Handmade Wedding - Book Giveaway and Review

I received an early copy of Handmade Wedding over Forty Gorgeous Projects to help you style your wedding your way published by Penguin Books Australia in my mailbox the other day.




Handmade Wedding is a charming book full of gorgeous colour photography that beautifully portrays the finished projects, along with a host of other inspirational pictures.

The book is a collaboration of a host of well known and well respected bloggers, stylists and talented artists and is divided into sections such as Before the Wedding, Getting Dressed, Ceremony, Table, Party and Details.

There are detailed step by step instructions on how to make all the pretty projects, including templates where required and the Party section includes a few recipes including macarons (by Macaron cookbook author Alison Thompson), truffle pops and cookies. I did notice that the macaron recipe recommended a few trial runs before the wedding, so I would say the book offers pretty sound advice as well.

I fell in love with some of the diy craft projects and the day the book arrived found myself ordering items to make the super cute cupcake toppers from the Party Section. Sooo totally in love with them! Many of the 48 projects in the book would be easily transferable to any fabulous soiree you might be hosting, and are not just wedding specific.

I had hoped to floor you all with my super crafty skills and show you all some pictures of the amazing things I had made from the book (hello cupcake toppers) but sadly my stuff is still in transit somewhere.

Anyhoo to round up I guess it says a lot that I was willing to attempt some projects, cause although I'm ok at dipping cakeballs and baking macarons I'm not the craftiest gal around and after reading the book I was pretty confident that I could attempt quite a few of the projects.

Giveaway - Win A Copy of Handmade Wedding

I have the precopy of Handmade Wedding to offer as a giveaway. Just leave a comment here by 12pm Monday the 15th of August and I will randomly choose a winner. Any comment will do, just say Hi if you like. If you would like me to contact you and let you know that you are the winner make sure you leave your email address in the comment as well, otherwise I will announce on Tuesday here and on the facebook page the name of the winner and you can have until Friday to contact me before I redraw.

Good Luck!

Oh and here is my everyblog announcement about my book, which is by the way totally not related to the book I reviewed above......In case you haven't heard I have a book coming out in December available for preorder. It's a US release and is aimed at cooking with kids specifically sweet treats on a stick and has lots of recipes for cake pops, cookie tutorials, pie pops, candy and more.

Here is the link to buy my book Sweets on A Stick by Linda and Vandermeer at Barnes and Noble :)

WINNER  update

Random Org came up with #6 so the winner is Karla

Thanks everyone who entered

Baroque Black Velvet and Cameo Cookies inpired by Kitten D'Amour

I have recently started back working one day a week at my old job from before I had the kids.

I'm really enjoying the work, and they are a lovely bunch of people, but one of the biggest perks is that it's in the city and I get to go shopping at lunch time........without 3 kids running around screaming.

As well behaved as my kids normally are and as much as I adore them, clothes shopping is just not fun with them along. I have lost count of the number of times they have crawled under the change rooms into someone else's stall so in respect of those other shoppers I have mostly given up.

Black bow with cameo, part of cardigan from Kitten D'Amour

But with my new found one day a week freedom I was able to venture into, actually try on and buy a few pieces from the latest clothing collection at Kitten D'Amour. I totally loved them so much I was inspired to make some delicious cookies.

Disclaimer - these cookies are in no way affiliated with Kitten D'Amour - I just really like their packaging and stuck one of my cookies onto the spot where their cute stuff normally rests. Pop over and see the lovely stuff they actually do sell.

Plus I have those gorgeous Cameo molds sitting around that I have not used for about a year, and this seemed like a really good excuse to use them.

I took these along to a BBQ for everyone to try and they were a hit, although as a word of warning everyone's teeth were temporarily turned blue for a minute or too. I used premade black fondant that someone kindly had given me. Normally I try to use less food colour and make my own with chocolate fondant which uses a bit less black colour. Or you could make them in blue and white which would be a bit Tiffanyish and super pretty as well.

Hair fascinator by Kitten D'Amour

Anyhoo before I start on the how to's just a couple of house keeping things.

In case I haven't mentioned it a squillion times I have a book coming out in December which is available through preorder. So every post I'll be having a link to it....... sorry to bore anyone if you've already seen it (and yes I do feel like a tv commercial).




