Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Cookie Crush Wednesday Ecrandal cookie cutters, Sweetopia and Alicia from Pintrest

OK - I'm not all about the cookies. I love other stuff, you know cake pops, macarons, brownies, peanut butter brownies. Sweets on a stick - for sure.

but at the moment I do have a bit of a thing for cookies. So I thought I would share some of the things I'm cookie crushing on.

First up is cookie cutter store Ecrandal in the US who make beautiful cookie cutters, and wait for it.....they do custom made ones too. In fact they have just done up some for me based on the mask cookies in the above picture so I wont need a template and knife to handcut those babies anymore. That equals complete cookie awesomeness in my books.

Also they do custom baby hand cookie cutters where you send in a drawing of your baby's hand and they make up a cutter.

Honestly have you heard of anything sweeter (pun totally intended). Imagine precious little hand made keepsake cookie cutters which make it so you actually CAN nibble on your sweetest little ones hands.

They are not the cheapest cutters around as you would expect but sometimes I like to splurge. If you pop over check out their bird and birdcage cutters which I adore.



Next up is one of my very first ever cookie crushes Sweetopia who for many years has been the prettiest and loveliest cookie site in the whole wide web world.

Look at this picture from Sweetopia ah-mazing! Honestly who makes cookies this cute.

They have a number of fail proof recipes and instructions on how to make beautiful royal icing cookies and I'm just going to have to say again how pretty it all is. When I grow up I totally want a website that looks like Sweetopia.

Finally I'm going to point you to someone I found on Pintrest who has the most uncanny ability to locate gorgeous cookies (and cakes). Alicia has curated a cookie Pinfest and this is one board I love to follow.

If your not sure what Pintrest is, it's a kinda online scrapbook for everything not just cookies and you get to peek into everyone else's stuff. It's kinda Pindictive (addictive not vindictive) at first as there is just so much loveliness to behold in the world.

I'm not sure how Alicia finds all these gorgeous cookies I'm just happy that she finds ones like this

 cookie by a Dozen Eggs Bake Shop

and these....

Source: flickr.com via Alicia on Pinterest
 cookie by sweetapolita

and so many more you'll have to pop over there and have look yourself.

If you have any cookie crushes yourself, don't keep them to yourself please share. I am going to post some more soon and I would love to hear what your cookie crushing on at the moment either here on the comments or at BubbleandSweet(at)hotmail(dot)com - you know the drill just replace the (at) with an @ and the (dot) with an actual dot.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Party Bunting Sugar Cookies


I'm recovering from a little bit of surgery at the moment and I'm pretty sure there will be no baking around here for about a week, also very little sitting in front of the computer or taking photo's.

So I've had a quick search through some of my photo's to see if there was anything worthwhile and found these pretty and simple bunting cookies I made back in February for a magazine photo shoot. They didn't end up using these ones, they took the flashy lollipop cookies instead, but I kinda preferred these ones with their simple shapes and white background.


After I found these I noticed my previous post with the cherry cookies were exactly the same round cookie cutter and white background with a simple design as well.

Obviously I'm all about the simple things, I like to think that's my strong point, here at Bubble and Sweet we're all for simply sweet treats.

So once again take a sugar cookie and cover in shop bought white ready roll fondant or home made marshmallow fondant. To do this you roll out fondant quite thinly and cut out the round shape with the same cookie cutter you have used to cut the cookie so they should be the same size. Brush a little water onto the cookie using a clean brush and adhere the fondant pressing it on lightly with a rolling pin.

Then cut out some small triangles and make the bunting shape. I used small ateco triangles from my fondant cutter shapes and trimmed a tiny amount of the top of each one, but you could just draw a template and cut them yourself with a sharp knife. Then adhere each of the little triangle buntings with a tiny amount of water starting from one end of the cookie and working your way across to the other end with a slight curve down to look like flags hanging from a string.

 

This design is easy to adapt to any colour theme, a light blue background with red and white bunting, or green with lilac and pink would look perfect. If you like you can even get an edible marker and write on the bunting.


