Ben Ten cake pops with mini M &M's

I'm having a bit of bloggers block at the moment.

Yup I have been a bad blogger, nothing inspiring cooked around here the last week of so. Well I did make some of my triple chocolate cookies but y'all have seen those done so I didn't take any pictures.

oh and I did make a cake for my nephew but it was a last minute thing the night before and I used a Harry Potter cake box mix that someone had given me.

So I went back through my archives to try and rustle up some photo's to share with you and found these.

OK the reason I never posted these before is not because they were not totally awesome, it's because I took pretty awful photo's which often happens when I am making something for someone else.

These are some Ben Ten Pop's I made last year for the owner and designer of Australian Made kids fashion line Little Miss J and Mister TJ, well for her son really.

I made the pops with chocolate cake and mini M & M's, which I think is perfect for little boys. Just make up your chocolate cake, add enough frosting so it will be moist and holds it's shape remember not sloppy and the add a handful of mini m&m,s.

OK you need to be a little restrained on the M & M's too many and you will have difficulty popping you lollipop stick into the pop.

Here is a picture of the pop's, I shaped them using a small round fondant cutter and pressing the cake pop mixture in and flattening the top. Then I chilled the mixture and went through and popped the lollipop stick into each one to make a hole, this is pretty important with the M & M pops because if you poke into one of the candies there is no getting through you just need to start in another spot. Some times it's easier to scrap the whole pop and reshape it.

(If you look closely you can see where I had to make a second hole as I could not push through the candy)

Chill the pops again and in the meantime melt your chocolate/ candy melts. Take the pops out of the fridge and insert the lollipop sticks by dipping them into the melted chocolate and pushing them into the pre-made holes. Chill them in the fridge again.

One the lollipop sticks are set you can dip the whole pop in the melted chocolate and set standing up in styrofoam.

With these Ben Ten pops I had pre-made rounds of fondant using the same round fondant cutter and cutting the triangle shapes using a pizza cutter wheel, after the chocolate on the pops were dry I attached the fondant rounds with a little melted chocolate and held them a couple of seconds until secure.

In Love with.........Miette the cookbook

Miette: Recipes from San Francisco's Most Charming Pastry Shop

I am totally in love with the cover of this book.

It looks like the kind of simple but sooo amazing baking that I like, the basics if you will behind all the decorating. Reminds me of some of my other favourite cookbooks that I talked about previously (click here for link)

and of course it doesn't hurt that it's from a renowned patisserie in San Francisco.
I have already pre-ordered my copy and can't wait for it to turn up so I can try out all the recipes.

Orange and Poppy Seed Macarons for MacTweets

The MacTweets challenge #17 for March 2011 was Sugar & Spice and Everything….Fruity… with a requirement to make sure the macarons incorporate both a spice and a fruit, at least one of each.

I have to admit I nearly didn't make this challenge, I have been a bit busy and although I had quite a few great ideas I just wasn't feeling spicy this month.
Then I noticed poppy seeds in the spice section of the supermarket and I was inspired.

Poppy seed macarons filled with an orange curd based buttercream, just the perfect thing for a refreshing afternoon pick me up.
 

I'm sure the rest of the MacTweets crowd will have a great bunch of macarons in the end of month line up, looking forward to seeing what they come up with on this one.

Recipe after the jump.

Creme Egg Easter Macarons

A while ago I came across a site that had a recipe for Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Wow I though Cadbury Creme Eggs on tap that could be cool! But as I'm no longer 8 there are really only so many I can eat these days so I didn't end up making them. I stored away the idea for a maybe one day closer to Easter kinda thing.

Anyway as it's closer to Easter I realised that it might be fun to take the recipe and incorporate it with some macarons to make Creme Egg Macarons.

For some reason I felt a bit odd marring a dainty macaron with something so commercial and highly processed as the Creme Egg, but hey it tastes good so I'm gonna ignore that funny feeling.

I based the fondant filling on this recipe (Click here) but reduced the amount of sugar. I also used liquid glucose instead of corn syrup, simply because I know that everyone in Australia will ask what they can use instead of corn syrup.

I get my liquid glucose from Coles in the baking aisle near where the cake decorations, colours and flavours are in a clear jar with a red lid. You can also get it from deli's and incidently most good deli's will also sell Karo corn syrup here in Australia.

Also I dipped the eggs in chocolate thinned with a little vegetable oil once again as people ask me if you can do it. Yup I usually use copha melted with the wilton melts but it seems vegetable oil works as well and actually seems to make it melt a little easier. I didn't like the taste as much but that's a personal thing. The macarons in the picture had been sitting out at room temperature for a day and not refrigerated at all and it's quite hot and humid here at the moment so yes they do set using vegetable oil.


