Grisly Ghastly Halloween skulls

 I had so many ideas for Halloween this idea that I just did not get around to making so with 1 day to go I decided to do up a grisly batch of cake pops.

There are already a stack of skull pops around the blogiverse which are generally white with the eyes, nose and teeth drawn on with edible pen. They are pretty cute and cool, but I wanted mine to look a little bit more frightful.

You know that gritty, ghoulish just dug up dirty look so I decided to try out something new and dip the pops and then brush a different color on the top,

Did I succeed in making them look like old decaying skulls. I'm not sure whether they do look like skulls, maybe some kind of Zombie, wolfman, skull hybrid....what do you think?

Oh and this one here kinda looks like the terminator...

I said kinda :)

Whatever you think they look like, they are suitably ghastly for a Halloween display.

Here I am mixing up the bloody body parts....or maybe it's just cookie truffle pops. Either way it looks kinda gruesome.

And a bit of a hint if you can get your hands on actual Black Melts instead of having to colour your own with oil based chocolate colour I say do it. I would say mixing in powdered color to the candy melts my least fav part of the whole process.

Ghastly Skull Cake Pops

Cake pop or Cookie Truffle mix ready to shape - if it's red even better.....
lollipop sticks
Black candy melts (or dark chocolate colored black with special oil based color) mixed with copha or paramount crystals
White candy melts
Marshmallows
Black edible pen
Ready made edible eyes
clean food safe brush

Shape the mixture into little skulls by making ovals and then pressing the bottom in a little smaller and making indents for the eye cavity and mouth.

Place the cake pop mixture skulls onto a parchment lined tray and chill in the fridge until firm.

Melt the black candy melts and the paramount crystals/copha, at medium low heat in the microwave at bursts of 60 - 90 seconds. The mixture should be quite fluid so make sure you add enough copha/paramount crystals (about 1:7 ration 1 being the candy melts - it changes with brands and even colors so see what works). Dip one end of the lollipop stick into the melted black candy melts and insert into the bottom of the skull - where the neck would be and lay back down onto the parchment lined tray. When all the skulls have lollipop sticks inserted return them to the fridge to chill until set.

Once the sticks are secure in the skulls remove them from the fridge. Check that the candy melts are still fluid and if not reheat in the microwave at medium low. Dip the whole skull into the black candy melts and remove, holding the skull upside down to allow excess to drip off and then pop the skull upright into styrofoam block to set. Repeat for remaining skulls.

Melt the white candy melts in the microwave at medium low heat at short bursts. Using a food safe brush brush the white candy over the black dipped skulls starting at the nose area and working your way out. Repeat for all skulls.

Take the edible eyes and using some of the extra melted white candy stick them into the eye sockets.

Using food safe scissors (that is scissors you only use for food purposes) cut up small pieces of marshmallow to fit into the mouth cavity. Using extra white candy melt stick the marshmallow mouth into the skulls mouth cavity and then use the edible black pen to draw on teeth.

If you like you can leave the skulls without the marshmallow mouths or edible eyes and they still look kinda cool.

Have a Happy Halloween Xx

I have a few Halloween recipes in my book Sweets on a Stick which is being released in just over a month in the US. As it is a book for decorating with kids most of the ideas are a little bit more simple than this, but they are great fun, plus I have a made from scratch recipe for red velvet cake pops which are the perfect pop to make your finished treats look extra gruesome. Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

It's a Rocky Road to Chocolate Nirvana Cheesecake cupcakes

After the success of my rock your socks off rocky road cheesecake the other day I decided to go all out and make them even more decedant.

So I added more chocolate to make the actual cheesecakes chocolate. Now they have the chocolatey Oreo base, a creamy chocolate cheesecake and the super yummy chocolate rocky road surprise inside and sprinkled on top.

Remember when your cooking to use a good quality chocolate that you would be happy to eat, cause you know, your gonna be eating it. The taste of the chocolate I used really came through in the finished cheesecake.

As I mentioned the last time you can buy your Rocky Road already made up from a shop or make up your own. I have included a recipe below but if you don't like turkish delight just chop up your favorite candy bar and add it instead.

