Make tartlettes of course!  I had some leftover ground pecans and a few tablespoons of butter (not enough to really do much of anything with) so I mixed them with a bit of flour to make a shortbread pastry dough, pressed circles of dough into some mini muffin pans, baked for 15 minutes, and voila!  Mini tart shells!  I could have filled these with any fresh fruit, but decided to try Julia Child's Creme Patisserie, which turns out to be super-easy (whisk egg yolks, milk, a little sugar, a little flour and the flavoring of your choice and heat).  After piping into the shells I garnished each with a fresh raspberry and drizzled then with organic dark chocolate ganache.  Just right to share with my bookgroup tonight!  

If you've read our home page and other Blog posts, you know that Cakes was founded as a for-benefit company.  That means, as part of our business plan, we are committed to operate our business in a socially responsible manner.  We commit over 15% of our profits to organizations that fight gender violence, and we hold ourselves and our products to certain standards in terms of having a positive impact on our environment and the world we live in.  To us, that's much more than a label or a marketing hook, but a philosophy about how we want our business to function in the world. 

So far, North Carolina doesn't have regulations in place about how for-benefit companies should operate in our state, so over the past several months, Cakes has been working through the nonprofit B-Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.  We are proud to say that so far we have gone through our assessment and have scored well above the minimum requirements to qualify as a B-corp! 

So what's next?  Over the coming months, we expect to continue through the certification process, and it's our goal that by the end of 2013, to join the more than 760 other Certified B Corps from 27 countries and 60 industries.  We'll keep you posted!  Your continued support in helping us to build our business will really help us make a difference!