Marshmallow pops, pretty polkadot sticks and Paper Wings w13

This is what happens when baking disasters happen. From the charred crumbs emerge......

These pretty pink marshmallow pops which were made in about 1 minute.

OK in truth it did take a couple of minutes for the chocolate to melt but I was doing something else in the kitchen so I'm not counting that.

 

Baking disasters are not unheard of around these parts as I create my own recipes sometimes it takes 3 or 4 or even more goes to get a recipe right.

So a baking disaster spells a blogging disaster and possibly no post. Well normally it would, but as it happens I had just received a bunch of super pretty treat sticks from Polkadot Prints.

Phew blogging disaster averted this week, in no time flat using the treat sticks and stuff I had already in my kitchen* I was able to come up with these pretty pops which are cute enough to serve at a party and simple enough for anyone to make.

* Yup I know most people might not already have sugar flowers and pink swirl marshmallows ready in the cupboard but I did and they are really pretty easy to find at short notice.

So I thinking tutorial not really needed here, more of an inspirational picture collage. Just grab a bunch of marshmallows, melt some chocolate, push pretty treat sticks into the marshmallows using the chocolate as glue, and then glue on some decorations like sugar flowers using the remaining melted chocolate. 

The trickiest bit is trying to insert the sticks in the right spot so the marshallows don't tip over, but that's only a problem if you are going to serve them standing upright. 

 Pink Polkadot Treat Sticks from Polkadot Prints

Paper Wings winter 2013 southern hemisphere (if you're in the northern hemisphere check out the super spring collection, loving the cat swimsuit).

So before I had the blog something the kids loved doing was having photo's taken in new clothes when they turned up. After a super busy year missing out on this I have realised how fast they are growing up and I am making an effort to get more pictures of the kids again.

Anyhoo these clothes were too lovely not to share with everyone, Paper Wings is one of my favorite brands available in Australia, the United States and many other countries.

Bubble wearing Paper Wings - Grey denim bustle jacket; top - bustle tee raspberry/red rapunzel; dark grey/cream rapunzel leggings.

left: top - bustle tee raspberry/red rapunzel; dark grey/cream rapunzel leggings. Right striped leggings black/cream heart.

Boots - Tamara S Black - Betts Kids

Grey denim bustle jacket; top - bustle tee raspberry/red rapunzel; dark grey/cream rapunzel leggings.

Puff Sleeve tee pink/black/cream fairy print; leggings black/cream heart.

Paperwings available online at these stores:
Australia
Buckets and Spades
Milly Molly Moo
Raindrops and Roses
Small World Children's boutique
also in Brisbane at Mama's Home.

US
Everything but the Princess
Little Skye
Little Luna Blue
For a full list of Paper Wings Stockists CLICK HERE

I joined in the fun and added my marshmallow pops at strut your stuff on SIX SISTERS STUFF

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:

Link to Amazon:

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

Or at Fishpond (free shipping Australia)

 

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

Sweetest Thing Reindeer Cookies for Christmas

Oh my goodness these cookies are just the sweetest things.

I am totally in love with the pretty pastel colors and the flying reindeer shape.

I'm calling the colors white, dusky pink and teal.....'cause that's the titles on the food color bottles. But I think you can also call the 'teal', mint green or perhaps seafoam.

I'm not really sure, sometimes I get a bit confused with all those fancy names :)

What I do know is that they look even more adorable in real life and that the teal color with white and a pop of red looks amazing.

Anyhoo......before you all ask......the cookie cutter.

Lots of you may already have it which is great news. I picked it up in a bucket of 100 cutters from Aldi (discount supermarket) last year, for around 10 or 20 dollars for the whole lot.

In the US I have seen them sold as Faberware sets or maybe Roshco 100 piece plastic sets, Amazon has them listed kinda expensive (see below) although I noticed a used one for a good price. Or maybe try Ebay.


Like I said you might already have it or be lucky enough to find a set, but if not you could pick up a similar one by picking up a flying reindeer like the one from the below link.


Now I know the flying reindeers do not have the lovely looking fragile antlers and legs, but that might be a good thing for some. I use a pretty good cookie recipe (the one from my cook book Sweets on a Stick) and the dough was pretty chilled, but I still rolled each cookie out on a square of parchment paper to make it easier to pick  up and pop onto the oven tray. Plus I needed to gently ease/push out the antlers and legs. Not unachievable, or even that hard, but kinda time consuming and not so kid friendly.