Also I am having stacks of trouble with my blogger account and I might be moving to a new one soon. But I'll give y'all plenty of notice if that's the case.

Baroque and Black Velvet Cameo Cookies

Chocolate cookie dough (click here for recipe)
Black fondant, pink fondant and tiny amount of white fondant
Royal Icing in black and white
Small amount of gold disco dust (like edible glitter) optional
Square cookie cutter with ruffle edge# (mine were 5cm (2") square)
Cameo mold - (mine are aldaval 9003 and 9007 the finished cameos are about 4cm (1 5/8") X 2.7cm(1 1/8"))
icing bags with #1 tip (small round tip)
Small flower ejector
Small rolling pin
small sharp knife
brush and a little water
Cornflour (cornstarch) for dusting

#My square cookie cutters are a set of d.line ones I picked up from Kitchenware Plus, I have noticed them at Robin's as well.
#I picked up my Cameo molds quite a while ago from the UK. I'm not sure where you can purchase them at the moment but on the back of the pack they have an email address aldavalveiners@o2.co.uk

Make up the cookies using the square cookie cutter with ruffled edges and allow to cool.

Work out how many of each type of cookie you will need and make the corresponding amount of decorations. So for example if you are making 18 cookies, half pink and half black, you will need 3 pink cameos, 3 pink bows, 3 black/white cameos, 3 black bows and 6 small flowers.

Use the cameo mold to make up some cameo's. Make sure before you start to pop a little oil/shortening into the mold. I rub a little crisco on, but use what ever you would normally use. Press some fondant that you have kneaded a little to make pliable into the impression in the mold, pressing in well and then use a knife to cut off any excess from the top of the mold so that the back of the cameo will be flat. Pop the mold into the freezer for 30 seconds and then pop the cameo shape out onto some parchment paper until you need to use it. Repeat and make as many as required. I made some in all pink and some with white and black.

Make up some bows using the pink and black fondant, I was really lazy with this bit as I was going to make fondant pearl centers to cover the middles but then I just dolloped some royal icing which didn't work out so good. Use a knife to cut strips of fondant and then fold the edges into the middle to make the top bow section, pop little bits of plastic wrap (Glad wrap) into the loops to help them hold their shape. Cut out more strips to make the ends of the bows look like ribbon hanging down. Use a little bit of water to stick the bits together. Make up a white fondant pearl for the middle and stick it into the center of the bow.

Press out a couple of small flowers using the flower ejector. If you like dust them with a small amount of water and some edible glitter or disco dust and pop a little round dot of fondant into the middle.

Roll out the black fondant onto a cornflour dusted workbench until a couple of mm thick (1/8") and using the cookie cutter cut out fondant shapes. I used the square side but you can just use the ruffled one. Take a knife and cut a few mm (1/8") off each side so the fondant will be a little bit smaller that the finished cookie. Brush a little bit of water onto the cookie and adhere the fondant to the cookie using the rolling pin to press in down. If necessary use the knife to even up the edges. I do this by pressing the fondant back into shape by putting the dull edge of the knife against the cookie and pressing it gently in towards the middle. Just a little to make the edge even. If you are having trouble with the cornflour making the black look all white and dusty you can try using a little white shortening to grease the workbench instead.

Repeat with the pink fondant so that you have some cookies with a black background and some with a pink background.

Mix up some royal icing, it's a good idea to do the black the night before if you have a chance. Get the icing to a consistency that you can pipe with. This is kinda the tricky part, too stiff and it will be peaking with pointy dots, too runny and it will not hold it's shape. So when you are mixing it the consistency should be still quite thick, but if you run your spoon through it drops down after about 10 seconds....yeah ok if like me your not quite that perfect I'll share a little trick and all the perfect cookie pipers please close your eyes and look the other way ;)

Pop the black and the white royal icing into the piping bags with #1 tips. Royal icing dries up really quickly so I use a bit of damp paper towel wrapped around the tips to stop it from drying out in between uses and stick it into an airtight container.

Start by sticking the cameos and the bows into the middles of the cookies with a bit of royal icing. I stuck pink cameos and bows onto the black cookie backgrounds and correspondingly black and white cameos and bows onto the pink background cookies. Pipe little dots all the way around the base of the cameo.