The recipe is pretty much the same as the one I posted the other day with just the extra chocolate added in - I know - but it really was THAT good that I had to share it in it's entirety. Well I thought so anyway. Plus I took some new photo's as well.

Rocky Road to Chocolate Nirvana Cheesecake

Rocky Road (keep in an airtight container up to 2 weeks)

300g (10oz) milk chocolate melted (I melt mine in the microwave at med-low heat bursts of 60-90 seconds, do not be tempted to heat higher or the chocolate may burn)
150g (5oz) marshmallow (I use pascals brand and chopped into quarters with scissors)
1/3 cup shredded coconut
2 bars Turkish Delight (55g each) or favorite chocolate bar chopped into small pieces (3.5 to 4oz)
1/3 cup nuts (optional)

Mix all ingredients together and spoon onto a tray covered with parchment paper or tin foil. Press down until a couple of cm (or 3/4inch) high and leave to set. Once set cut into small pieces.

Cheesecake - makes 14 large mini cupcakes or around 20 - 24 regular cupcakes
14 Oreo cookies (or up to 24 if making smaller cupcake size cheesecakes)
625g (21oz) cream cheese at room temperature
1 tin condensed milk
3 eggs at room temperature
200g (7oz) dark chocolate melted and cooled
14 large muffin papers (I bought these ones from woolies in the baking section they come in a brown box)

Preheat oven to 140C.

Line the muffin tins with the muffin/cupcake papers. Place one single oreo in the bottom of each paper. Put a piece of rocky road into each paper on top of the Oreo cookie.

Beat the cream cheese using a mixer at medium speed until just smooth, add the condensed milk and mix until well combined. Reduce speed to low and add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until just combined.

Add the cooled dark chocolate and continue to mix at low speed until combined.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin papers dividing mixture evenly between the papers. If you are using large ones like I did the mixture should make 12, if you only have smaller cupcake cases do not overfill the cases as the mixture will rise a little during baking, make them around 3/4 full.

Bake until the mixture is just setting in the center, around 16- 20 mins for the larger size muffin cupcake, check after 14mins if you are making smaller sized cakes.

Allow to cool in the trays for 10-15min and then pop in an airtight container in the fridge until chilled.

Serve topped with extra Rocky Road.

Keep in airtight container up to 3 days in fridge.

Oh and if you like cheesecake like I like cheesecake, I have a recipe for cheese-cake pops in my book which is due for release in just over a month. Yum!

Double Trouble Witch brew cauldron cake pops for Halloween

Double Double toil and Trouble,
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble......

I brewed up some witchy cauldron cake pops today for the kids in readiness for Halloween.

I know some of you have trouble dipping the pops and getting a smooth finish so these ones are specially for you. Its the upside down method which is really easy and the chocolate pooling makes its own little cauldron shape. How great is that!

Double Trouble Witch Brew Cauldron Cake Pops

Make up a batch of cake balls (these ones are white tim tam cookie truffles coloured with green gel food colour) there is green velvet cake pop version in my cook book coming out in just over a month.

Melt up a bag of dark chocolate chocolate melts/ candy coating (or black melts if you want). Mix in quite a bit of copha or paramount crystals - now is not the time to be delicate you need a stack - look at the picture about a ratio of 1:7 for the wilton brand to give an example (1 being the copha and 7 being the chocolate/candy melts)

I melt my chocolate in the microwave on medium low, medium is too hot and high is way too hot. If you heat your chocolate at too high a temperature it will burn and not be salvageable for dipping .Remember medium/low for short bursts of 60 to 90 seconds.

Grab a bunch of lollipop sticks. Holding one end of the stick dip the other end into the melted chocolate/candy coating and insert it into the cake ball so the stick is upright like the picture. Pop into the fridge to chill for 10 minutes or so until the sticks are secure.

Make sure the chocolate/candy coating is still melted. Holding the end of the stick dip the whole cake ball into the melted chocolate/candy coating lift it to allow a little to fall off so the edges are smooth and round and then push just the top back into the chocolate/candy coating and quickly put the pop with the stick still upright onto parchment paper lined tray.

Continue with the remaining pops and when you are finished carefully peel off the paper to leave the cauldron shaped pops.

