One Week Too Late

Yesterday I went shopping with my mom to one of my favorite home decorating stores called Home Goods. I always go putter around this store when I am visiting California, because we don't have them in the Seattle area. Sad. I always want to buy something when I go, but usually it's something that I can't fit in a suitcase- like an armchair or floor lamp or something. While I was there yesterday i was perusing through the cookbooks and found a great little baking book all about cupcakes.

I know, I know. This cupcake trend has gone so far that many of you want to scream. Too many of these stupid books have these "make this cupcake from a box mix, then add frosting and sprinkles" instructions and they are always in the "bargain books" section at Borders, and you wonder how they were ever published in the first place. Like this one (promise me you'll stay away):

The book I found was different- great actually. It's called Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse and has a lot of fantastic ideas, but what caught my eye was the section on flower cupcakes that I really wish I had a week ago. What I really wanted to do for the baby shower last weekend was dahlia cupcakes, but I didn't know how so I just made a generic kind of unidentifiable flower-like decoration. I still think they were adorable, but had I found this book before I could have been able to do exactly what I wanted. Or hydrangea, or pansies, or sunflowers, or daisies- all of which I am waiting for another baby shower to try out.

It will go up on my cookbook shelf right next to my other favorite "decorating small things" cookbook called Cookie Craft that I first found in a little book store in Pasadena. This one has some amazing step-by-step instructions for baking and decorating cookies for quite literally any holiday you could possibly think of. I'm not kidding, I think they have Secretaries' Day cookies.

The greatest thing about these books is that you don't have to be a professional pastry chef to make the things they contain. The instructions in both actually make the crafts pretty easy. PLEASE NOTE that I did not say quick. Some of this stuff takes a ridiculous amount of time to complete. Maybe one day when I'm retired and have nothing to do but make cookies for my grandkids I can do them. The rest, like the flower cupcakes, take a good half a Saturday, and I could definitely do that- and so can you!