 But they do look soooo sweet so for me totally worth it :)

I'm kinda into the whole color scheme at the moment so I seemed to have a stack of stuff sitting around ready for some photo's.

Photo stuff Vendor/Stockists:

Ribbon sets - Tilda (I bought mine @ Sewco Mt Gravatt)
Mint Green Sandy Cup - Greengate (I bought mine @ Originated Shop)
Silver Christmas baubles - Spotlight
Paisley card stock - Tilda (I bought mine @ Sewco Mr Gravatt)

Before I start the tutorial - just a quick reminder that if you don't want to miss out on any posts you can subscribe for free up in the top right corner of this blog by entering your email address. I have lots of Christmas cookies and treats coming up so you won't want to miss a single sweet thing (and facebook is mostly unreliable for updates these days).

Sweetest Thing Reindeer Cookies
If you don't like fondant covered cookies you can follow the general directions using royal icing instead, well y'know piping instead of rolling out and cutting. Y'all get the idea :)

Reindeer cookie cutter
cookie dough (I used the recipe from Sweets on a Stick stockist details below)
White ready roll fondant (I used Bakels)
food color (I used Americolor Teal, Americolor Ivory, Sugarflair dusky pink and red)
Royal Icing (I mixed up a little premix with water)
Edible glitter in pink and silver
Small rolling pin
cornflour / cornstarch
brush and water

Roll out the cookie dough onto parchment paper and cut out reindeer shapes. If you cutter has fragile thin pieces make sure the dough is quite chilled and ease each section out with the base of a knife, or some other flatish thin tool.

Chill in freezer for around 15 minutes and then bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until just golden, remove from oven and allow to cool on baking tray enough so they are firm and easy to move without breaking. Place on wire rack to cool completely.

Take a tablespoon of the fondant and color red. Divide the remaining fondant into 3 evenish amounts. Leave one section white, color one section pink and then the remaining teal using 2 parts teal to 1 part ivory to make a color similar to the one in the pictures. (to color fondant knead it well and then gradually work in drops of food color until the desired color is achieved.)

Dust the work bench, knead the white fondant until pliable and roll out until a couple of mm thin (1/16th ") making sure to pick it up and turn often so it does not stick to the bench. Cut out a reindeer shape with the cookie cutter (ensure the cutter has been washed and is completely dry).

Brush a small amount of water onto the cookie and then gently press the fondant onto the cookie using the rolling pin to gently press it into place.

Repeat for remaining cookies until a third of the cookies is covered with white fondant.

To make the spots on the back of the reindeer, pipe small dots of white royal icing with a #2 tip.For the teal spots (on some of the white deers) I just used small balls of teal fondant pressed into place (use a tiny amount of water to stick if necessary).

To make the glittery reindeer noses lay the fondant covered cookies on clean parchment paper, pipe a small dot of royal icing onto the noses and then before the royal icing dries sprinkle a small amount of edible glitter directly onto the wet royal icing.

The red reindeer noses are just small balls of red fondant pressed into place (use a tiny amount of water to stick if necessary)

Wrapping paper Greengate - frameTarget

Linda Vandermeer is a mum, blogger and author of Sweets on a Stick: More than 150 Kid Friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go. You can pick it up at all good online book shops including these shops:

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

I joined in the fun and added my link to:

Lollipop Macarons

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love *......these sprinkly swirly macarons.

OK we all know macarons are perfect just the way they are, and in fact I am always in humour to give them consequence....or you know just eat lots of them :)

If I was a Mr Darcy kinda person I would just leave them be.

 
But y'all know I can't do it, I had to go put a stick in it, add some sprinkles. and make some 'Lollipop' swirl macarons. Cause that's what I do :)

And if you like you can too. I made the macarons up myself from scratch but I think that you could easily buy some already made macarons and follow the instructions below. To get shop bought macarons on a stick you just need to bring them to room temperature make a hole in the ganache filling with your paper lollipop sticks and then secure the stick into the macaron with a little melted chocolate. You know, just like you would do for a cake pop.

