Chloe accidentally invented something

Hi there! It's Chloe from Cookie Candles. 

I know, I got super lucky with aliteration right! I'm here to share my story with you so we can get to know each other a little better. 

I'm 37, I have two young girls and an insanely amazing husband. All of the females in my house have diagnosed combined ADHD, and we highly suspect this includes our geriatric cat too. My youngest also has autism/ ASD level 2, so no, our house is never boring. It's chaotic, hilarious, frustrating, wholesome, challenging and inspiring. We're a house of creativity, understanding and a whole lot of mess. Sorry, I mean love. 

This is an excellent precursor as to how Cookie Candles came about, because without these exact circumstances... Cookie Candles wouldn't exist! 

The question I get asked the most, by far is: "how did you come up with the idea for that?"

The short answer?

ADHD mate. Rabbit holes. Hyperfocus. An all or nothing attitude, where the coin landed on 'all'. 

The long answer?

My daughter was turning 6 and she wanted a mermaid themed birthday cake, pictured here:

I'm still very proud of it a few years later! But at that point, I was by no means a cake baker. So a Woolies cake hack it was! The cake was from the super market- this mumma didn't have no time for baking. But, I've always LOVED the decorating part! My creativity can be unleashed and channelled into an on theme cake as requested by my daughter for her special day, without the oven bit. So everyone wins!

Thank you again cake hacks, saving tired creative parents one celebration at a time. 

But I digress.

Cue the researching, designing, colour choices, mould purchasing, fondant crafting...all while planning the actual birthday party mind you. We've all been there. I was up until midnight trying to get floppy fondant mermaid tails to magically hardern for the party the following day. My kid's are so lucky I love them.

Always do your research, and always add two days to the timeline.

So I bring this absolute masterpiece (it's important to celebrate your successes) to our kid's birthday party at a play centre. The guests start to arrive, the excitement is beginning, and I'm madly toothpick-reinforcing soft and saggy Mermaid tails because I've never done this before and what the hell is tylose powder? 

It thankfully holds itself together for about 30 minutes before the guests arrive and I'm beaming with pride. My kid is full of excitement, it's a happy day. I continually repeat the narrative as I greet each guest and they ask about the cake. "No I didn't make the cake, it's a cake hack...so I constructed it...BUT! I made every single decoration on that cake, EXCEPT the birthday candle!". 

And that was the very moment.

A teensy little spark of an idea. That hit me right in the 'uh-oh centre' of my ADHD brain. This idea grew just a touch each time I repeated the cake speech. By the time I got home with the leftover cake featuring collapsed mermaid tails, and two equally collapsed, sugar-crashing, overstimulated children, I had the beginnings of a concept in mind. 

It started to consume me. I kept asking myself, 'but what if I could say I made ALL of the cake decorations... INCLUDING the birthday candle?!'

And...

Is that even possible?

What if I made it edible?

I wonder if this has been done before? 

Could it actually work?

Would it be safe?

What should I make it out of? 

Should I really attempt this...?

This is where Alice goes tumbling through an endless hole and a rocking chair floats by her. 

But what should go on an edible birthday cake instead of an un-edible wax candle? That's also rigid enough, can hold a wick, be made super pretty and could maybe even be packaged?

You already know where this is going. By the time I'd thrown out the last of the crumpled wrapping paper I'd already mentally created a small business and sold the t-shirt already. 

Please, you must know, at this point in time I had literally NEVER baked a successful cookie. I was always into cupcakes and buttercream and I knew my place. I had a whole lot of learning curve to conquer, but I knew I really liked sugar and that's a great starting point.

Cookies, unfortunately for me, were the perfect material. So I better learn to bake them I guess!

6 months is what it took me to get the wick functional and working perfectly. Literally science. It took me an additional 3 months to get the freaking cookies to turn out right though! I persevered, that's what we do.

I did my research and contacted a patent lawyer. Turns out, I may have actually accidentally invented something?!

Woah...wait. What? Say that again?

Another 6 months drafting up the paperwork, while fine tuning my 'accidentally invented technology' to the point it could be brought to market. And then, I went all in. All or nothing babe.

Cookie Candles was born. A never before seen, edible birthday candle, that's also an edible cake topper, and a cookie! Completely replacing the need to use any wax, no need for acrylic cake toppers that end up in the bin (or shoved guiltily into a cupboard). A never seen before, cookie with a fully functional, removable wick (patent pending!!). A sustainable, consumable, delicious sweet treet that feels to me as if it should have always been the thing we all put on a cake annually, over a disposable, barely food grade candle. We just hadn't invented it yet. 

Until now! Guys, that was me! I like...invented it!

So please join me in replacing the old way of singing 'Happy Birthday' to our loved ones. It's time to embrace the new way, the fun, exciting, creative, personalised and more sustainable way to blow out the candle on your cake. 

That was the long answer. 🩷