Then using the back of a spoon or a knife, spread on a little bit more melted chocolate/candy coating onto the top/flat section of the cake pop and sprinkle wonka nerds onto the still wet chocolate/candy coating.

 I used green as it seemed witchy, but you could use purple, orange or any colour you like.

Allow to set (no cooling with baboon's blood required) and then the pop will be firm and good.....

I used this easy upside down technique to make some other super easy and cute pops in my kids cook book.  If you looking for lots of fun kid friendly recipes here is the link to my book:


Book Depository: Sweets on a Stick

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

Rock your socks off - Rocky Road and Oreo Mini Cheesecakes

I was feeling a bit peckish the other day. I had decorated cookies sitting around but just didn't feel like something that sweet.

I knew in a few days I'd be baking up batches of macarons and cake pops for the local school fete so I didn't really want to go there.

I wanted something creamy, chocolatey, with a little bit of crunch and a lot of flavor, so I created these easy cheesecakes with Oreo's as the base and Rocky Road for a bit of a flavour hit.

I made them cupcakes sized, cause it feels so wrong to make a whole cheesecake to eat yourself, but if your just having a couple of cupcakes a day that's ok.

Well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Yup this was my lunch, apparently from my research (on Facebook) that's  perfectly acceptable

You can buy your Rocky Road already made up from a shop but I've included the recipe I use cause it's pretty easy and then I can make it like I want. Remember it's rocky road not rocket science. Pretty much just mix in what you want to the chocolate, as long as you kinda stick to the same amounts it should work. I left out the nuts so the kids could eat it easily.

Apparently if your in the US chances are you don't like turkish delight (rose)- Is that for real? My editor made me take anything Turkish Delight out of my book. Anyway just replace it with any type of candy bar you like chopped up and it should taste just as delicious. Like I said not rocket science.

Rock your socks off Cheesecake

Rocky Road (keep in an airtight container up to 2 weeks)

300g (10oz) milk chocolate melted (I melt mine in the microwave at med-low heat bursts of 60-90 seconds, do not be tempted to heat higher or the chocolate may burn)
150g (5oz) marshmallow (I use pascals brand and chopped into quarters with scissors)
1/3 cup shredded coconut
2 bars Turkish Delight (55g each) or favorite chocolate bar chopped into small pieces (3.5 to 4oz)
1/3 cup nuts (optional)

Mix all ingredients together and spoon onto a tray covered with parchment paper or tin foil. Press down until a couple of cm (or 3/4inch) high and leave to set. Once set cut into small pieces.

Cheesecake - makes 12 large mini cupcakes or around 20 - 24 regular cupcakes
12 Oreo cookies (or up to 24 if making smaller cupcake size cheesecakes)
625g (21oz) cream cheese at room temperature
1 tin condensed milk
3 eggs at room temperature
12 large muffin papers (I bought these ones from woolies)

Preheat oven to 140C.

Line the muffin tins with the muffin/cupcake papers. Place one single oreo in the bottom of each paper. Put a piece of rocky road into each paper on top of the Oreo cookie.

Beat the cream cheese using a mixer at medium speed until just smooth, add the condensed milk and mix until well combined. Reduce speed to low and add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition until just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin papers dividing mixture evenly between the papers. If you are using large ones like I did the mixture should make 12, if you only have smaller cupcake cases do not overfill the cases as the mixture will rise a little during baking, make them around 3/4 full.

Bake until the mixture is just setting in the center, around 16- 20 mins for the larger size muffin cupcake, check after 14mins if you are making smaller sized cakes.

Allow to cool in the trays for 10-15min and then pop in an airtight container in the fridge until chilled.

Serve topped with extra Rocky Road.

Keep in airtight container up to 3 days in fridge.

Here is the link to my book on Amazon, I saw on the publishers site it's due to ship out from there on the 30th of November so it's like only just over a month until it's released. Yay!

Silhouette Bird Halloween Cookies Square of course

I like Halloween.

Apparently it used to be widely celebrated here in Australia before the Depression and then fell out of favor. Well that's what I read in one of the local popular magazines......if it's in a magazine it must be true right?

