Another year, another Valentine’s Day celebration for lots of people to enjoy. Being a home baker allows you to embrace the Valentine theme in your baking which is great and you get to start the theme so much earlier. Loads of hearts and flowers have been on the menu for the last few weeks. Although I am sure there are other treats you can send to your valentine. 🙂
This last couple of weeks I have really pushed myself as I want to make a really positive effort with my business. I have bought new pieces of equipment and new supplies and practiced a lot of skills which I want to use more with my products. After a neighbour mentioned about wedding favours and cookies I thought I would give it a go and then my ideas have just escalated from there. I bought several new cookie cutters and stensils and even my husband bought a projector for us to share ??? I set about with my first batch of cookies and decorated them with royal icing and fondant. There was food glitter, edible paints, food gels, sugarpaste flowers, fondant stamps and lots of fun whilst I practised. I found the whole experience very calming and loved every minute of it. However, timing was the issue as it took me at least two whole days to complete the task. Needless to say my family were waiting with baited breath to try the cookies.
My husband came up with a good idea though which I have yet to try and that is to use my edible ink printer and make whole icing sheets of labels to stick on to the cookies. I do like this idea as it would be much quicker for me until I master what designs, colours and techniques etc, I like and speed up a bit. I would really love to have a couple of decorated bakes ready for the wedding season ahead and to use before the summer hits. It is balancing my time which is the biggest hurdle for me as I am constantly needed by my children and trying to keep the house in order so a few more hours in the day would help. Talking of having more time, last week, i had my first day at home alone since we moved here and I made the most of it. I sat working on the blog rather than doing jobs in the house 🙂 I had the house to myself as my husband had gone into work for a meeting – first time in nearly two years for him which felt really strange.
As this is a loved up post and weddings are all about the love aren’t they I will be continuing my research into these cookie favour ideas and have something more to show you all soon. Being a home baker there is always some new technique to try and master or put your own twist on as baking is developing constantly.
As for the Valentine’s Day Bakes I had a good responce to what I was offering on my webshop so much so, that I had to close the order book early. I had a busy few days baking with Cupcakes, Chocolate Bars, Brownies and Blondies for customers some of which are for postal delivery and some for collection.
For my own valentine treat for my husband and children I baked them something a little bit special but I will share more about this bake another day 🙂 For the rest of this windy Wednesday, I am off to prep for a couple of Easter ideas before school pickup and try and finish some online work. Stay safe out there today 🙂