Wooly Goodness

There has been lots of needle felting going on here lately. I am very fond of this little owl. It will be hard to let him go:

Easter Delivery

The Easter Bunny has just been to the shop.

More Cake

This weekend Jenny's mom was here for her birthday, which was a perfect opportunity for yet another layer cake. This one is a 4 layer lemon mascarpone cake. I used an epicurious recipe but I don't think I would make this particular cake again. The cake itself was a bit dry and spongy, and not as moist and springy as I would have liked. I made a lemon vanilla buttercream that was just lightly sweetened and balanced out the lemon curd-mascarpone filling which was very sweet and tart. I am always happy for a chance to practice royal icing flower making:

It ended up being a perfect early Spring birthday cake.

My Nest

Hello again! I'm posting twice in a week how unusual.

My house was featured on the Housemartin blog today. Pam came over last week to photograph the house. If you live in Portland, be sure to visit her amazing store, Ink and Peat on North Williams. It was so interesting and fun to see someone else's view of our home.

photo by Pam Zsori

Nesting

My birthday was last weekend. I had a small get together with some friends. This year we decided to make a nest cake. This was a labor of love, let me tell you. I think Jenny and I spent 5 hours on Sunday putting it together, then dismantling it then reconstructing it. It was all worth it. The cake is the coconut layer cake from Baking Illustrated. The cake was delicious! So coconutty! The nest was made of coconut and meringue which were baked in a bowl to achieve the nest shape. The eggs, leaves and flowers are marzipan. If you like marzipan but not the price, I recommend making it yourself. It's actually ridiculously easy and so much less expensive.



I've had nests and eggs on my mind a lot lately. We're thinking about getting some chickens. We would get bantams because they are small and cute and I love all things small and cute. The woman at the garden store showed us one of the bantam chicken eggs and we were sold. They are so adorable! I am hoping we can get the chicken set up figured out quickly so we can go get the little chicks. There is one variety of chicken I like called brahma chicken, I would like to name one Barack Obrahma. Ha ha. I kill me.

Oh, and I've just added a big batch of new sewing kits to the shop.