* Those couple of lines above were plagiarized and quite badly reworded by me from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, as if you didn't already know that :)

Lollipop Macarons recipe and instructions
I used Wilton pink and Wilton Violet for the macarons in the picture

Macarons with ganache (CLICK HERE for my recipe)#
lollipop sticks
50g white chocolate
sprinkles
shallow bowl

#When making the macarons lay a lollipop stick on top of the ganache before pressing the second macaron biscuit on top. Place in airtight containers and pop in the fridge for a day to allow the macaron to develop it's soft center.

 
Lay the macarons down on a tray lined with parchment paper.

Melt the white chocolate in a small microwave safe bowl on medium low heat until smooth and all lumps have melted. If you like you can around 5g of copha while melting (or paramount crystals) to make the chocolate more fluid.

Place the melted white chocolate in the corner of a ziplock bag. Cut off the tiniest hole, just the very tip of the bag. Practice piping a swirl on some spare parchment paper starting in the middle and working around in a circular motion. Once you are happy with your piping action pipe a melted chocolate swirl onto one of the macarons.

Working quickly hold the macaron above the shallow bowl and sprinkle the sugar sprinkles over the melted chocolate swirl. Place the macaron back on the parchment paper to set.

Repeat for remaining macarons.*

If you like once the chocolate and sprinkles have set you can turn the macarons over and pipe another swirl on the other side and add sprinkles for a double sided swirl.

*once you get the hang of this process you can actually pipe quite a few swirls in a row and then add the sprinkles afterwards. The trick is to adhere the sprinkles before the chocolate starts to set.

Sophie's 6th Birthday Sweet Birdie Birthday Party

Sophie (Sweet) turned 6 and to celebrate we had a sweet bird themed birthday party.

No particular reasoning behind the theme, we just found some pretty printables from I Will Invitations that both Sophie and I loved so we decided to just go with it.

Anyway....Birds, who doesn't love birds, well apart from maybe a generation of Hickcock watching fans.....

But me, I love birds and this was a perfect opportunity to make a birdhouse cake with a ruffled roof, craft inspired flowers and pretty pastel layers inside.

Bird Cake pops, flower cookie pops with button detail and cloud in the sky cookies made a great combination for this pink 'garden' display. All these treats are from recipes and instructions included in my book Sweets on a Stick.
  
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!

Of course we had some pretty bird cookies.

and some macarons because all the moms love them......Ooops because the kids can't get enough of them.

Plus candy bon bons, marshmallows and sour blue cloud lollies.....Sophie adores how they turn her tongue blue.

and then because I was running out of time I replaced some of the cakes I had planned on making with a selection of berries displayed in pretty Greengate china bowls and latte cups. I think that berries or other fruit are always a great last minute solution for parties, the kids love them and they look just as pretty as any baked treat.

For decorations we used an actual real branch stuck to the wall with some sticky tape and hung  Ah-Tissue paper pom poms from it and the ceiling, then added a couple of gorgeous individually decorated bird houses to the wall behind the cake.

The pink display for the pops was from a discount dollar store with some decorative straw and the risers are stryofoam blocks covered in wrapping paper.

Sophie had seen a face painter at a local store recently who is also an entertainer so we engaged her to help manage the kids. Kozmic the Klown is absolutely fabulous at face painting for both boys and girls and she also has a bunny :)

Bird Cake Pop (removed from pop) instructions from Sweets on a Stick

Sweet Bird Party credits

Cake and other treats - Bubble and Sweet
Paper Pom Poms - Ah-Tissue
Printables - I Will Invitations Lovebird Tweet Printables
Face Painting and Entertainment by Kozmic The Klown
Lollies/ Candy - The Professors
Greengate China - Originated Shop
Cake Stand and Pink Elegant Candles Sharnel Dollar Designs

Super big thank you to Terri Vandermeer who did the background decorations pretty much all by herself as I was a little bit under the weather. Terri also took the photographs, makes those super cute hand decorated birdhouses and sewed up THAT gorgous ruffled tablecloth.

Raspberry Macarons

Printables from I Will Invitations

Selection of treats on sticks...recipes and instructions from the book Sweets on a Stick

Awwww Bunny :)

Yup we did a bit of glitterizing on the printables.....just can't help ourselves :)

I shared this party over on Tip me Tuesday at the Tip Junkie :)