Pipe on the 'necklaces' I practiced on a piece of paper first by drawing a shape the size of the cookie and drawing in three lines to represent the 'strands' and drawing a flower on one of them. Then I piped dots along the strands to work out how many dots might be needed on each strand. Once I was happy with that I just piped them onto the cookie freehand. I piped the top six dots, three on each side and then worked my way down, adhering the flower with a little royal icing.

You can allow the cookies to rest a little and set, or like me just keep on going and risk smudging them. Pipe dots around the edge of the cookies. I used white royal icing on the black fondant background cookies and black royal icing on the pink fondant background cookies. Once again practice on a piece of paper first if you like, I used a #1 tip but if you like you could swap up to a #2, you just need to squeeze a little bit longer with the #1. Pipe dots around the whole edge of the cookie, I made mine correspond with the ruffled edges.

OK now if you didn't quite get the icing perfect and its too stiff and it's a bit 'peaky' pop a small amount of water onto your finger and push the edge of the peak down a little to make the edge look rounded. Make sure your fingers are clean (y'all would be doing that anyway I know) or use clean new gloves and remember just a tiny amount of water or you'll make the icing smudge and with the black it might run onto the pink fondant and you will need to wipe bits off with paper towels and it'll get super messy. If in doubt practice on that bit of paper first.

Once the pink fondant cookies with the black royal icing are set, you can go around and pipe a tiny white dot onto the top of each black royal icing or you can just skip that step, they look good either way.

Milk and Cookies cake pops made from white tim tam truffles

Who doesn't love milk and cookies. Also cake pops, I know we all love them. So really these milk and cookie cake pops were just destined to happen.

I came up with this idea ages ago while I was making some scrap inspired bird cookies.....see this pic here. I loved my little 'Scrappy Bird' but no one else was quite as taken with him.

Poor Scrappy Bird - is this a cookie only the creator (me) could love........

Anyhoo, while I was making Scrappy Birdy I trimmed off some fondant 'twine' and it looked like insy little striped paper straws. So I started wondered what I could do with a stack of teensy little fondant straws and then I thought of course..... milk and cookie cake pops.

These pops are made from my white chocolate tim tam pop recipe, because that's what I had around, but afterwards I realised it was a great idea as now there are cookies inside AND outside of my milk and cookie cake pops.

Dont'ya just love it when stuff like that works out without even really thinking about it.

Milk and Cookie Pop tutorial

So these are pretty simple,  be sure to make the straws a couple of days prior to assembling the pops so they have had a chance to set.

Ingredients
small amount of fondant half colored red, half white
batch of cake or cookie truffle pops (I used Tim Tam cookie pops click here for recipe)
white candy coating/melts (or white chocolate melts) I am going to call it candy coating for the rest of the tutorial.
copha/or paramount crystals/or crisco for melting.
mini store bought cookies (I used mini chips ahoy)
lollipop sticks
styrofoam block for resting the pops in

Take some red and some white fondant and roll them (seperately) into a thin log using your fingertips and the workbench until they are quite thin. Twist the 2 them around each other like a rope and once again using your fingertips roll the combined, twined fondant back and forth gently on the workbench. Make sure to use really really gentle pressure or you might end up with the fondant twine being uneven. ( Although I guess it will not be such a big problem if your cutting it into small mini straw pieces). Once you have made the twine cut it into pieces about 1.5cm (1 1/2 inch) in length and leave on some parchment paper to set for a day or so.

Make the cake or cookie truffle pops and shape into a milk glass shape by making a cyclinder that tapers up slightly. Chilli n the fridge until set.

Melt the white candy coating in the microwave at bursts of 60 to 90 seconds at medium low. Do not overheat the chocolate. If you want your finished pop to have a really smooth finish you need to add some type of shortening to make the candy coating more fluid. I recommend copha if you are in Australia at a ratio of around 55g to every 400g candy coating, or paramount crystals in the US at a ratio of around 2oz to every 14oz candy bag. If you can not get paramount crystals in the US try crisco but it's not quite as good and you may need to work on the ratios.

Once the candy coating is melted dip the end of a lollipop stick into it and insert into the bottom (thinner tapered end) of the milk shaped pop. Place onto parchment lined trays and chill for 10 minutes.

