The wedding cake was delivered today, assembled on site, and probably long gone by now. Even though Mark has done a handful of simple wedding cakes during his time as pastry chef, this was the first one we did together. Can’t say it was free of minor disagreements and bickering, but I suppose that goes with the territory when you’re in business with your spouse. I think we’re pretty happy with the way it came together, though of course you always want the buttercream to be smoother and the bead borders to be more perfect, but all in all, the cake looked like, well, a wedding cake. We just hoped it survived the trip from restaurant refrigerator, up a steep flight of stairs to the outdoor patio without any incident. I swear you could put a dent in the buttercream if you just looked at it wrong! I now know why so many wedding cakes are covered in rolled fondant - it’s certainly smoother and sturdier, but fondant just doesn’t taste very good and we’re all about the taste.

I’m still convinced that I’ll be able to rock the icing flowers when I get around to practicing a few, but there’s nothing more festive than fresh flowers on a wedding cake. We used spikes filled with water inserted into the cake which made the dome flower topper fairy easy to compose. In addition to the cake flowers, I put together a half dozen smaller bouquets (posies, if you will) to place around the base of the cake (which I really hope the waitstaff did! They seemed a bit clueless as to what to do with the cake). Can you tell that I also want to be a floral designer? Mark and I joked that we could be a one-stop wedding shop: cake, favors (we also delivered cookie favors), floral arrangements, and graphic design for invitations, favors and place cards. And since we were (are?) both musicians in a former life, might as well throw in musical entertainment. Ha! I can’t really think of anything more stressful, actually!

We have quite a few odd-looking cake scraps leftover from trimming the sides and leftover buttercream, so I’m actually enjoying some cake right now. I must say, as nervous as I was about the whole thing, I do feel like we accomplished something today.

These flowers and this cake will be a wedding cake tomorrow afternoon for a reception in Williamsburg. 2 tier square lavender cake with lemon curd and vanilla lavender buttercream. Various white flowers as cake toppers and decoration.

You know, icing a cake is a lot like spackling. I wonder if construction workers would make good cake icers.

I spent the day at the Central Park Boathouse yesterday, my former workplace for those who don’t know. Hard to believe it has been over six months since I last set foot in the kitchen there. Their search for a new Pastry Chef has proven a bit harder than anticipated, so they called me in to do a bit of consulting on a new menu. Most of the items on the current menu have been there since I left last November, and over time they seem to have evolved into desserts that I no longer recognize as my own. Garnishes have been eliminated, recipes have been changed to make production easier, and so on. I know the job better than anyone else, so I was happy to help them out for one or two days a week.

My first task is to redesign the entire dessert menu. I actually managed to put together four new desserts yesterday - it’s amazing how much you can get done when you’re not worried about the day to day operations of the restaurant and can just focus on creating. I made a raspberry-almond tart, a ricotta cheesecake with tarragon roasted peaches, some roasted pineapple with lychee gelée and coconut foam, and a chocolate almond torte with dulce de leche and spicy peanuts. They all need some minor adjustments, but in general were very well received by all who tried them. Alas, the owner is on vacation, so the final and most important judgment will have to wait until then. I’m just happy that I can still find my way around a restaurant kitchen after being out so long!

One more thing has changed at the Boathouse since I left. They have started a recycling AND a composting program, which is very admirable, especially for a restaurant of that size. I have long felt that restaurants are one of the most wasteful industries, but if the Boathouse (which is not really known for being well-organized) can keep it up, they will certainly set a good example for others. Apparently most of the Boathouse’s trash was either compostable or recyclable, so now their current garbage output is a mere fraction of what is was before. Kudos!

In all the flurry of recent activity, I am very late in giving a big thanks to all those nice folks who have featured us in their blogs recently, some with interviews. Here is a very belated thank you list (and I am sorry if I am missing anyone)!

The Storque (etsy’s blog)
The Peach Tree
Baby Anne Quilts
Birdlette
Odette
Chatty Cha
Andrew Thornton
Rabbit Kinney
PS I Love this
I’m missing someone, aren’t I?

Also a big thanks to everyone who bought from our little company the last 2 months. We’re nearing almost 500 items sold on etsy and the Blue Apron has already sold out of all 36 dozen shortbread cookies we delivered in less than a week. Yay! Nice to be able to bring our cookies to our neighborhood, as oddly enough, most of our sales are out of state. We also had the pleasure of donating a large gift box to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens: Passport to Summer event, as part of a raffle and silent auction to benefit the children’s educational programs at the garden. Sooooo…yeah, we’ve been busy, and I have to admit that I am having a hard time focusing on design work, but we’ve managed to steal some nice moments of summertime lounging on the grass. This weekend we are planning on going to the beach (Claudine seems to have conquered her fear of grass, let’s see about the sand) and trying not to think about cookies for 2 days!

