Flora & Frosting

After my first son was born I wanted a hobby/side job, so I created Flora and Frosting -- an in-home cottage bakery. I mostly baked for co-workers and my husband's co-workers, but also for some old friends, too! I was pretty busy and had multiple orders every month. I would make decorate sugar cookies, cake pops, cupcakes, and cakes. I had the most fun with the decorated sugar cookies. I learned a lot about decorating over the months and improved quite a bit. I never mastered the craft, but I feel confident today that if I picked up a bag of royal icing I'd still be able to make a decent decorated cookie.

I remember waking up at 5:00 in the morning, finishing and boxing up orders before heading into work. After waking up multiple times during the night taking care of a newborn. As you can imagine, it all got to be too much and after a year I quit and stopped taking orders. My priority was/is my family and this side hobby wasn't fun anymore. The sugar cookies is what killed me! They took so long to make... making the dough, cutting out the cookies, baking the cookies, making the icing and making sure it was the perfect consistency before piping it. With piping different layers you would have to wait for the first layer to dry before piping the next. Very time consuming!

I admire the bakers that make this type of sugar cookie -- they are a lot of work. I haven't even made these for my own children's birthdays. Here are some pictures of things I made over the year. I don't know if I'll ever do anything like this again, to be honest, but it was fun while it lasted!