Um right............Anyway Halloween Love it!

and if the local shops are anything to go by it's coming back into fashion here. Is that a bad thing, I'm not sure? For me the chance for the kids to dress up, interact with the neighbours and eat sweets.......as long as it's supervised and once a year I'm totally ok with that. We don't actually indulge in the tricks if there are no treats so hopefully it's not too great a burden on the neighbours.

Plus Halloween cookies are pretty cool.

These ones are Chocolate cookies made using a square ruffle edge cookie cutter from my d-line set - I picked mine up at Kitchnwear Plus. But you could use a round cutter if you don't have a square cutter or if your not really into square cookies.

Although I really couldn't imagine anyone not being into square cookies, so just if you don't have the cutter on hand I guess. A circle would pretty much work just as well.

and I also made some  matching cookies in a floral pattern with a kinda cute striped flower.

Bird Silhouette Halloween cookies Ingredients and equipment

Square Cookies
Square cookie cuter
Orange Ready Roll Fondant
Black Ready Roll Fondant (I used chocolate fondant colored black with some Americolor super black)
Small rolling pin
PME Robin (bird) butter small
Carnation cutter
Black Royal Icing in a piping bag with a small round tip (eg #2)
brush and water
sharp knife

Roll out some orange fondant (marshmallow or shop bought) on a workbench lightly dusted with cornflour (corn starch) and cut out a square using a cutter a little smaller than cookie. Brush the cookie lightly with water using a clean brush and adhere the fondant to the cookie, using the rolling pin to lightly press it down.

Roll out some black fondant onto a workbench, you can dust it lightly with a bit of cornflour (It's what I use) but if you find that it shows up white on your fondant you can grease the workbench lightly with some crisco or a spay of vegetable or rice bran oil, just a bit. Cut out the bird shapes and carnation shapes then roll out thin pieces of black fondant with your finger tips to make long ropes that you can shape into the branches.# Look at the cookie to see an example of how you can shape the branch and where to place it. You should be able to press the branches directly on the orange fondant without water but if you have used the oil they may not stick. If necessary use a very teensy small amount of water, the brush should nearly be dry otherwise the black will run.

Once the branches are in place adhere a bird so it is sitting on top of the branch and then trim the carnation either using the cookie cutter or a shape knife so it sits in the corner.

Then pipe black dots of royal icing around the edge of the cookie to finish off.

#If you like you can use the black royal icing and pipe branches instead of using the rolled fondant.

Oh and I have noticed that over on Amazon you can peek into a PREVIEW of the first few pages on my book plus the index. Also the cover of the book is different if you pop into the preview and shows up a few different treats in the book.

Pink Paper Doll Princess Party - Sophie's 5th Birthday Party

When I asked Sophie what type of party she wanted this year she told me Barbie......then the next week it was Zhu Zhu pet, and then the next week it was Barbie AND Zhu Zhu pet. I racked my brain which was spinning from all the changes wondering what I was going to be able to come up when I realised that Sophie didn't really want a Barbie party or a Zhu Zhu party, what Sophie wanted was presents....lots and lots of Barbie and Zhu Zhu presents. Really she was kinda relaxed about the whole thing as long as there were friends, presents and cake ;)

Photo of Sophie by Naomi V Photography for Princess Ratbag

Phew, ok with that little issue sorted I still needed a theme. I was looking at some photo's of Sophie where the stylist Candice from Princess Ratbag had pinned up her super long hair and made her look like a little vintage doll and then I remembered a cookie idea that I had floating around for over a year and the theme just worked itself out.

Paper Doll Sugar Cookie

Decorating the Sophie Paper Doll Cookies - see the clothes are stiff and easy to handle

Yup that's right I wanted to make sugar cookies and then fondant clothes that the kids REALLY dressed up the dolls with using royal icing to adhere the edible fondant clothes to the sugar cookie doll. If you follow my blog you might have already seen the photo's of the cookies - the kids had a super time. The tutorial on how to make these super sweet cookies is HERE. Sophie can spend hours dressing up her dolls and I thought it could be a theme we would both love.

Some examples of the cookies the girls made up

I had a custom picture drawn up of the birthday girl made to look like a paper doll by Karen McCubbin. Isn't it the most adorable thing - Sophie LOVED that it was a picture especially of her! By taking a copy of the hand drawn picture I was able to use it as a template for the cookies.

