Tunes for Foot Tapping: Be My Honeypie

How I love The Weepies! 

Sweet Deal: $5 Taste of Home Cookbooks plus $1 shipping! 54 books to choose from

Spring cleaning isn't just for your house - bust out of your recipe lull and clear the way for some new Taste of Home cookbooks... for just $5! Right now there are more than 54 different books to choose from. 

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And for an even sweeter deal, enter code 2046P for $1 shipping!

Happy Spring :) 

(even though it's snowing in Wyoming)

Baking Bonus: Icing Fruits, Flavors, and Batter Babies!

Oh, how I dream of living near a specialty bake shop! Luckily, I have friends and family that do and on occasion a little treat or two arrive on my doorstep. With Easter approaching, my mother decided to make a stop at Houston's Make-A-Cake decorating supply warehouse (baking warehouse? swoon) and send me a few fun baking additions:

Icing Fruits

Concentrated fruit with real fruit pulp to add 

flavor and fruit to icing, confections, or cakes.

I had never even heard of icing fruits - but I am

sure looking forward to some experimentation!

CK Products makes a bunch of different ones:

banana, cherry, lemon, orange, raspberry and strawberry

Go to their website!

Lorann Natural Flavor

This natural flavor is produced in a base of vegetable glycerin and/or natural grain alcohol and contain no added sugars or fats. The flavor is designed to be used in cakes, fudges, frostings, fondants, cream centers, hard candy, ice cream and a wide variety of other baking applications.

 I have seen the small bottles of this stuff at grocery stores, but now I've made it to the big time with a large bottle of strawberry flavor! If you've ever seen one of their displays, you know that there is an enormous variety, so here's just a few:

almond, banana, blueberry, cherry, cranberry, creamy caramel, maple, pomegranate, strawberry, toffee, apple, bavarian cream, black walnut, butterscotch, champagne, cheesecake, coconut, coffee, egg nog, guava, key lime, mango, marshmallow, melon, orange cream, peach, pina colada, plum, watermelon

Go to their website!

Kimber's Batter Babies

Bake one of a kind cupcakes containing two flavors (or colors). Batter Babies fit most standard size cupcake pans and cups. Buy two packages to save time and fill all 12 cups of your favorite cupcake pan with Batter Babies. Made from a foodgrade plastic, they are reusable. (Remove before baking)

I have seen these on a few of my favorite supplies sites recently but have yet to meet anyone who's used them. Looks like more experimenting is in order! Cupcakes just got a whole lot more delicious - two flavors?! I'm in. 

Go to their website! 

Butter and Sugar and Deep Breaths

It's been two weeks since I embarked on Funemployment - and I feel like I've contemplated 900 career paths since then! I'm lucky that some great part-time work came my way almost immediately and will provide me with the income and time to pursue something new... a home bakery. 


Wyoming cottage food regulations allow for home baking in limited ways, including selling at farmers markets, and I'm looking forward to a full summer of cupcakes, cookies and more starting in June. So without further ado, put your hands together and lick your lips as I introduce the Pie Bird Bake Shop!

I've found some great resources, recipes, ideas and suppliers in the last little while I hope to share them all with you as I sort things out. From where to find packaging to specialty ingredients, this is sure to be a couple of very sweet months!

Transitions

Photo by Bluespete

I quit my job yesterday.

I am

resigned

to be happy. 

The decision to end something is never easy -

the choice to be let loose in the world is terrifying

yet exhilarating.

A horoscope is a horoscope, but this was mine this weekend. It was the exact reminder I needed and the perfect summary of my mental struggle:

You can’t know what – or who – will prove to be ‘important’ further down the road. Therefore, curtail your know-it-all tendencies, Aquarius, when it comes to determining which exchanges to devote your time and attention to. As long as you’re caught in your head, attributing value to a potential interaction in advance of seeing how the moment spontaneously flows (or doesn’t), you’re still operating in a world of abstracts… a place where it’s too easy to overlook the actual people right in front of your face, offering you something you probably couldn’t have foreseen, because you’re too busy orchestrating ‘best-case scenarios’ and ‘ideal situations.’ Please let random remarks divert your focus, scramble your priorities, throw a wrench in the works. Bless the sudden shift in scheduling. There’s nowhere else to hurry off to; you’re already where you need to be. Nonchalantly explore the cast of curious characters populating these environs. Speak the strange thoughts swirling around your lips, inviting the adjacent human to respond as she or he sees fit, and see where it goes. Flexibility and responsiveness are winning strategies; forcefully struggling to ‘stay on track,’ not so much.

That is my prayer this week. Amen to nonchalant exploration.