Showing posts sorted by relevance for query mermaid cookie. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query mermaid cookie. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, October 10, 2011

Mermaid Cookie Tutorial


Phew - I just could not get myself motivated to do up this tutorial for the Mermaid Cookie Pops I made for Lilli's 7th Birthday party.

I've had a busy couple of months so this is just going to be a short and to the point post on how I made up the cookies.

I have had a stack of enquiries about where I got the mermaid cookie cutter. I picked mine up from Kitchenwear Plus at Logan Queensland Australia. It's a d-line brand cutter and I also spied it here at another shop on-line.

But if you can't find the same cutter I used, just use another mermaid cutter and apply the same technique, it should all work out in the end.

and cause I'm too tired to think up anything witty or cute I'll just pop a pic of Lilli's birthday party here. If you missed the post on the party you can find it by clicking HERE.


Mermaid Cookies

Ingredients and Equipment

Mermaid Sugar Cookies - I used the sugar cookie recipe from my soon to be released Sweets on a Stick: More Than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go!
Mermaid Cookie Cutter
Ready Roll Fondant or Marshmallow Fondant (Mine was white, light aqua, slightly darker aqua, green and skin tone) Keel fondant in an airtight container or ziplock bag as it dries out quickly. Knead well before use.
Small Rolling Pin
Sharp Knife
Cake molding tools (see picture)
small flower cutter (I used a plunger cause they are easier)
small brush and water
small dry brush and pink edible dusting powder (optional)
Cornflour (corn starch) for dusting
Black edible pen


Roll out the skin tone fondant onto a cornflour dusted workbench. Cut out a mermaid shape using the cutter. Using the sharp knife carefully cut out hand shapes where the arms end on the cookie cutter (see picture).


Roll out the light aqua fondant on the cornflour dusted workbench and cut out a mermaid shape using the same cutter.


Place the skin tone fondant shaped on top of the aqua shape and using the sharp knife cut through both layers of fondant in a V shape at the waist. Cut the 'arms' from the aqua shape so you are left with just the tail. Take the top of the skintone shape and the bottom of the aqua shape and adhere to the cookie with a little water. Use the rolling pin to push the fondant out to the edges of the cookie as required. The hand shapes should sit on top of the blue mermaid tail.

Use the cake tools to make 'scale' indents into the tail and draw lines into the ends of the tail. If you do not have these tools use what ever you have handy. You could use the edge of a piping tip to make the scales and the sharpe knife would work nicely to make the indents.


Roll out the white fondant on a cornflour dusted workbench and cut out a mermaid shape using the cutter. The white fondant will be the top, use the sharpe knife to cut out a V neckline, sleeves and a V shape at the waist (see picture for example). Adhere the white top to the mermaid cookie with a little water.


Make the mermaid hair by rolling out the dark aqua fondant and cutting thin strips. Twist the strips to make the hair appear twirly, cut into different lengths and adhere to the mermaid head working down from the top around the face area (do not just stick it all on the top of the head or it will look odd). I used about 8 pieces of different lengths and made the hair. Repeat the process of making the hair with the light aqua color and then white.


Roll out the green fondant on a cornflour dusted workbench and cut out a small flower.


Press into the hair part and add a small amount of rolled fondant for the center or press in an edible silver ball.
Allow the fondant to dry a little and then using the edible pen draw on a face. I went with simple eyes and mouth, well pretty much as I am terrible at drawing and I find the simpler the better.#

Optional - Use a small dry brush to brush on a little pink dusting powder to make rosy cheeks. Just use a small amount, you can always add more if needed but you can't remove it. Use a clean brush to remove the excess dust.



#hint - I like to cut out some fondant a couple of hours before I draw the faces and try a few different types to see what will work best and it's also a good way to test out the dusting powder, you don't want to be too heavy handed.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Lilli's 7th Birthday Party Mermaid Party inspired by Driftwood, the ocean and dreamy little girls

 

I have finally put together a quick post to show you the pictures of Lilli's Mermaid Party and I must mention the party was featured over on the wonderful Kara's Party Ideas which we adore.

Lilli's party was inspired by driftwood, the ocean and dreamy little girls.



As usual I made all the sweet treats. I had seen a tiered macaron tower in a wedding book which I really liked. But I decided to add my own twist and popped on some Tim Tam pearl Truffles for the top layer. Don't worry I'll be popping a tutorial up for this soon.



The cake was inspired by the ocean and was three tiers with the cake wrapped in graduation fondant. Inside the cake was flavored with Blue Haven Jelly Crystals and Italian Meringue Buttercream once again flavored with the Blue Haven Jelly Crystals. I know it's weird.....but blue is one of the birthday girl's favorite flavours. The pretty cake stand is from Sharnel Dollar Designs.




The Mermaid Cookie pops were a huge hit of course and are a vanilla cookie decorated with fondant. Once again I will post a tutorial shortly.



We also had hand dipped oreo's topped with a fondant 'pearl' and the candy and bowls are from Sharnel Dollar designs.



I've found in the past that with a complete candy or sweet buffet there is so much left. As it was sea themed and sushi is one of the birthday girl's favorite things we had Sushi 'de la mar' and 'sea' cucumber sandwiches to balance out all the sweets.



All the amazing paper pom poms were from Ah Tissue.



The mermaid dresses and tablecloth were hand made by Karen McCubbin and had the most amazing swirly detail. The mermaid fabric on the tablecloth was so pretty and is from Spoonflower. If you love fabric you must check them out, they custom print.