Custom Paper Doll and clothes of the Birthday Girl by Karen McCubbin (details below)

Jordan from Polkadot Prints made up the sweetest pink and white polka dot invitations using the hand drawn picture of Sophie, and then cause she's super talented she made up matching thank you tags and dessert table labels as well!

Invitation by Polkadot Prints

The custom picture was great as I used it for quite a few other things. Each guest received a copy as take home favors and I also used the paper doll clothes to make a DIY bunting garland to top the buttercream pink ombre cake.

Homemade Paper Doll Dress up cake garland

The pink ombre (graduated pink) cake was frosted with Italian Meringue Buttercream. Inside the cake was strawberry butter cake with white chocolate mud cake polka dots which was inspired by an amazing cake on snowy bliss ( click here).... mine needs a little work as the mudcake balls are quite heavy I think they need to be popped in over a layer of batter.

Pink Polka Dot Cake

 I have already posted a tutorial on how  I did the ombre frosting on the outside Click Here

Pink Ombre frosted cake

We also had princess sprinkle macarons and polka dot milk. I tried to come up with fun names for all the party treats to work in with the theme.

The rim around the top of my the polka dot milk was inspired by a picture on pintrest of dark chocolate dipped rim in hundreds and thousands (rainbow non pariels). I just changed the idea to work in with my color theme. Then it was just strawberry milk with floating marshmallows 'polka dots'.

Oh and of course we had lollies (candy)....pink musk sticks, pink and white M&M's and Pink Princess Delight (strawberry bon bons from Sharnel Dollar Designs)

and Ah Tissue made up these Ah-mazing ombre tissue paper pom poms.

Apart from the cookie decorating we also had musical statues, bubble blowing and my kids always ask for pass the parcel. I'm not a huge fan of wrapping up layers and layers of paper 'cause we always stick some kind of prize in each layer and at the end it is huge, then it's just a big 'ole ball of paper to throw away. This time instead of wrapping up layers of paper for pass the parcel, I popped gifts into brown paper bags and wrote a task for each child to perform onto the front of the bag. When the music stopped the child reached into the basket pulled out a bag and had to perform the task to get the gift. I made sure they were age appropriate tasks like singing a song or doing the hokey pokey, the kids thought it was lots of fun.

and a special thank you to my lovely friend Jo who came over earlier in the day to hang all the poms for me as I couldn't reach up due to my recent surgery. Thanks so much Jo Xx

Party Menu

Pink Polka Dot Cake (click here for frosting tutorial)
Princess Sprinkle Macarons
Sophie Doll Cookies (click here for the tutorial)
Fresh Strawberries

Sherbert Icecreams
Musk Sticks
Strawberry Bon Bons
Pink and White M&M's

Fabulous Party Suppliers

The party sweets were made by me Bubble and Sweet  ( http://bubbleandsweet.blogspot.com/ )
Party invitations, thank you cards and dessert labels by Polkadot Prints ( http://www.polkadotprints.com.au/store/pc/home.asp )
Tissue Pom Poms by Ah Tissue ( http://www.ah-tissue.com.au/ )
Cake and bon bon Stands, polka dot straws and strawberry bon bons (princess delights) Sharnel Dollar Designs ( http://www.sharneldollardesigns.com.au/store/pc/home.asp )
Custom Paper Doll drawing by Karen McCubbin ( darkar1(at)optusnet(dot)com(dot)au)
Party Inspiration photo of Sophie by Naomi V Photography ( http://www.naomivphotography.com.au/ ) for Princess Ratbag ( http://www.princessratbag.com/store/pc/home.asp )
Pink and White polka dot treat boxes from Mon Tresor
Flowers from Perrotts florist Brisbane ( http://www.perrotts.com.au/ )
Most of the party pictures are by Terri Vandermeer

Flowers from Perrotts,  bon bon stand from Sharnel Dollar Designs

Just in case you haven't heard I have a book coming out in December called Sweets on a Stick - it's full of fun and easy recipes to make with your kids. Here's a link to Sweets on a Stick on Amazon.