Thursday, June 30, 2011

Princess Pie Pops - Decorated Cherry Pie pops

 
Poor Princess Pie Guts, there was no fairytale ending for her.


Is it wrong that this picture doesn't make me squeamish just a bit hungry?

Christina from my facebook page anointed them Princess Pie Guts pops and I kinda had to agree with her from this photo. It looked a bit gruesome. Well mostly Yummy but a teensy bit gruesome.


To make them I made a batch of cherry pie pops and then decorated them with fondant. You can buy fondant at cake shops, some supermarkets or make your own marshmallow fondant using this recipe (click here).

First I cut out the pink crowns by hand the day before using a sharp knife, decorating them and laying them out on parchment paper to dry overnight.

Then I cut out the yellow hair by rolling out the fondant thinly and pressing a round cutter down just at the top point, I didn't press it all the way through. it just gave me the impression of the rounded top and then I used the sharp knife to cut around and flicked out at the bottom to make the bobbed hair. This was then pressed onto the pie pop using the tiniest amount of water.


Then I added a couple of eyes, you can use premade eyes or make some yourself with white and black fondant or royal icing. I made my own with fondant and while I was at it I rolled some of the black fondant very thinly and made eyelashes.

I used a little bit of red fondant to make the mouth, I just pinched it into a mouth like shape and the I rolled small amounts of flesh coloured fondant into a small nose.

I mixed up a tiny amount of royal icing using premix (you can get this at woolies now) and stuck the eyes, nose, mouth, crown (which was now stiff after drying overnight) and a couple of little premade flowers I had sitting around.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Red, White and Blue Patriotic Pinwheel cookie pops


Edible Patriotic Pinwheels made out of Fondant




I've had these in mind for a while now....probably coming up to 12 months just after I missed the boat last year.

They're decorated on both sides....in different designs, which is a pretty cool idea if I do say so myself.

Also not as tricky as it seems.

and just to put some ideas into your head while your whipping some up you could use these fondant pinwheels to decorate anything. Cakes, cake pops, pies (my latest obsession). Yes if you can eat it you can pretty much stick one of these twirly whirly babies on it.

Plus you can make them any pattern you like, and if your not really into the whole double sided fondant thing you could just decorate one square of fondant with some edible food writers and draw on any design you wanted.

But before I get into the how to make these sweet pinwheels I have to say my camera is driving me CRAZY. I must buy a proper one so that I can get some lovely shots for you all. I may have mentioned it before but I am completely hopeless when it comes to anything remotely technical so ANY suggestions would be most welcome.


Oh and those cute 'ole stripy sticks holding up the pinwheel cookies are actually paper straws cut to size and popped over the top of the paper lollipop sticks.



Ingredients & Equipment to make Patriotic Pinwheels

White fondant
Red fondant
Blue fondant
Small rolling pin
Square cookie cutter
small star ejector cutter
pizza cutter  (or sharp knife)
Sharp knife
cornflour (cornstarch)
small dish of water and brush
Parchment paper cut into squares a couple of inches larger than your square cutter

Roll out the white fondant as thinly as you can and cut out square shape. Working quickly roll out the red fondant as thinly as you can and cut out square shape. Use the pizza cutter to cut the square into thin red stripes.


Using a tiny amount of water adhere the red stripes onto the white fondant square leaving an even amount of white showing between each red stripe. Gently roll over the top of the red and white stripe fondant with the rolling pin. Place the fondant square stripe side down on the parchment paper.

Still working quickly roll our the blue fondant as thinly as possible and cut out a square shape, use a small amount of water to adhere the blue square to the back of the red and white stripe square (ie the all white side).



Roll out some more white fondant and using the small star ejector cutter cut out enough stars to place on the blue fondant, use a little water to adhere if necessary.

Gently roll over the top of the blue and white star fondant square with the rolling pin. Use the sharpe knife to even up the edges and ensure the red and white stripe side and blue and white star side are flush and even, discard any excess fondant.
 
Using the sharp knife cut from the edge of each corner towards the middle slicing through both layers of fondant. Leave an area about 1cm (1/2inch) in diameter in the center that you do not cut through.

Take one of the corners of fondant and carefully pull it down towards the center, looping the fondant over, repeat for remaining 3 corners ensuring that the loops all go in the same direction.


Break off small sections of plastic wrap and scrunch into small balls to stick inside the pinwheel loops while the fondant dries. Leave a day or so until set.

Then make some round cookie pops, cover with fondant and stick the pinwheels on with a little bit of royal icing. Click here for my previous post on snowflake cookies for instructions on  how to make and cover cookies.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Pirate Pie Pop Treats - Arrrrgh Me matey's I'm Back

   
It's funny how things work out.

I've been working on a pretty huge project for someone else for a couple of months which I just finished last weekend. So I planned on having a rejuvenating me week and easing myself back into the blog, maybe a catch up of some of the fabulous things I have been lucky enough to work on in my spare time, but no baking, no siree, I had moved my kitchen aid off the bench which is code in this house for baking hiatus.

I was feeling kinda creativity sapped....nothing left.
But then it happened, 2 days into my week of me I had a stray thought that I had never seen a decorated pie pop and wondered why.

