Eyes without a face.... Make your own Royal Icing Edible Eyes

 
When ever I make cookies I always end up with left over Royal Icing.

If it's white or pink or some other normal colour I don't mind. I know it's wasteful, I usually throw it away. But I seem to have some kind of huge problem throwing away perfectly good black royal icing.

Maybe it's all the black food color that makes it seem so hard to do, I don't know why all I know is I really really want to use up all that extra black icing.

So here is one of the things I do.

Rows and rows and rows......and rows of edible eyes.

It's pretty easy, just lay down some baking paper/parchment paper. Pipe on rows of little white dots around the size you might like the eyes to be. I like to make mine a few different sizes.

Allow the white dots to dry, overnight is perfect, but at least for a couple of hours until set, and then pipe little black dots on top of the white royal icing dots.

Voila edible eyes

Let them set until the easily come off the paper - you should be able to lift it and shake it and they will move by themselves.

Then you can just store them in a container to use as needed.

If you use powdered egg whites and you made them hygienically these eyes should last in an air tight container for many months.

and what do I do with all those eyes you might ask. Well they sure came in handy when I was testing out ideas for Sweets on a Stick: More Than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go!. Yes these eyes are perfect for all types of cake, cookie or pie pops. Whenever you need a cute little face you'll be thankful that you have these little eyes sitting around handy.

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!