Here is a link to my sugar cookie recipe or chocolate sugar cookie recipe

Here is a link to marshmallow fondant recipe

Monday, September 5, 2011

Cherry Love Cookies for the Polkadot Prints printable range


Do you love cherries like I love cherries.


If the answer is yes you must check out the gorgeous new Polkadot Prints Cherry Love printables range.
 

Yup Love It! Told you. Especially the straw tags. I Love them! They are the new must have bling for you party drinks and would also look great on cake pops as well.


I baked up some cookies and some little cherry pies to go along with the printables for a set of photo's taken by Naomi V Photography.



The cookies are so simple, just a large round sugar cookie topped with white ready rolled fondant, a couple of smaller circles of ready rolled fondant and then a hand shaped stem and leaves.


The green ones are a ruffled round cutter (I used one from my Ikea cookie cutter set) sugar cookie topped with a green round ready rolled fondant cut out. Hand shaped round balls of red fondant, hand shaped stems and leaves and then some dots of royal icing around the edges.

Cherry Love printables - totally sweet, you can check out Jordan from Polkadot prints blog post on it here.

Oh and the pie crust recipe is from my book being released in December, Sweets on a Stick, it's the sugar pie crust recipe I use to make all my pie pops with.



Baked and Delicious Magazine Review

Bitter Chocolate Pudding recipe from Baked and Delicious Issue 1

The people at Baked and Delicious sent me a copy of the 1st Issue of their magazine to have a look at the other day.

It's one of those regular magazines that makes part of a complete set when finished, this one comes out every fortnight and includes some type of silicone bakeware with each issue.

Issue 1 was only $2.99 and included a 6 pack of cupcake bakeware. I noticed at the IGA today that to just buy a similar set of bakeware on it's own was nearly $12, so I'll have to say that issue 1 is a bargin without even taking the magazine into account. Issue 2 is a special price of $7.99 and from then on the issues will be $14.99 for the magazine and the bakeware.



There is also an enticing subscriber offer valued at $75 which includes a binder, cake slicer/server, set of cake tins and Electronic Scales.These gifts are sent gradually with your first 4 subscription deliveries which will come every 2 weeks for $14.99 + $1 P&P (which is the regular price after the first couple of introductory issues). Although you can cancel your subscription at any time it's worth remembering there are about 60 issues in total at $14.99 so take that into consideration when working out if those free gifts are worth it.

Also make sure you check out the fine print, there may be extra special issues and binders as well which would be extra on top of the fortnightly amount, so you'll need to tick the applicable boxes if your not interested in those extra's.

Anyway onto the actual magazine. It's a 28 page magazine which kinda seems small in comparison to lots of other magazines out these days, but it didn't have any advertising so I guess that's a plus. Also there are lots of colour pictures which I always love. In all the index shows a total of 8 recipes plus a step by step technique to making choux pastry and information on using silicone bakeware. Most of the recipes had a variation to try and a couple had step by step photographs.

The recipes were a mix of savory and sweet with a definite leaning towards sweet in this issue and included cupcakes, macarons, chocolate puddings. You can actually check it out yourself on their website, the first issue is available to view online.

I decided to try out the bitter chocolate pudding, it took under an hour from start to finish for me to make these, and that included reading the recipe, getting out all the ingredients, baking and plating up. I cooked mine for a couple of minutes too long, so it didn't have a really melty oozy middle, but it was still very delicious and soooo easy to make. Only 5 ingredients and hand mixed in a bowl......oh and it used up a couple of egg yolks which is always a super plus for me.



I was also impressed with how easily it turned out of the ramkin as I was expecting it to stick. In all honesty I would make this recipe again due to it's ease and how great it tasted.

OK so to round up, I guess $14.99 is pretty expensive for just the magazine with a few recipes but this magazine is aiming to build your baking skills and bakeware at the same time and includes an item of silicone bakeware with each issue. Issue 2 has a silicone brush and spatula set and issue 3 a silicone loaf mould.

