Dragees illegal in California

by hanna
(burlingame)

So I recently got these really cute cupcake books that had some awesome baby shower cupcake ideas in them. One of the books had these really cute cupcakes my daughter wanted for her birthday. They were pink frosted cupcakes with "microphones" on top of them. The microphones were mini ice-cream cones, with a doughnut hole on top, covered with silver dragees. So the doughnut hole covered with dragees looks like the top of a microphone.

So! It was the day before her birthday, and I headed to the local craft store (Michaels) which I knew carried lots of baking supplies. No luck! So I went to Safeway, then Lucky's, then Whole Foods. No luck! Finally, I went to my favorite baking supply store, Sur La Table. No luck again! I asked the lady at the register and she said that they're illegal because they're inedible. She was young, used the word "like" at least 10 times in two sentences, and couldn't offer me much more information. Bummer!

So what did I do? I Google'd it from my BlackBerry of course. I learned that dragees are indeed banned in California, due to a lawsuit by a lawyer in Napa a few years ago. Hrrm. I needed more justification! I called the best cake supply store in the area, Spun Sugar, in Berkeley, CA. They confirmed that dragees are illegal in California. You can't really buy them here, and suppliers will not ship them here. The person I talked to said that they sometimes do carry dragees, but only after they fly to New York, to fly some back in their suitcases. They also said that, they always remind customers that they're not edible, but for decoration only.

Now let's just say I was able to get my hands on dragees for this project. If I were to serve my daughter's 1st grade classroom 20 cupcakes with a doughnut hole covered with dragees and told them not to eat them, how well would that really go over? Of course they would inhale half of them before I could stop it, right? So really, this project just wasn't a good idea...whether I could get a hold of the dragees or not!