I have a recipe for Mexican Wedding Cakes that is very similar. It came from someone named Wendy, possibly from Gardenweb or maybe BHG's or HGTV's forums. It is a small recipe - only makes 24 balls - so doubling it to compare to your recipe, it would look like this: 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) 4 Tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups sifted flour 2 cups chopped pecans Preheat oven to 300. Cream the butter. Add sugar and vanilla. Mix in flour Stir in the nuts by hand. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 min. Form the dough into 50-cent sized balls - 0.5 oz. Bake on an ungreased, flat cookie sheet for 45 min (yes, 45). Remove from oven and immediately roll in powdered sugar. Remove to a rack and allow to cool. When cool, roll the cookies again in the powdered sugar. I have made these successfully many times. Maybe try leaving out the water in your recipe? Are you allowing a wait time after mixing the ingredients?

That's too funny, Terriks. This has become our family activity: a Sourdough Starter Race. Each one of us got a 1 qt mason jar, and I had everyone watch a video (I thought this guy would be more appealing than say, Pioneer Woman : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Ssdzk6uhI ). Then they had a choice of flours, liquids, yogurt, raisins, honey, berries juices etc. It was up to them what they did but I advised equal weight liquid and flour. We are feeding them every day after our Linner (now dubbed Dejeuner Tardif). In 10 days, we will discard all but 2T of each contestant's starter. Then we will feed them, and wait 24 hours. Whoever's grows the fastest wins and that what we'll use to bake bread. Knowing my oddly competitive bunch, I realized I had to hide the yeast packets, baking soda and baking powder lest they cheat! Still don't know what to do if they try sabotage... Elunia that is a work of art! PS I could not find organic whole wheat flour anywhere, though I did get some other flours that look great. I ended up buying whole wheat flour from a farm in PA on Etsy. Like my garden tomatoes, this process (cue the banettons and bench scraper) will yield the most expensive food we've ever had, rivalling Blue Hill

I love these sconce, but can’t find them anywhere. Any idea who makes them?

Again, there are different things called fairy cakes from different places. Real American cupcakes aren't so big. The ones sold by specialty bakeries are like four times the size of a normal cupcake. The mountains of frosting do seem to have spread from them, however. People like the pointy top, whereas flat frosting or icing used to be the norm. But then we were all appalled at what The Great British Bake-Off called ”American” pies. unrecognizable. Like the ”Australian” friands, or any number of things here called ”French”, which may have originated from a French concept, but are nothing like one might find in France. I know what real petits fours are like, but there's an old time American treat that was called petits fours, which seem to have disappeared. I think they were called that because they were small cakes and the French name made them sound fancy. Accurate name or not, they were really good! Each was about an inch cube, with a smooth hard-ish coating on top and sides of chocolate, or sometimes colors. I don't know if those were colored white chocolate or something else. I'm guessing it was a poured glaze that firmed up kind of idea. There would always be a tiny decoration in the middle, in two or three colors. Commonly, a little flower or bird, or for special occasions, something thematic like baby booties or candy canes. Inside were four layers of cake. Yes, 1/8” thick cake. In between the cake layers was usually jam, but could be cream or something else. Jam was the best. A lot of what's popular now from bakeries isn't nearly as good, like those giant cupcakes with multiple discordant flavors in the batter, a big dollop of contrasting goo in a pocket in the center, and mounds of frosting and toppings. Ugh.