Babushka Ghost Halloween cookies

I'm in the middle of packing up my kitchen so they can rip it out this week and pop in a new one.

It's kind of exciting and totally exhausting.

So I really hope that it looks great when they put it in.

Oh, and I hope it stores stacks of stuff which is what I really need. I am a total cake and cookie decorating hoarder. My dining room has been a total cluttered mess for a couple of years now.

So no baking now for at least a week.....and probably more as I imagine it will take me a while to sort out where everything will need to go.

Luckily this week before I packed everything away I made up some easy to decorate babushka doll cookies that I will be sharing with you over the next couple of weeks.

I'll start with the easiest cookies requiring the least equipment and work my way through to the more difficult ones. Today we have the evil ghostly babushka cookie. Next up will be the screaming ghoul cookie :)

Because I have a few of these to get through I'll be back to my old posting schedule of a few times a week so check back on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The cookie cutters I used are from Bisk-art and the easy vanilla sugar cookie dough recipe I used is from Sweets on a Stick.

Or here at fishpond (Aus/NZ)

Ghostly Babushka Cookie if you like your ghosts a little bit cute rather than a touch evil just change the eyes to a more rounded shape and the mouth to a smaller happy smile.

Ingredients and Equipment
Babushka sugar cookies (baked and ready to decorate I used the recipe from Sweets on a Stick)
Babushka cookie cutter 
White Ready Roll Fondant
small rolling pin
clean food safe brush and water
cornflour (corn starch)
Black edible pen
Small amount of black fondant (white fondant colored black with food color) - optional you can just use the pen if you like

Knead the white fondant until pliable. Dust the workbench with cornflour (corn starch) and roll out the white fondant until a couple of mm's (1/16") thin.

Using the cookie cutter, press down and cut out a babushka shape.

 Brush the cookie with a small amount of water and press the fondant onto the cookie. Use the small rolling pin to adhere the fondant to the cookie by pressing down lightly, if necessary gently roll out the fondant to the sides of the cookie by lightly rolling the rolling pin towards the edge.

If you are using black fondant for the eyes, roll out small amounts of black fondant into small triangles (see picture for example) and press onto the head where you would like the eyes to be. Use a tiny amount of water if necessary to stick the black fondant down, make sure you do not use too much or the black will run into the white fondant.

Repeat for all cookies.

Allow the fondant on the cookies to set for an hour of so until the surface hardens.

Use the edible pen to draw on a large wide smile just under the 'neck' area of the babushka shape (see picture for example) draw small vertical lines across the mouth to look similar to stitches. Draw a couple of dots for nostrils and if you are using the pen to draw in the eyes do that at this stage as well.

Ta-daaaahhh super easy evil ghost cookies come back in a couple of days for screaming ghoul cookie......

Strawberry and Cream Cheesecakes in a Jar

Strawberries are so plentiful and cheap around here at the moment and everyone has those buy 3 punnets for $5 deals so our fridge is full of them.

That is not a complaint.

I love fruit. Mostly we just wash and eat it fresh here.

Seriously I did not fish around to find these strawberries, they were the top 2 in the punnet.

But I couldn't resist making up these strawberry and cream cheesecakes in a jar. The great thing about making cheesecakes in a jar, apart from y'know obviously they look lovely, is that you can spoon on heaps of strawberries and puree some up as sauce and it stays put as you scoop around eating.

If it doesn't happen to be strawberry season for you at the moment - just pop any fresh fruit in the top and it will be just as awesomely delicious.

I have used recycled jam jars, which actually took me a while to collect up, but you can use whatever you may have sitting around. In the past I found drinking glasses or even clean unused glass tea light holders from Ikea work.

Oh and if your a bit of a fan of upcycling and recycling you should check out the latest edition of 'Tickle the Imagination' online magazine.

I have a super yummy recipe for Blueberry jarcakes with cream cheese frosting in the lasted edition.

......hmmmm that styling looks familiar. Nope I didn't do it the same day (I don't have that many jars), although it was about a week apart. I needed to use the jars quick as my friend was collecting used jars to use at a party as drink glasses. Yup another fab recycling idea right there.

This photo is really Bubble and (a) Sweet

Now if only I could come up with an idea for recyling all those plastic fruit punnets I would be set.

and YAY for Bubble and Sweet, we were featured as one of Parenting.com's fav Halloween pintrest ideas for my Double Trouble Witch Brew Cauldron Cake pops. Thanks Parenting.com you can check out all their other creepily delicious favorites HERE.

anyway shameless self promotion over.....back to the cheesecakes.

Strawberries and Cream Cheesecakes in a Jar makes 6
You will need 6 clean 250ml jam jars or similar. If you do not have jars available you can use cupcake papers and bake in a muffin tray. Imperial conversion is approximate.

500g (17oz) cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg at room temperature
1/4 cup cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 250g (8 1/2 oz) punnet strawberries
Extra whipped cream for serving

Preheat oven to 140 C (280 F).

Beat the cream cheese and sugar using a mixer at medium speed until smooth and lump free, add the cream and mix until combined.

Reduce speed to low and add the eggs and vanilla and mix until just combined.

Spoon mixture into jars, place on a tray and pop in the oven.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Allow to cool to room temperature and the pop into the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.

Just prior to serving puree about half the strawberries. Chop the remaining strawberries into small pieces. Evenly divide the strawberries and puree between the jars. Top with some whipped cream, decorate with sprinkles if desired and serve with a spoon.

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.