Farmyard themed cupcakes needed for a 2nd birthday party. I wanted to keep them simple but obviously recognisable, there’d be nothing more embarrassing than a two year old not being able to tell that that thing right there is a cow!

I saw a picture a few weeks previously where someone had done something similar, using a circular base for all the animals, so I decided to try that.

I really like how they came out, though the sheep are definitely my favourite!

When we can figure out how to make a computer screen out of cake we’ll be there, in the mean time the tabletop and keyboard are cake while the screen is a purely sculptural element.

The screen is shown operating a program called Pro Tools, I believe it’s to do with music editing. The cake was set up on a table with some speakers and headphones.

We were given several prints of trees, all in a Japanese style, to use as guidelines for this cake. The picture that really inspired us was in shades of red like a blossom tree, we ended up sponge painting onto the cake to really convey the feel of the image.

I’m not a sport person, when someone asked for a cake with the Texas Rangers logo on top I had to look them up to even see which sport they played, let alone what the logo looked like.

This is a red velvet cake with a cream cheese icing. We made the logo by cutting out lots of little pieces of fondant and arranging them all together.

A baby shower cake with the Chippendale Mupp on top.

Who is he you ask? He’s a character from The Sleep Book by Dr Seuss. It’s only been the last few years that I’ve been introduced to Dr Seuss, I don’t remember ever reading him as a child (help me out here Mum? Did we ever have his books?) so any excuse to expand my collection I leap on!

I have to credit Michael here with his fabulous idea to run the tail over down the side of the cake, I love how it looks.

A cake with a komodo dragon on it? We can do that!

This is a quarter sheet butter cake with our dairy free frosting. We made the komodo dragon out of fondant.

There is already a lot of support in the House (four joint authors, and twenty coauthors!), but more is always better. I would ask that you please do Gemma and me a favor and take two minutes of your time to make a call to your Representative and ask that they please vote yes for HB970 when it goes up the vote on Saturday. I’ll make it easy for you, you can find your Representative HERE.

Thanks for your support!

The new Texas legislature session opened in January and we’re at it again!

HB970 was filed and assigned to the public health committee and now it’s time for the public hearing.

To keep it simple – we want HB970 to pass for two main reasons.

1 – it’ll expand what we can sell. Still “non-hazadous” goods, nothing that needs to be refrigerated, but now it’ll include candies and chocolates along with a couple of other items.

2 – it’ll expand where we can sell. Not just from our home, but anywhere as long as it’s face to face. Farmers markets, street fairs. This would be huge for us and really allow us to grow and expand, bringing us one step closer to that tea shop we dream of!

Decisions are made by those who show up. If no one shows up to this public hearing except those who are against the bill (the Texas Retailers Association for one) then the committee are going to think that they are the only people who care about it. We need a good show, we need people to turn up and register their support to show that we care about this bill and we are in favour of it!

Details!

The hearing is this coming Wednesday – March 27th. 8am at the Capitol Building, room E2.012.

Enter the Capitol and take the elevators on the North side of the Rotunda down to E2 – this is the “Extension”. Then it’s just a short walk down the hall to E2.012. All witness registration is now done electronically in kiosks in the hall outside the hearing room. While it would be nice if you could stay and watch, it could potentially be a long day and we don’t know at what time this bill will be read (there are several others on the schedule for the same day).  If you can’t get there for 8am then the witness registration will stay open until the bill is read, as mentioned though, we don’t know when that will be.

We’d really appreciate your help on this!

Browsing through the King Arthur Flour catalogue I saw their rabbit cookie cutters. it got Michael and I talking and we came up with covering the rabbit cookie in chocolate so it looked like the chocolate rabbits you can buy (specifically the Lindt ones with the ribbons round their necks).

I had just had a splurge on cookie cutters and rabbits were not among them, so I filed the idea away for next year maybe. But then when I was rummaging through the cutters (I really need to organise them!) to find the St Patrick’s Day cutters down there buried in the bottom was a rabbit and a chick cutter. Probably the exact same cutters I had seen in the catalogue.

Cookies had to be made. Ideas had to be tested.

I decided to do some “standard” cookies first, using royal icing for the details.

Then I started drowning the bunnies in chocolate.. It was fun *grins*

I used a touch of royal icing to give them a bow around their necks.

What preparations are you making for Easter?

St Patrick’s Day is looming, that day when everything gets drenched in green.

Going the non-alcoholic route this year I decided to break out my cookie cutters and see what I could come up with.

We start with some shamrocks of course. Then add some leprechaun hats and pots o’ gold for you to find at the end of the rainbow.

There’s still time to get some cookies to help you celebrate on Sunday, just give us a call.