Sundays are feeling like the old days when Mark worked, except it’s now at the Flea and not the restaurant. So the girls and I were left to entertain each other all day. The weather was strange today - it started to rain just as we set out for the playground so we never made it outside to play even though the sun eventually came out later. Instead, we made all kinds of flowers from paper and pipe cleaners, to give to Mark when he got home.

Our watermelon shiso coolers have been selling out the last 2 weeks, which we are thrilled about since we have so many damn cups, lids and straws (I had to order by the 1000), and we sold out of our whisky sandwich cookies today. I think the trick with the Flea in this hot weather is to mix things up and serve things on the spot, so look for new things in 2 weeks when we’ll be there next. We’re taking a break next week and going to the beach.

We didn’t think we would have a busy week but we did. We sold more Father’s Day boxes than expected, almost as many as Mother’s Day (yay for dads!), plus we’re getting ready to deliver 2 shipments to local Brooklyn stores this week. You can now buy our line of cookies and marshmallows at Blue Apron in Park Slope and Provisions in Fort Greene.

I was talking to my friend Angie a while ago about how business expenses are a whole different approach to money. I think you know by now that we are very careful about our budget and I have even surprised myself with how little I have spent on anything other than essentials this year, (that’s not to say, of course, that I haven’t had the urge to shop. Quite contrary in fact…summer dresses, sandals…ah well) but we have been spending huge amounts of money for the business. Need more labels? OK, let’s charge another $700 on the credit card. More boxes for shipping? $145. Oh, we’re selling drinks now? We’ll need cups, straws and lids. Let’s make that eco-friendly please, made out of corn. $156. Why is it so easy to drop a few hundred dollars on supplies without blinking an eye, yet I’ll agonize over a shirt purchase?

Making money from stuff you make is different too than getting a paycheck from a job. Although I have to admit this notion is fading as time goes on, it’s almost like “free” money. When you’re a business owner, your time, as opposed to time on a client’s clock isn’t as precious and you tend to not calculate time into the profit equation, only materials, so it sort of seems like free money in the beginning. This isn’t really good business practice of course, so we’re in the process of trying to change our perceptions about that. Next step: keeping track of hours, as well as materials, to see how much we really are making an hour. We’re learning, we’re learning…

Yes, I am in a little disbelief that we’re halfway done with 2008. It’s a little bit of a wake-up call because when we started this whole biz thing in March, I took comfort in the fact that the end of the year seemed so far away and we had a bit of time to float this year and try to make it work. Now it seems like the end of the year is within reach and I’ve found myself pulling out the calculator for the first time in months, seeing how much longer we can last, budget wise, at the rate we’re going. I guess I’m feeling like the pressure is on, even though I’m constantly reminding myself that we’ve already accomplished so much in a short amount of time since we started selling cookies 2 months ago. But it’s hard to look at the big picture when kids are involved and there are immediate needs to be met. You can’t just wing it anymore and skip out on health insurance or live cheaply on noodle soups everyday like you did when you were younger. Yes, somewhere along the way we became responsible adults with a mortgage and insurance payments.

We may hit a bit of a slow season for cookies during the summer, but we anticipated that as our products seem so much more fitting for cooler days and hot tea and chocolate. Still, I’m expecting a really busy summer as I start on this massive and fairly high-profile, freelance project that will take up quite a bit of time and mental energy. We just worked on the production schedule yesterday and it’s so weird to have your whole Summer and Fall laid out week by week in front of you. Doesn’t seem conducive to spontaneous trips to the beach or days spent lazily picnicking on the grass, but I will try. So even though I am grateful for the busy work schedule as it’s the best thing for our family, I am a bit sad at the loss of free time that I imagined would be spent drawing, spending time with the kids outside, and practicing my icing flowers.

You know, we weren’t immediately thinking of doing a Father’s Day gift box, but a few people emailed us inquiring about one in the past few weeks, and well, Mark knows all too well how dads get the shaft on Father’s Day. When he was still in restaurants, Mother’s Day brunch was one of the craziest, if not THE craziest day that he grew to dread at work, while Father’s Day functioned just like any other Sunday. So here it is…a gift box just for dads which include two new drop cookies - the previously mentioned coconut five spice with white chocolate, and a sandwich cookie made from ground hazelnuts and chocolate chips with a whisky infused dark chocolate filling. I know what you may be thinking because it’s what we were thinking too - “it’s for dads! Let’s throw in something with alcohol in there! But not a froufy drink like amaretto, something manly…like whisky! Wheee!” Or was that just us?

Father’s Day gift boxes can be ordered up until June 10th on our etsy shop and come wrapped in patterned gray paper with “manly” baker’s twine (no grosgrain ribbon and lavender sprigs for you!).