I wanted to mention one of my blog friends ButterSugarHeart had a similar idea and made the macarons using real Cadbury Creme Eggs so for a different version pop on over and have a look.

Creme Egg Macarons for Easter

French Macarons

190g (6  5/8 ounce) ground almonds
190g (6  5/8 ounce) Icing (powdered) Sugar
140g Egg Whites, (5 ounce) aged at least 3 days, separated into 2 lots of 70g (2 1/2 ounce)
190g (6  5/8 ounce) Granulated Sugar
48g ( 1 5/8 ounce) Water

1. Mix the ground almonds and icing sugar together and pulse a few times in food processor to make almond meal finer. Do not over process as the meal can become oily. Sieve into a large bowl. Add  70g (2 1/2ounce) of the egg whites to the sugar/almond mixture but don’t mix in.

2. Place remaining 70g (2 1/2 ounce) of egg whites in bowl of mixer fitted with the whisk.

3. Pop granulated sugar and water into saucepan stir to combine and cook without stirring to 118C. If required brush down the sides of the pan to stop crystallisation from occurring. Once the mixture reaches 115C start mixing the egg whites on high (The eggwhites should be quite stiffly whipped before the syrup is added). Once the sugar syrup reaches 118C remove from heat and immediately pour in a thin stream down the side of the mixer bowl continuing to whisk on high.

4. Continue to whisk the meringue on high until the side of the bowl is only a little warm to touch, around 50C.

5. Add meringue mixture to almond mixture and using a large spatula fold the mixture together until it starts to shine and forms a ribbon that stays visible for about 30 seconds.

6. Add the mixture to a piping bag fitted with a plain tip and pipe small circles in lines onto parchment lined baking sheets. To make the macarons as even as possible I apply a constant slow pressure to the piping bag and count a few numbers like up to 3 for each one.

7. Set aside for about 30 minutes or until the macarons have formed a skin that doesn't stick to your finger. If the weather is humid this will take longer. If the weather is very humid it is best to make these in an area with an air conditioner which reduces humidity.

8. Preheat oven to 140C (285 F). Once ready bake the macaroons for around 13 to 15 minutes depending on size, they should not be browned. To test if the macaron is cooked you can open the door and gently press on the side of the macaron. If it jiggles on the 'foot' it is not cooked close the door and cook for another minute or 2 and repeat the jiggle test.

Remove the baking trays and immediately slide off the macarons and the parchment onto the work surface and let cool completely before removing the shells.

Fondant Filling

1/4 cup liquid glucose
30 g unsalted Butter (1 oz) at room temp
1tsp vanilla
1 cup icing sugar sifted (powdered sugar)
Yellow food colour

Combine liquid glucose, butter and vanilla and mix well. I used a hand held beater. The mixture will resemble condensed milk in appearence and consistency. Add icing sugar (at this stage my hand held beater was struggling a little so I mixed by hand) and add enough food colour to achieve the desired colour. Cover until needed.

Assembly

Match the macarons into like sizes (when you are piping macarons by hand you will end up with different sized macarons. They look best if you can find similar sizes to join together)

Dollop fondant onto macarons. The mixture is very thick but if you allow it to rest it will kinda sink and spread over the macaron half and then you can join it with another.

Melt around 400g chocolate and if required add vegetable oil to make the chocolate into a dip-able consistency.

Using a dipping fork or normal fork dip the joined macarons into the chocolate and place on trays covered with baking paper until set.

If you have left over chocolate you can pour it onto baking paper and allow it to set. It can then be stored in an airtight ziplock back and be used next time you need dipping chocolate.

Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Muffins for Easter and the new Peekaboo magazine

Before you get too taken away with these Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Muffins I have to mention that Peekaboo Magazine has published an original recipe I created in their latest March Issue.

Yay for me!

They are super delicious Cranberry Hot Cross Muffins made with wholemeal flour and macadamia oil, so you won't feel so bad about popping them into the kids lunchbox or serving them for Easter brunch.

While I was waiting for the magazine to come out I had a bit of a craving for them, but decided to modify the recipe a bit and came up with these wholemeal chocolate chip hot cross muffins.

I'm thinking the wholemeal flour cancels out any potential unhealthy qualities in the chocolate (# note I'm not actually a qualified nutritionist so it's possible and probable this information could be completely incorrect).

and if you like the colour combination on my photo's here I'm gonna have to admit I totally stole it from Sharnel Dollar who styled the Peekaboo Shoot.

