Spring has Sprung!

Sorry I went dark for a couple days. Don't worry, conversations still revolved around all things cupcake but I was spending my free time outside, rather than in, blogging.

That being said, I just want to scream this from the rooftops: IT'S SO GORGEOUS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This weather is making me so happy after three months of snow and darkness. And it gets me all the more excited for our plans for the Skinnie Minnie Bakeshop.

Let me explain our name choice a bit further. It's not just because Nicole IS a "skinnie minnie," and I ASPIRE to be a "skinnie minnie." We want all our offerings to be much healthier than the traditional baked goods so all of us who love cuppies so much can be able to eat them more freely, without (too much) guilt. Because nothing is sadder than an existence not surrounded by artfully frosted little cakes.

Now how exactly we're going to achieve that is the question. That's what we'll focus on today when we meet for our first serious business meeting, which will probably take place sitting on my sister's bed in the room we grew up in. Very VERY serious...

We've got some ideas and we've been compiling a few secret weapons. One element that we definitely want to try to implement in our baking will be the farm-to-table philosophy. So the best way to truly understand that is to start at home, right?

It was Thursday, I believe, when I got lost in my (our!) favorite store Anthropologie. I by-passed the surprising number of cupcake cook and recipe books they had for sale, including the one from Babycakes (which was also a stop on last year's CuppieTour. See a pic on the right of Nicole outside of the NYC shop, about to dive in.) Instead, I picked up a copy of Grow Great Grub, Organic Food from Small Spaces, by gardening extraordinaire Gayla Trail.

The title jumped out at me because I certainly fit that description. The attic apartment I share with my boyfriend and cat is definitely a "small space." So if she can teach me how to get around that and understand the difference in flavor and texture you achieve from ingredients that are in season and come straight from the ground to the plate, then I'll definitely be indebted to this farm-to-table movement.

Well at first flip through, I love this book! She offers very simple how-tos on growing your own herbs, veggies, fruits and more, no matter how much or how little space you have access to or what your budget is. She even offers some pretty mouth-watering recipes and there is actually a page (27) on how to start your own seed beds with just toilet paper tube rolls! Now I just need to get to a Whole Foods soon to pick up some seeds. I want to get started with fruits (Chapter 8).

And oddly enough, the very next day I was greeted with some great news. There is actually a few yards of gardening space on the side of our house, but it was always occupied by the tenants in the 1st floor apartment--who confirmed they've purchased a house of their own and are moving out next month! I'm going to jump on that and ask the landlord if I can take it over once they're gone.

Alright, I'm going to sign off to get ready and get to our meeting!

Eat our crumbs!
~AnnMarie

A Babycakes cuppie...mmmmmmmm.........

A Day to Remember

I just want to mark today in my brain. So I can look back and say "I remember it like it was yesterday..."

It was this morning in the shower that I decided (well at this point, technically yesterday morning). The morning of St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2010 was when I decided it was time for us to stop talking and start doing.

For the past few years my sister Nicole has been talking about opening a bakery and calling it the Skinnie Minnie Bake Shop. Because that's what she is...a skinnie minnie. That's us at Sweet Revenge at 62 Carmine St., NYC, on last year's CuppieTour (I'll explain in future posts so stay tuned). That's me on the left, her on the right.

She's a teeny 5-ft.-nothin', 100 and nothin' pound beauty. And I'm...well...not. But that's OK, there's always gotta be some brawn to the brains, right? And over the years, she's added to said "brawn" by slowly bringing me on board with her love for baked goods. ESPECIALLY cupcakes! And eventually her dream of opening a bakery, turned into our dream.

"I can tell you think I'm not serious," I texted her after getting out of the shower and telling her of my revelation. "I mean it."

"I believe u! I was serious about it in the first place," she wrote back.

Well, let's see her put her money where her mouth is. First business meeting is scheduled for Saturday where we're going to get serious about getting serious. I'll let you know what our brainstorming session yields.

But in conclusion, this blog will chronicle our journey down the road to sweetness--what we hope to be a wildly successful bakery that makes people just as happy as those little cups of frosted goodness make us!

Eat our crumbs! (we say that with all the love in the world )

~AnnMarie