Welcome to The Sassy Lamb's Blog!

So, I thought it was about time I bit the bullet and started a blog.

I've been wanting to for ages and have had all the same fears that I assume most beginner bloggers have (do I have anything to say? does anyone want to hear it? what if I'm boring?!) but here I am, blogging. Funny how you can worry so much about doing something and plan and procrastinate and make excuses and if you put that much energy into just doing the thing you're afraid of, you could be really great.

Anyway, for those of you that don't know the Sassy Lamb, that is me, Jaime Dobbs. I started this business after quitting my graphic design job in the travel industry. The business is basically a smorgasbord of my creative outlets, including, but not limited to my baking and knitting.

The real catalyst for finally buckling down on the blog was today's adventure at the Iron Cupcake Toronto. This month's secret ingredient was flowers and I spent a good chunk of time researching edible flowers and their many tastes and debating what to make. I finally settled on Lilac and Lavender. Good, decision made, now I was on the hunt for Lilacs, especially after my good friend Coriander Girl told me lilac is super expensive. So I got out my snippers and prowled the neighbourhood, I even went as far as jumping of the street car mid-trip when I saw Trinity Bellwoods was overflowing with gorgeous lilacs in both dark and light shades. Point is, I stole a lot of lilac. I whipped up a test batch and after many soy milk infusions of lavender and lilac, I was happy with the flavour. I took that test batch to a friend's party and the reviews were great.



Here comes the "fun" part. I may or many not have had a few too many drinks at said party. I probably should've gone home much earlier and avoided finishing that french rabbit that I love so much. But alas, I did not. I woke up Saturday morning, downed tylenol, had a very late breakfast with friends and set to baking. I had just purchased the cutest new apron, so I was dancing around the kitchen to dirty dancing, measuring, whisking, preheating the oven.

Now here comes the dumb part. I regularly store my frying pan in the oven. When I am not hungover, I remember to take the pan out of the oven before preheating, but alas, I did not. Not to worry, I slipped on my cute pink oven mitts and set the pan on top of the stove to cool and continued pouring, mixing, etc Not sure what my intention was, but I needed to move the frying pan and my wine-soaked little brain had a momentary lapse. I grabbed a hold of that searing pan with my bare hand. I'm not sure if it happened in slow motion or if even my nerves were drunk and taking a long time to deliver pain messages to my brain but I feel like I held on to that sucker for way too long. The result was and is a nasty burn on my right palm.

Now here comes the pathetic part. I am now mixing batter, separating eggs whites, filling cupcakes liners and removing things from the oven with my left hand. My right hand is permanently stuck to an ice pack. Things are going slow but they are going. I'm not sure what happened next, I know i needed a new bowl, i know I was careful, but next thing I knew my giant salad bowl is smashed in a trillion pieces on my kitchen floor. You'd think this would be sad, and I almost did cry (not for the bowl, i hated that bowl anyway), but for a moment I almost thought, this is like a movie, it's funny. Don't cry. And look on the bright side, thank god you're wearing shoes! So I take a step towards the closet for the broom and pain shoots through my foot. Amazing, a piece of smashed bowl has landed somehow, between my toes. I hobbled upstairs in hyperventilating tears, rinsed out my toe and stuffed it with toilet paper, hobbled back downstairs and proceeded to sweep with my left hand (note to left hand: you suck, stop relying so much on ole righty, start pulling your weight!) Sweeping took forever!

Not bad for all left handed eh?

And here comes the tasty part. I headed to bed soon after all these shenanigans and woke feeling much better. Gathered up everything I needed and headed down to Liberty Village. I was almost in the clear but managed to stall Ross' truck in an intersection. Luckily Susie's window was down and she was able to simply tell the motorbike dude flying toward us to "please not hit us, we've just stalled". Don't want to imagine what "women driver" thoughts must've been going through his head. But we made it, set up, tasted many yummy cuppies but did not win. But I say this story is worth more then any prize being awarded.

Wow, long story. Here is a picture of me with my lady cakes for your viewing pleasure...that's right, it was also nude iron cupcake apparently...



And here's one of my seester tasting a cuppie...



Thanks for reading! More adventures coming soon...

Jaime (The Sassy Lamb)