A Crisis Of Tiny Proportions

My most favourite cake toys these days are not toys at all, but rather cake bling. I've gotten right into all the edible glitters, shimmer dusts, petal dusts and all things shiny and pretty and ooohhhh- would-you-LOOK-at-the-sparkle! Central to this love of all things shiny and cake is cachous (pronounced 'cashews'.) I adore these freakin' things, and usually have several pots of several colours and sizes. They are an easy, relatively inexpensive way to "zhuj" up a cake or cupcakes.

For weddings I tend to use a heck of a lot of silver ones, so I keep a pretty hearty stock. Several weeks ago I noticed I was running low so I ordered a bunch. I got back a "not in stock" slip from the supplier. I waited a week, ordered again, and again got a "not in stock" list. Hmmm. I ordered them from a second supplier, and then a third. ALL of them had no silver cachous for me. After copious complaining, one of my suppliers said that apparently the importer (of whom there is only ONE in Australia...) "forgot" to put silver cachous on his last shipment. As a result, there is an AUSTRALIA WIDE cachou shortage while we all wait for this moron to get his next shipment. There are no cachous to be had. NONE.

I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. I made half a dozen phone calls to suppliers as I watched my cachou stash grow ever smaller. I spent a lot of time yelling (nicely) at NN to, "Stop being so wasteful with the cake bling!" as she threw them onto cupcakes with gay abandon.

Desperation has start to set in, as I've got 2 weddings and about 10 other clients this weekend alone. I NEED my shiny balls, people. NEED. NN suggested I go to my local supermarket, since they often have small (hideously overpriced) cachous in the baking aisle. I tried two supermarkets and only managed to get ONE little lonely tube. FOR SEVEN DOLLARS. To put this into perspective, I usually pay about $3 for a big pot of them (like the one in the middle of the photo above.)

Lucky for me NN lives and works in a neighbourhood where these things are under appreciated, and her supermarket had plenty. AT SEVEN DOLLARS, but plenty.

I nearly had a heart attack today, over the country-wide shortage of silver balls. Who the hell knew that something so small could bring a grown woman to tears? You know your obsession is bad when you're begging your "supplier" to give you the number of his "dealer" so you can go and break his kneecaps for forgetting to put the order in.