Invitations, party bags, party bag tags, candles and napkins were from Paper Eskimo.


We had pass the parcel and made mermaid necklaces with 'pearls' and shells with premade holes from the local discount store which the kids took home as a memento.



Every one had blue lips from the candy, sorry to all the other parent's Xx


Lovely Suppliers

Cake, Macaron and cake pop Tower, Mermaid Cookie pops and dipped oreo's by Bubble and Sweet
Pom Poms Ah Tissue
Cake Stand, Glass Jars and Green Beanies Sharnel Dollar Designs
Invitations, Party Bag and Tags, Napkins and Candles Paper Eskimo which I bought from Details Details (they were super helpful)
Wooden Scoops for Lolly Jars Polka Dot Prints
Table cloth and Mermaid Costume by Karen McCubbin
Photographs by Terri Vandermeer
Mermaid fabric from Spoonflower



Special thanks to mum for making the cucumber sandwiches, Dad for the orchid's and the lovely people at the sushi shop at Arnedale Springwood for coming in on a Sunday to make up Lilli's favorite Sushi.




Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the cookbook ' Sweets on a Stick': More than 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go!. Published in the US the book is available at most online book stores:




Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

Sweets on a Stick: More Than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go!



Xx

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Pearly Cake Pop and Macaron Tower for the Mermaid Party tutorial


When I started to plan Lilli's mermaid party I had a vision of a macaron tower starting in white and graduating to a deep green like I ended up making the actual birthday cake. I had seen some pictures of macaron towers with the macarons placed sideways instead of flat and I loved the look. I was going to pop in some extra little embellishments to bring in the mermaid theme and had them worked out, I ordered my custom cut styrofoam from kool foam for the support structure, I was ready to go.



But then I got stuck with the cake pops, I had a couple of ideas which I was not completely loving. I could have decided to not have cake pops (eeek the horror) but then a couple of days before the party I decided to replace the white macarons with cake ball pearls.

I'm feeling pretty good about this tower, I have never actually seen one like it so it was kinda exciting for me to do.

It's a little bit trickier than the stuff I normally post mostly because it has so many steps involved, and it involves making macarons. You can always buy ready made macarons or if you like you can leave them out and have a totally popalicious cake ball tower.

Also I am not describing here how to actually cover styrofoam and cakeboards with the fondant. There are stacks of great tutorials out there and I feel my tower tutorial will be a bit huge and unwieldy if I add it.

Here is a pic of the full table, see there is the macaron tower next to the ocean wave cake. If you would like to see more of Lilli's Mermaid Party Click Here.

Pearly Cake Pop and Macaron Tower Tutorial

Ingredients
30 cake balls or cookie truffle balls covered in white chocolate dipped using toothpicks instead of lollipop sticks (see below for how to dip)
pearl luster (I used the PME spray)
20 light blue macarons (click here for macaron recipe, divide macaron batter into half and colour one section light blue and one section light green)
20 light green macarons
Ivory/Cream fondant
Light blue fondant
Light green fondant
round styrofoam 9cm (3.5') diameter by 9 cm (3.5") high
round styrofoam 12cm (4.7") diameter by 9 cm (3.5")high
rectangle styrofoam 20cm (7.9") X 25 cm (9.8") X 9cm (3.5") high
lots of toothpicks
Cake board and ribbon

#all the styrofoam was custom cut by KoolFoam, the rectangle is also the size I used to display the cookies pops on the dessert buffet.

Cover the small styrofoam with the ivory fondant and the larger round with the light blue fondant. If your not sure how to do this pop over to you tube.



Cover your cakeboard with the light green fondant and adhere the light blue fondant styrofoam round onto the cake board with some royal icing or a bit of fondant thinned with water. Click here for a tutorial from Cake journal  on how to cover a cake board.



I attached ribbon to the edge of the cake board to finish the edge. The cake stand is really just a candle stick from Ikea that I adhered securely to the bottom of the cake board.

Make the cake balls. I used white tim tam cookie truffles, and made them a little smaller than usual (14 grams or 1/2oz), when it is time to dip them in chocolate follow the normal instructions using a toothpick in place of a lollipop stick. So melt the candy coating/ white chocolate, insert the end of a toothpick into the cookie truffle/ cake  ball, repeat for all the cookie truffle/ cake balls and pop in fridge to chill. Remove from fridge, ensure the candy coating/ white chocolate is still melted and holding the end of the toothpick dip the ball into the melted candy coating/ chocolate. Place in styrofoam upright to set.



When you are ready to assemble the tower, push toothpicks into the fondant covered styrofoam rounds. To give you an idea of where to insert the toothpicks place some of the macarons against the round to resemble what they will look like when finished. It should give you an idea of where to place the toothpicks. It's ok you can move them around if needed.

Place the Green macarons on the bottom layer and then the blue macarons above them to make a second higher layer.

Carefully pull the toothpicks out of each cookie truffle/ cake ball. Using the same technique as you did for the macarons push the cookie truffle/ cake balls onto the smaller ivory covered styrofoam round. Insert the toothpick into the holes that have already been made (where you earlier removed the dipping toothpicks from).




Once all the cookie truffle/ cake balls have been placed on the styrofoam round spray all over with the PME pearl luster spray.


Allow to set for a while and then using a spatula/ egg flip carefully pick up the tower and place on top of the light blue macaron covered tower, using some royal icing or fondant thinned out with water to adhere.

Ummm...I've been trying to work out how to pop a link to my book on the side tab but I just can't work it out so sorry you are going to have to put up with my blatant self promotion in each post just a tad longer.