Ensure candy coating is still fluid and if not remelt at medium low heat. Remove pops from fridge and holding the end of the lollipop stick completely submerge into the melted candy coating. Lift out and hold over the bowl gently tapping to remove excess candy coating. Take a bit of time with this step otherwise your finish may not be as smooth as you might like.

Place the pop upright into the styrofoam block and using a toothpick make a hole in the top of the milk glass pop and push the premade fondant straw in. Take one of the mini cookies and hold it onto the front of the pop until it sets a little and is secure.

 So there you have it, my quick how I made milk and cookie pops. Obviously you can make the straws any color you like and change up the cookies (I think mini oreos with blue and white straws would look great).

Also I have been wondering if those jumbo candy cane sprinkles you can get at Christmas time might work as straws if you cut off the rounded end....but seeings as I don't have any and making the fondant straws is kinda easy I'm just gonna keep on wondering.

Preorder my book Sweets on a Stick: 150 kid friendly recipes for cakes,candies, cookies and Pies on the Go!

Yay! Someone told me yesterday they saw my book for preorder (Thanks Miss M)on one of the big sites so I popped in to have a look and they were right.

So as though I had nothing better to do I popped into all the online book sites and guess what nearly all of them had it listed........

Here it is at Amazon



and for those in Australia and New Zealand who like to buy from Fishpond.....

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

and I also spied it over at book depository, borders and a stack of other places.

Then I spent time on the phone with my mum giggling about the little author blurb which is all true but just funny to read on Amazon about yourself.

Remember if your outside of the US this book is a US release with weights and measurements accordingly, although there is a conversion table in the back.

OK today I promise to spend my time better and get some photo's of the cutest new cake pops I made.

Kinda Famous S'more Whoopie Pies

 I love whoopie pies. They are the perfect combination of cookie and cake with a big ole' dollop of sweet filling in between.

Every now and then I still see a post professing that they are the new cupcake, or macarons, which you know considering how long they have been around is kinda funny. In fact I know I did one myself a while back.

Just had to pop in a pic with these cute tags I picked up from Luminoso blu

It doesn't really matter to me if they're popular or not, just that they're yummy. I find them comforting. Pretty much they are one of the few things that I can not stop eating until I can't possibly fit in another one in. It is not unusual for me to eat 3 or 4 a day when I have baked a batch.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting around thinking I didn't have much on so I grabbed out my copy of my trustee Whoopie Pies by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell  and thought I'd whip up a batch of their S'more whoopies.......



No such luck, I didn't have any graham flour, not a bit to be found or the ingredients to make it up myself so I decided to modify their recipe to see how it worked out.

It worked out pretty well, they were pretty yummy, I would recommend eating them within a couple of days for the best results as they became a little denser with age, unlike the chocolate chip whoopies I usually make.

Oh and I feel like these whoopies are famous now. They were included in a cookie bar at a super amazing Western Party by Sharnel Dollar designs and featured on Amy Atlas.

S'moreWhoopie Pies adapted from Whoopie pies by Sarah Billingsley and Amy Treadwell

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups wheat germ
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
115g (1/2 stick or 4oz) unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar lightly packed
2 large eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp bicarb (baking soda)
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 190C (375F ) and line a couple of baking trays with parchment paper.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and whisk in the wheat germ.

At high speed beat the sugar and brown sugar until light and creamy. Reduce speed to med low and add the eggs one at a time beating until combined and then the buttermilk and vanilla, mix well.

Combine the milk, baking soda and vinegar in a bowl.

Add half the flour mixture to the butter/egg mix and mix on low until combined. Mix in the milk mixture and then the remaining flour mix and continue to mix until well combined.

Using a spoon drop Tablespoons of batter onto the lined baking trays leaving lots of room for the mixture to spread (around 7cm or 2 inches) and bake for 10 minutes or until the cakes begin to brown.

Cool on trays for 5 minutes and gently remove to wire rack to cool.

Sandwich these cakes together with marshmallow creme filling and chocolate ganache. I made a dam of chocolate ganache around the edge of the bottom pie and then filled it with marshmallow creme. When joined together the marshmallow oozed nicely over the top of the ganache. I would probably add another dollop of ganache into the middle of the pie in future for added chocolate yumminess.

Click here for the marshmallow creme recipe

Chocolate ganache, in a microwave on med low setting melt together 225 grams chocolate with 1/2 cup cream for 90 second bursts, stirring between each interval until melted. Leave on a bench to cool and set until firm enough to pipe or spread.

