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Thank you to all who dropped an email won­der­ing where I’d gone from the blog.  Well the quick answer is my Dad passed away after bat­tling can­cer and I just needed some time to get going again.  Thanks again.  Colleen

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Just so you know I am in the process of adding a print but­ton to the blog arti­cles which will allow you to access a pdf ver­sion of the recipes and make them eas­ier for you to print off.   You will find this new print but­ton on the top right hand side ——>

I’ve had a few requests for this recently and I’m more than happy to oblige.  Thanks for your patience.. it takes a few steps to cre­ate the new doc­u­ment and add the but­ton and link etc. I appre­ci­ate all the great feed­back and will be work­ing to make the site even more user friendly as we proceed.

Cheers for now,

Colleen

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Ok, I know that bak­ing is a sci­ence but this takes the cake!!!

The Peri­odic Table of Cup­cakes is ter­rific fun. (Link opens in a new window)

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On Sat­ur­day Feb 21st, we went to the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Library Sys­tems Book Sale! It was my first time which became more evi­dent as we approached the Okla­homa State Fair Ground. There were far more cars try­ing to park than I ever antic­i­pated. Sea­soned book fair vet­er­ans toted bags, suit­cases and plas­tic garbage cans with wheels and I saw one lady with her lit­tle red wagon!! These peo­ple were serious. Upon enter­ing the pavil­ion where the books were, there were taped off rows where the early birds had been made wait until the doors opened, so you just know all the good books were already gone. Even so, I man­aged to snag­gle 22, yes TWENTY TWO great books filled with culi­nary bak­ing delights from days gone by to more recently pub­lished Pas­try, Pills­bury and Betty Crocker bak­ing books. How much did this booty cost me… $26.00 for the entire load! I guess the rea­son to share this news with you apart from my obvi­ous over-excitement is that I hope to pre­pare many treats from these trea­sures in the com­ing months and con­tinue to add to my trove of tried and true recipes.  If you don’t have a book fair any­where near you soon, I sug­gest get­ting along to the local library to bor­row and browse before you buy!  Have a great week!

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I want to send many heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions to Rosie at “All about cakes” for her 100th blog post. Be sure to stop by and wish Rosie well and enter her giant giveaway!

Visit Rosie at All About Cakes!

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“Only pas­sions, great pas­sions, can ele­vate the soul to great things.”
~Denis Diderot

Pas­sion can be defined as a strong feel­ing or emo­tion. Pas­sion makes your heart sing, your spirit soar and your life rich. My friend Debra was recently dis­cussing pas­sion and it made me want to give more thought to the word.

I have quite a few areas I think I’m pas­sion­ate about. My art­work, my daugh­ters of course, but then there is my bak­ing pas­sion. This was evi­dent way back in high school home eco­nom­ics classes in Aus­tralia. That class each week was some­thing I truly looked for­ward to. In my final year we were to dec­o­rate a Christ­mas cake we had baked. I won that year and still have the dec­o­rat­ing book which was given as first prize.

As an adult I have pur­sued my love of bak­ing and owned my own cake shop and small restau­rant.  I’ve taken many dec­o­rat­ing classes and been to culi­nary school.   Fam­ily and friends have always enjoyed my sweet treats and now I am in the process of putting together another bak­ing busi­ness. No mat­ter what else I’ve become involved in, I’ve always had a pas­sion to bake. Like many, I worry about putting enough money away for retire­ment and invest­ing, and so have sought other occu­pa­tions which I hoped might be more lucrative.

While I’ve always enjoyed a mod­icum of suc­cess at most things I’ve turned my hand to, there was quite often some­thing miss­ing. I believe it was pas­sion. Sure, we can all adjust our atti­tude enough to enjoy what we are doing at the time, but truly enjoy­ing what we do and hav­ing a rea­son to bound out of bed each day ready for what­ever that day brings is such a great feeling!

So with a healthy amount of trep­i­da­tion, I will build this cake busi­ness dur­ing 2009. Those other jobs I’ve had in the past 20 or so years since my last cake busi­ness have only pre­pared me to suc­ceed. I’ve worked in state gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, web devel­op­ment and real estate, all of which have given me a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the busi­ness side of mak­ing cakes and mar­ket­ing them.  No longer do I dread head­ing to the office, meet­ing with peo­ple I’d rather not and repeat­ing that pat­tern day in, day out.  No, I’m going to be meet­ing with BRIDES and their moth­ers!  But that my friends is a story for another day…

What­ever your pas­sion, find a way to incor­po­rate it into your life on a daily or weekly basis.  You will feel so much hap­pier. Enjoy!