Dear Dorie:

I was excited about being back at home and somewhat settled in and generally able to get back in the swing of TWD. My new kitchen fought back. I bought a great ice cream made by a local creamery on Sunday night and had everything all nice and planned out. My ice cream tort was going to be the best EVER!!!

My freezer is dying. By Monday afternoon, my ice cream was completely liquid. Ewww! I hate my new fridge. I've called the maintenance people... and I'm still waiting.

New Orleans (or, What I've been up to)

I headed down to New Orleans for a week to visit my dearest friend. She moved down there this year, and I hadn't been to see her in her new place. I had a month to kill in between the bar exam (boo!) and starting work (yea!), so I seized the chance.

I tried all the traditional local fare - including an oyster po boy and jambala. Yumm!

And of course we found the closest cupcakerie, The Kupcake Factory in Kenner, LA. We got quite a sampling (which was easier because they thankfully had mini's). We tried hummingbird (which looked and tasted more like those , chocolate chocolate, wedding cake, oreo, reeses, coco-nut, and red velvet. I think my favorite was the wedding cake - it tasted like a cupcake version of a perfect sugar cookie (which may have partially been because of the colored sugar on top). A close runner-up was the coco-nut. The chocolate-chocolate had a complicated taste that was good, but didn't give me the fudgy-satisfaction that I'd really hoped for. Also, they were out of their signature fat elvis cupcakes when we were there. That made me sad.

Of course, they all had too much frosting, but I think that's almost necessary in order to get a pretty cupcake.

TWD will return next month - when travelling and moving are really done.

Until then... an update on part of what has been keeping me busy.
One of my dear friends got married on Friday, and I made the cupcakes for her wedding! What an incredible honor!
It was a perfectly beautiful ceremony and reception overlooking the mountains. I can't imagine a more perfect setting, or a wedding more perfectly suited to the bride! She looked beautiful, and we all had a great time!

The cupcakes were 2 dozen lemon with raspberry filling (Dorie's Celebration Cake). Since I couldn't exactly layer them the way you would a cake, I injected the jam filling instead.;
2 dozen chocolate almond (modified Dorie Chocolate cake), with a dark chocolate buttercream icing (modified from Martha's dark chocolate buttercream); and
carrot cake with cream cheese icing (Dorie's Bill's Big Carrot Cake).

Those are little blue fondant birds to tie the cupcakes in with the small 2-tier real cake with which they were served. I ordered the custom fondant-cutter on etsy, and it was absolutely perfect!

The cupcakes turned out to be much easier than I was afraid they might be. It was actually kinda fun.

I've been a bad blogger.

I was certain that I'd hop back into blogging well as soon as the bar exam was over. No such luck. Unpacking slowed down considerably once I got down to the things of which I am less certain of placement. Now my place just looks like I've lived here forever but haven't cleaned. Boo!

But I have been productive. I sent out my first big etsy order! It was 20 pounds of cookies in the end. Here's what it looked like in dough form, taking over my fridge.

It was 150 starfish cookies - half blue and half green. They absolutely took over my house! There were some on the folding table, some on the kitchen table, and even more on the kitchen counter.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons about selling! I priced them at the bare minimum I thought I needed to break even, because I wanted to get some sales and some feedback in my new little store. I'm glad I got the order, but I definitely lost money. Because of some mix-ups in communications/timing, I ended up shipping the order priority overnight, and spending the entire price of the cookies on shipping. Yuck!

Still, I mostly just really hope she likes them! They were for a wedding, and I hope that added something good to her special day.

100 posts!!!

How cool! It's surprising - I still feel like I just started this blog. I'm certainly not the pro that so many of the bloggers I'm addicted to are.


And yes, I'm back. I'll be travelling a lot this month, since it's my last month of freedom before starting work (like a grown-up), and I'm still unpacking and getting settled in my new place. So, I may not be as diligent as I'd like, but the bar is over, and I should be able to stay at least mildly on top of things.




For sitting through my update, a contest!

Comment to enter. Winner gets 1 dozen chocolate sandwich cookies (you can choose to have them filled with vanilla, chocolate, or mint cream). Winner will be chosen at random and announced at the end of the month.