I didn't however steal the cute little baskets in the above shots, I bought those from Sharnel's online store. How completely perfect are they for Easter treats.

Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Muffin Recipe after jump

Best Friend face Cookies - eggless recipe

One of our friends decided at the last minute to have a party in the park for her 6 year old little man. She let him pick the theme and he chose 'friends'.

I know that's adorable isn't it. Although when I first heard the day before the party just after I had offered to make some cookies to bring along I though gosh, couldn't he pick cars, or dinosaurs, or rockets cause like I have stacks of cutters for those things.

As I said it was the day before the party and plus the birthday boy is highly allergic to eggs so I quickly did a brain search for something suitable.

and I remembered some sweet face cookies I had seen on flickr using the candy/ lolly shaped cutter I have for little girls with pigtails and decided to make some best friend face cookies.

I'm going to have to send out apologies to someone here - I know I saw something like these on flickr months ago but although I tried and tried I could not find them again so I can not give a shout out to whom ever's idea I have been inspired by.

anyway I decided to go with shortbread cookie as it's eggless and marshmallow fondant as again eggless (although check the ingredients on the marshmallow you use).

The finished cookie was quite yummy, but way more crumbly than a normal sugar cookie, lucky it was a party in the park.

I've got a little tutorial for you on how I made the little girl face cookies, for the boys just modify to suit the round cutter.

Best Friend Face Cookies

(note if you like you can draw on the mouth and nose etc. I was just trying to use less food colour because of the recipients)

Equipment and Ingredients
Cookies
Marshmallow fondant or Ready Rolled Fondant
Gel colour light peach (flesh tone), yellow, brown, white and various colours for small flowers I used pink, blue and purple
small rolling pin
Wilton tip #7
small sharp knife
Black edible pen
Small flower cutter/ ejector
Ball tool
Brush and water

Make cookie dough using shortbread cookie recipe (recipe below), and cut out using candy cutter. If you prefer and cookies do not need to be eggless use this vanilla sugar cookie recipe, or this chocolate cookie recipe.

Colour the fondant with the larger portions in light peach, brown and yellow and small amounts in the accent flower colours.

Roll out light peach fondant until quite thin and cut out using candy shape cutter. Adhere fondant to cookie using a small amount of water brushed onto the cookie. Using small rolling pin smooth fondant and ensure it reaches the edges of the cookie.

Roll out brown or yellow fondant and cut out using candy shape cutter. Using the small knife cut inside the round section of the candy shape to make the fondant look like parted hair. See picture.

Adhere hair to cookie and using the small rolling pin smooth out and ensure the edges are even.

Repeat for remaining cookies.

Roll out the various colours and cut out the small flowers adhering to the cookies 'hair' with a small amount of water. I press the flower onto the cookie with the small end of a ball tool which indents the flower and also presses the flower on well. Roll a small ball of contrasting fondant for each flower and stick into the center of the flowers with a teensy amount of water (normally I often use royal icing for this but as the cookies needed to be egg free I used the marshmallow fondant).

Using the small round end of the wilton tip cut out small round white eyes and adhere them to the faces with a small amount of water. Repeat for all cookies

Also using the small end of the wilton tip press in on one side only to make a small indent for the nose.

Then using the large round end of the tip indent a mouth.

Allow the cookies to dry for a while and then draw pupils into the eyes, eyelashes and if you like freckles.

Shortbread Cookie recipe modified from Joy of Baking

 225 g (1 cup or 2 sticks) unsalted butter room temp
50g icing sugar (powdered sugar)
2 cups flour sifted
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla (I used vanilla bean paste)

Beat butter and sugar until creamed in a stand mixer on high speed, beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour and salt mixing until incorporated. Chill mixture approx 10 mins

Roll out dough, cut out shapes and place on tray lined with baking paper. Pop in fridge to chill.

Preheat oven to 170 C (350 F) and bake for approx 12 to 15mins or until golden. Remove from oven allow to rest on tray 5 -10 mins before moving to wire cooling rack.

Invite with Style shoot

I just had to share some pictures with you of  Invite with Style's new range of wedding stationery.

I made some of the treats scattered around the shots.

 

 I guess I don't have much to say about this other than WOW it all looks so pretty.

Oh and of course head on over to Invite with Style not only do they design elegant and beautiful wedding stationery they also have a range of children's invitations and a graphic design business called Design with Style. I know super talented (and nice as well)!

I am thinking of popping up some tutorials on the wedding cookies I made, then you can make your own treats to match the stationery, how cool would that be.

Credits

Invite with Style beautiful stationery

Photography Deep Grey 

Styling Imbue Weddings