As I mentioned you can pop over to their site and check out the magazine yourself to determine if you think this magazine would be worth the investment.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Wedding Cake Sugar cookies and a Handmade Wedding DIY shoot with Luminoso Blu and Naomi V


A little while ago, I made some treats for Luminoso Blu for a 'Handmade' Wedding shoot for the Queensland Brides magazine to accompany an article Renee from Luminoso Blu wrote.


I provided some simple swirl cupcakes, upside down cake pops decorated with a white fondant sugar heart, rustic stacked trio of cookies and large wedding cake shaped cookies decorated with red hearts.


All photo's by Naomi V Photography.

Tissue paper bouquet: Ah-Tissue

The cookies are a great idea for a DIY bride as they can easily be made a week and a half before, placed in cello bags with ribbon and card or boxed and stored in large airtight containers. Just make sure everything is super clean when you are making them and that you give them a chance to set/dry before you bag them.


To make the large wedding cake cookies I simply made a batch of sugar cookie dough (click here for a link to my sugar cookie recipe). Cut out the cookies with a large cake shaped cookie cutter, baked and allowed to cool. Then I rolled out the ready roll fondant on a cornflower/ cornstarch dusted workbench (I use Bakels ready to roll fondant it's available online at specialty cake stores try Cakes Around Town or Baking Pleasures) and using the large cake shaped cookie cutter I cut out fondant and adhered it to the already baked and cooled cookie using a small amount of clean water and a brush you only use for food purposes.

Then I used a small amount of fondant coloured red with gel food colour (knead the colour into the fondant very well, try and do the night before for best results) rolled it out thinly and cut out hearts with 2 different sized heart cutters. I carefully pinched the ends and pulled them to the side to give the heart a bit of a funky look. I adhered the hearts to the white fondant covered cookies with a tiny amount of water and allowed them to set uncovered.


Like I said perfect DIY and you can easily change the colours to match your own special event.

Invitations and table place cards: Kijaro Invitations

Here is a list of the lovely contributors


DIY crafting and styling: Luminoso Blu Events
Photography: Naomi V Photography
Invitations and table place cards: Kijaro Invitations
Cake: Miss Jane's Cakes
Cookies, cake pops and cupcakes: Bubble and Sweet
Tissue paper bouquet: Ah-Tissue
Milk Glass: Hummingbird Vintage Hire
Flowers: A Sculpted Leaf 

 
This is just a quick shot I took myself before the shoot to show the stacked cookies up close

and a quick link to my book of kid friendly cooking and decorating available for pre order for December release.

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.




Monday, August 22, 2011

Blue and Red Bird Macarons for MacAttack #22


 I've been missing from the Mac Tweets monthly challenge for a while and I've been missing it. This months challenge #22 was to Kick it Up and create a macaron with alcohol.  So before you get all excited, I didn't do that, but I did stick with the theme and I made some Blue Bird Cocktail inspired macarons. I must admit it was more of finding a cocktail to fit my macarons, as I have had this idea for a while, but once I saw the picture on google images of this pretty cocktail I knew I had found the inspiration.

 


My macarons are my normal recipe coloured red and light blue with Wilton Gels and then decorated with a fondant bird made using a PME robin cutter. The filling is whoopie pie (marshmallow fluff, icing sugar and crisco). This filling looked pretty but not really the best I think for a macaron as the filling is a touch to sweet. I really used it as I had it left over. I normally make up a mix of ganache and Italian Meringue Buttercream which looks just as light and pretty and tastes dreamy and if you wanted to add a dash of liquor it would be a perfect match.



Thanks to everyone over at MacTweets I love looking at all the creations and look forward to seeing all the fun macarons you will come up with this month.



Oh and have you heard......I have a cookbook coming out in December, it's only $12AUD including postage from book depository (also available from Amazon See the tab at the top of the blog for the link to my book). It's a US release by Adams Media and is called Sweets on A Stick and is pretty much what the title states but it's all kid friendly recipes you can make with your little ones. How fun is that!

Here is a link to The Book Depository: