HELLO, Khokies? Are you still there supporting my tiny store? Reply: the sound of the wind blowing through a thicket, crickets chirping, and frogs holding a pond concert after a downpour (LCF emoji).
Drama aside, nothing beats what’s blowing through the Buckingham Palace these days, thanks or no thanks to the dynamic duo of Harry and Meghan.
Yes, I’m on first-name basis with this royal couple as though they’re my next-door neighbors. No disrespect. They do want to be treated as commoners, so their wish is my command. But you’re not into royal stuff, are you?
You might be interested in royal icing instead? It’s hard, white icing made from icing sugar gently mixed into softly beaten egg whites. Lime or lemon juice is sometimes added into the icing to give it character.
While we’re into icing, let me assure you I’m not covering up anything here. It came to my attention -- wow, I make myself proud. I sound very professional using this idiom.
OK, drama aside, ICTMA while I was reading the news that cake icing has taken a new direction.
For a fifth-rate cook and store-owner like me, this is serious news. Move aside glaze or impasto type of icing, such as ganache and fondant. You have a new sister.
Welcome Shag Cakes.
It’s a baking trend, dear Martha, that was published by Yahoo Life on January 14, although after I Googled the news, I learned the Los Angeles Times got wind of it late in 2019.
Johnny Come Lately whatever, it has since become a trend; an icing twist created by Alana Jones Mann.
To quote: The icing is made with freeform piping movement involving “grass tips” and several different buttercream.
The icing resembles a bedroom shag rag, only it’s very colorful, artsy, whimsical, and edible too.
Mann has since gathered 100,000 Instagram followers, and a sprinkling of food bloggers talking about her innovation such as John Kanell of Preppy Kitchen, and Rebekah Lowin, owner of The Pioneer Woman. They wrote about the trend this year, and their blogs landed on News Break, and Yahoo, respectively.
Mann also creates shag icing-art using flower-power designs, rainbow motifs, quilt swatches, and Mondrian-like patterns (Dutch artist Piet Mondriaan is mostly known by the simpler spelling of his name as he became internationally famous).
Internationally is what’s becoming of Mann’s fame. For our royal blood friends, who have chosen to step out of the castle, into a mansion in Montecito, a millionaires’ enclave in California, fame is still theirs.
For them a mansion might seem humble enough, but for us commoners by birth, it’s a castle. The world isn’t always fair.