{Home} Shalom, New Home. There are cupcakes.

We had an open house yesterday, and about 30 people came. It was a nice time, but the job of the hostess is always a busy one, so it was difficult to actually having meaningful conversations with anyone.

Opening our house to people who have never seen it before always reveals new things I hadn't considered. We got high praise on our decor and furniture, but the best thing was probably that we could fit that many people in our house without it feeling uncomfortable . . . and without people sitting on the floor.

The other takeaway? People love cupcakes. Duh. But they particularly loved the decoration on the cupcakes. I made a few dozen cupcakes in two flavors---chocolate and yellow cake---and they were all eaten by our guests. The chocolate cupcakes had chocolate frosting piped on with a ribbed tip in straight, vertical lines, with one horizontal line at the top and bottom, to resemble a section of fence. I then placed flower-shaped candy pieces on the lower part of the fence, and piped green frosting in to create a garden effect. And viola: flowers-on-a-fence cupcakes.

I also made yellow cupcakes with vanilla frosting colored green. I used a multi-opening tip with a thick vanilla frosting (the very-easy Martha Stewart recipe worked well) to create grass on the top of each cupcake; it was important the that frosting was thick enough to stand on its own, as a thinner icing or frosting would have just turned to mush. I then used the same flower-shaped candies to create a flat flower bed on each cupcake. They're simple ideas, but create just enough interest to match my spring theme for the party. They vaguely resembled the cupcakes above, with flowers instead of ladybugs.

If only I had the foresight to take pictures of my creations.

Oh well, next time. And "next time" will be for the child's birthday party I'm planning in April. And there WILL be pictures of that event.

Signed,

Majin, MD