Snowflake flurry cookie bites - cute mini square Christmas cookies

 
I feel like the supermarkets dragging out the the Christmas decorations half way through the year, but I do have a valid reason.

One of my friends is hosting a Christmas in July celebration and asked me to make some of my white snowflake cookies and snowflake cake pops.

Anyhoo to cut a long story short I had just spied some super cute square cookies here and here I was really feeling the square cookie love.



So I decided to try out some incy wincy little square snowflake cookies in a few simple designs and colours.

I'm a bit of a fan of bite sized cookies. I would rather have 2 or 3 tiny cookies than a large one any day so these are perfect for me.

Equipment and Ingredients

24 mini square chocolate cookies
Ready Rolled Fondant (I used Bakels) or marshmallow fondant
mini square cookie cutter (mine was a plastic one from a d.line set which is straight on one side and ruffled on the other)
ball tool
edible silver balls
non toxic glitter or preferably edible glitter
Edible glue (I made mine up with water and Tylose powder)
Snowflake plunger set

Each set was 12 cookies made using a 3.5cm (1 3/8 inch) square cutter then I covered each cookie with ready rolled fondant rolled out on a benchtop dusted with cornflour (cornstarch) to a couple of mm (1/8inch) thick and adhered to the cookie using a little water and pressing on with the rolling pin.

For the single snowflakes I pressed out a snowflake using the smallest cutter from a snowflake plunger set and adhered it to the fondant covered cookie with a teeny amount of water. Using the small end of a ball tool I made an indent into each corner, brushed the indent with a little edible glue and pressed in an edible silver ball.

For the cropped double snowflakes I cut out two snowflakes using the smallest cutter from the snowflake plunger set for each cookie arranged them like I wanted them to sit on the cookie and using the same square cutter I used for the cookies I pressed down to remove the excess edges, using a sharp knife I evened up the edges and adhered the snowflakes to the fondant covered cookie.

For the large cropped snowflake I used the medium snowflake cutter from the plunger set and using the same technique described above cropped the snowflake. In the opposite corner to the snowflake I used the small end of a ball tool to make an indent, brushed the indent with a little edible glue and pressed in an edible silver ball. I then used a ziplock bag filled with royal icing to pipe 5 dots in a curved around the snowflake.


For the random line cookies I piped 2 lines close together at the bottom, a line at an angle crossing the double lines, a single line near the middle of the cookie and another further up near the top. For the white cookie I sprinkled a little non toxic glitter onto the bottom lines to add some interest.

A tale of two cocoas - are big brands worth the big bucks

I've never really been one to discuss brands, I generally think its a personal choice. You know...... use what you prefer, what you can afford and what suits your lifestyle.

Just because I like the taste of something, doesn't mean that you with your personal childhood memories and other influencing factors will agree, so I have tended to stay out of it.

But something happened while I was testing recipes for my cookbook which made me realise that sometimes it does make a difference. I ran out of cocoa and sent Mr Sweet off to the supermarket to pick up some supplies one of them being cocoa and I realised that if you are shopping at the supermarket you might be getting way different results when making my chocolate sugar cookies than I do.


Look at the difference in colour between these 2 cookies, both baked with the same amount of cocoa, just different brands (I checked the labels and there is no alkali in the ingredients). The lighter one on the left is a very well known Australian Supermarket NAME brand of cocoa. The one on the right is made with Woolworths savings black and white NO NAME brand

and the Woolworths no name is soooo much better in this instance. It imparts a better colour and chocolatey taste to the cookie.

I normally use a pretty reasonable quality cocoa for my baking, it's Callebaut brand. I like it. It works for me and the place I pick up my almond meal and other stuff carries it.

So here is another interesting picture, can you tell which one is Callebaut and which one is the Woolworths brand?

Well they look a teeny bit different in the photo but I think it's the lighting, in real life I didn't know which was which. Just for interests sake, the one on the top is the Woolworth's brand.



Anyway I'm going to finish this post by saying that that the cookies made with the other name brand cocoa still tasted good, just in my opinion not quite as good. Also for other purposes like drinking it may be a better option, I'm not sure.

So to wrap up, buy what you like and what makes you happy, I'm just imparting a little bit of info I found interesting.