» Price gouging impacts confectionery hobby
I’m having a hard time believing the price of dragees — those little silver or gold sugar balls you can stick on cookies. A jar, 2.2oz is $12.95 yet 2.2lb is $34.95. Um, huh? Grr. I can picture 2 pounds of dragees spilling onto the kitchen floor.
The only place I haven’t tried is the Culinary store. I don’t think I can trust myself to check out the CIA’s store, at least not alone. And now I can’t remember what I needed them for. Rivets on wheels were one thing, but that’s this summer. Something for Easter? Who knows.
Next cake: Dad’s birthday. Carrot cake, white frosting, 70 shamrocks (not sure of what — marshmallow? cookies? not sure.). His 70th birthday is on St. Patrick’s day. I’ve narrowed down the cake part to two recipes. Looks like work will get subjected to cupcakes again as I decide.
My mother tried to tell me my father wasn’t even Irish. Big debate on the proportions of my ancestry. We got it straightened out. Not that the Irish thing mattered (OK, maybe a little) but it would have just been one more thing I found out after so many years that was completely off the mark. And frankly, my father putting up with the shamrocks on his birthday/St. Patty’s day for all these years and not saying a word would be really out of character.
Anyway, I don’t even like cake. Never understood my obsession with making these things. My theory is I used to love decorating cookies with piping. Worked with a caterer for a bit around the time a doctor told me I should never take up tennis or anything requiring grip — like piping. So I gave it up. A few years ago I started working with fondant, which is more like clay, and is much easier on my cranky hands.
I could tell I was in the land of obsession when, after not finding a 1″ shamrock cookie-cutter, I looked up instructions to make my own. That, and I actually had all the materials to make one — like a sheet of copper, etc….
Ha! I just remembered — I needed gold dragees for a little pot of gold. Might drop it.