!!! Way to go!! Thanks for making Mila’s part of your special grand opening with logo cookies. #sayitwithmilas

Cardio2Core is group session-based workouts located in the North Shore Dance Studio in Mequon. 2 different styles of classes are available. The first, a high-intensity cardio and strength-based option. The second, a sweaty, vibey, strength-based yoga/pilates offering.  

It is her goal that everyone leaves the workouts feeling better and stronger than when they walked in! The style and effectiveness of the workouts along with the community of participants is unmatched in our area! Offered Monday, Wednesday and Fridays at 9:15am, participants can be sure they are signing up for the Best Workout Ever!

Corley comes to the bakery with her kids to say hi and to get a Mila's cookie!. Conveniently located in Thiensville, it is a quick and easy stop for the perfect sweet tooth craving!

It has been a labor of love to get to this point, and Mila’s was an easy choice to help make the Grand Opening a success! I knew I wanted to feature my logo in a special and unique way, and Mila’s had exactly what I was looking for! Their custom cookies were not only the coolest element of “swag” and perfectly done, but also delicious! They were a big hit amongst all participants and a great way to kick off Cardio2Core! www.cardio2core.com

Winter Cookie Kit

Today, we want to show off Mila’s Winter Cookie Kit. We don’t’ need to write much in this blog as the pictures say it all. #sayitwithmilas

A few words come into mind—- creativity, concentration, cuteness, overload, skillfulness, quiet time for mom, hopefully not a messy kitchen, fun, fun fun fun and delicious!!

I can look at these photos over and over again with a huge smile.. These pictures really capture the essence of the winter cookie kit. FUN❤️❤️❤️❤️

Blog Highlights of 2022

One year ago, Mila’s made a New Year’s Resolution to start a weekly blog highlighting customers, events and milestone. We probably thought about writing a blog for the last 2 years, but were hesitant for various reasons.

Thoughts raced through my mind. Who is going to read this blog? What do I write about? What if I misspell a word? Am I good enough to write something interesting to share? Why should I write a blog?

On January 1, 2022, Mila’s introduced a weekly blog which has been interesting. With all the social media including blogging, people enjoy reading, and seeing what’s going on with others. Our first blog was about a 90 year-old man celebrating his birthday. The blog captured a moment which became a memory. Relatives in other states were able to read and enjoy the blog.

2022 has flown by with Mila’s weekly blogs. My goal is to continue the blog and perhaps introduce 2 per week. Also, Mila’s will offer at least 1 themed decorating workshop per month. Check out the website for more details. What’s your New Year’s Resolution or hesitation to overcome?

Mila’s can’t select a favorite blog because they are so special and meaningful, but we can showcase some from the past year!

Happy New Year from Mila’s and wishing you all the best in 2023.

You can always #sayitwithmilas.

Anna

Customer Appreciation for Pam Raskin

Today, we want to highlight a wonderful customer who has shown support, constant devotion and love for Mila’s European Bakery—-Pam Raskin is our featured fan who loves to participate in our new workshops, frequents Mila’s, and is part of the community. We are very thankful to Pam for being a true fan of Mila’s. Thank you!!

I want to thank Mila’s for the delicious cookies and the beautiful job of putting the pic of the accordion on each cookie! Here is a pic of the gentleman who so graciously donated the money from the sale of the accordion to the Milwaukee Accordion Club. Everyone, especially Ron Toro enjoyed their cookies. RARE Mid 1930's Hohner Organetta IV.

It’s wonderful to have such strong support from loyal customers. We are in existence because of people like Pam, and many others, who shop local. In fact know many customers by their first name and they know us very well. It’s like a moment from the old sitcom. Cheers. Where everybody knows your name:)

We love our customers ❤️ Thanks Pam

Love,

Anna

Little Mermaid production by USM

Little Mermaid - University School of Milwaukee middle school students did a fabulous production…they were the talk of the town!
Not a detail was missed…the singing…dancing…acting….and the costumes stole the show!
During intermission…those who were lucky enough and purchased a Mila’s custom made cookie ….a sassy red crab…a darling yellow fish…and a sweet mermaids tail….were truly not disappointed with their cookie decision during intermission!! A big thank you to Mila’s team for such wonderful treats!

We had such a fun time brainstorming to find the perfect cookie cutter to represent the wonderful musical and we did it!!! Thanks for considering Mila’s for this wonderful occasion and bake sale during intermission😍😍 #sayitwithmilas!!

Thanks again for the support😍😍

Anna

Santa Claus is coming to town😍😍😍

Alexis and Vadim Ruzell of Alliance Realty Group together with Matthew Richmond and Courtney Krogstad of Richmond Investment Services had hosted Santa’s visit benefiting Jonathan Clark’s house - Mequon local historic museum. Santa’s visit had private time exclusive to the businesses’ clients as well as open to the public time. Everyone appreciated a yummy giveaway at the end of the visit - beautifully decorated Mila’s cookies with holiday theme and businesses logos. More cookies to come at the next years visit! Ho Ho Ho!

Thank you very much for making Mila’s part of this celebration for the kids. What a great memory!! #sayitwithmilas😍😍😍

Thanks again

Anna😍😍

First holiday workshop was a huge success on November 20th❤️❤️

Today, we want to highlight our first holiday workshop which was extremely fun with a great turnout!

Mila’s wanted to add some decorating this holiday season so that’s why we came up with this wonderful turkey shaped cake idea. A simple cake concept created so much interest, excitement and good times.

It was ahuge success. The gathering ranged from kids to adults which added energy to the class!! It was so wonderful to see such smiley faces and talented artist who created their own nailed it turkey shaped cake.

There are tons of possibilities in future workshops from ladies evening to mom/son gathering to mom/daughter events to private parties, etc. We welcome all suggestions. Please email info@milasbakery.com with comments.

Thank you so much for attending this workshop and sharing our Facebook posts about the workshops.

Check out www.milasbakery.com/workshops for all the December fun!!

Gobble Gobble,

Anna