It just wouldn't leave me alone, I couldn't wait.  Those decorated pies kept calling me, so at 2am that morning I found myself up and baking a batch of cherry pie pops so they would be ready for decorating the next day. Yup Really 2am in the morning! At the time it seemed like the only sensible thing to do.

and here is my sneaking out in the middle of the night results. Pirate pie pops. The kids are wrapped in this new creation so I'm calling it a success and have already started on more.


and they're easy as pie.....here's how I decorated them.
Shiver me Timbers Pirate Pie Pops

Ingredients
Baked and cooled pie pops (6 to 7 cm or 3 inches)
Red Marshmallow/Ready to Roll Fondant
Black Marshmallow/ Ready to Roll fondant (or black royal icing)
White Royal icing (I used premix royal icing powder mixed with a tiny amount of water so that it was stiff)
Round cutter
Sharp knife
small rolling pin
10 ready made eyes (or make your own from fondant)

Roll out the red fondant until a couple of millimeters (1/8th inch) thick and cut out a round with the cutter.

Cut a straight line across it 3.5cm (1 3/8 inch) from the top to make the bandana. Then cut 2 thin long triangle to look like the bandana's knot/tie. Press the half circle onto the top of the pie and the 2 triangles at one side with the larger ends touching the edge of the half circle 'bandana'.
Take a small piece of black fondant and roll it out like a long log to make a thin strap about 5cm (2inch) long. Press it onto the pie starting about halfway across the head and draping down to the side to look like the strap of an eye patch. Roll another small piece of black fondant into a small ball and then press flat to make an eye patch, stick onto the pirate head pie across the strap where the eye should be. Roll another small piece of black fondant into a thin log about 2.5cm (1inch) long and shape into a smile, press on where the pirate pie's mouth should be. (Alternately you can do all this black fondant work with some black royal icing.)


Pop the white royal icing into a small ziplock bag and cut a tiny hole in the corner to make an easy disposable piping bag. Using the royal icing stick the premade eye into place and then pipe lots of tiny dots onto the red fondant bandana to appear like polka dots.

Allow to dry and once set you can eat straight away of store in an airtight container for a couple of days.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Vanilla Frappuccino Cupcakes


Vanilla Frappuccino Cupcakes. I know YUM how super delicious do they look.

I'm going to share something which seeings as I love sweets so much you might think is weird, but I don't like real cream. 


Buttercream I am totally into, certain types of that super fake mock cream I really like (hello jam and cream donuts) but real cream from a cow just does not do it for me.

But I love the look of it, I always want to say yes to spiraling swirls of cream when I pick up my fancy coffees but I never do and end up with flat looking although still delicious decaf treats (Ummm decaf yes :( yet another weird thing).

So to make myself feel a bit special I made up these super dooper swirly Vanilla Frappuccino cupcakes.

and then I popped them into my favourite cup.


OK so I'm going to have to show off this cup because it is my favourite and I love it. It's a Spode lidded chocolate cup, so that your hot chocolate stays warm of course......ha like mine ever lasts long enough to go cold.

Truthfully I didn't come up with the cupcake in a cup idea, totally stole it after seeing some inspiring pictures from the lovely Penny's facebook page at P.S. I love you.

But the cupcake is totally mine.

To make the cupcakes pipe coffee vanilla buttercream (recipe below) onto vanilla cupcakes using a Wilton #1M tip swirling around like your making a soft serve icecream. Practice a couple of times on the workbench if you like before you start on the cupcakes.


Sprinkle a little cocoa powder or drinking chocolate onto the top of the cupcake. I use a tea strainer to do stuff like this as it is easy to control. Just pop the cocoa into the strainer hold over the top of the cupcake and gently tap against your other hand.

Finish off with a mini straw wafer cookie, the ones in the picture are mini corinthian ones you can pick up at Woolies, but any brand will do. Make sure you pop the cookie straws in just before serving as they get soggy if you leave them in.


Coffee Vanilla Buttercream

228g unsalted butter (8 oz or 2 sticks) at room temperature
60ml milk (1/4 cup)
6 cups sifted icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
2 tsp vanilla extract
3tsp instant coffee mixed with a small amount of hot water, just enough to melt it.

Pop the unsalted butter, milk and 4 cups of icing sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix at high speed until light and fluffy about 5-6 minutes. Scrape down sides as required. Add the remaining sugar one cup at a time mixing for 2-3 minutes between additions. Add the vanilla and coffee and mix well.

If the buttercream is not the correct consistency add extra milk 10mls at a time (I didn't add any extra to this one).


Any cupcake will do the Vanilla cupcake I used is the Magnolia recipe, I don't post other people's recipes here on my blog but I am sure you could find it if you searched.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

C & J's wedding


I have been a bit of a poor blogger at the moment. Life has been a bit crazy as life is.

One of the things I have been busy with is making the cake, figurines and cupcakes for my cousin's wedding.

It's not really something I do for people, or am particularly great at, but the bride is adorable and was the flower girl at my wedding years ago.

Plus she is the total opposite of a bridzilla, more of a sweeterella and wanted a really relaxed yet elegant looking cupcake tower.

The tower was 80 vanilla cupcakes and with a one tier chocolate mudcake topped with figurines I made myself out of ready roll fondant. In the darkish reception it looked pretty good.

C & J wishing you a lifetime of joy, happiness, health and sweetness ♥
 

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Toadstool and Dragonfly cookies for Polkadot Prints Down in the Garden Party


You must pop on over and check out the lovely Down in the Garden Party created by Jordan of Polkadot Prints that has been featured on Hostess with the Mostess.


The cute little toadstools and dragonflies were made by little ole me.


The pictures there are oh so cute and the styling is so very cool and check out the printables and packaging which is all available at Polkadot prints.

I had a bit of fun working on this as I really like toadstools, I may have driven Jordan kinda a bit crazy emailing her different designs.


See here is an example of the craziness, want to know how many cookies will fit in your treat bag, I'll send you a picture of a few different cookies next to a ruler.




Oh and Besser nice work on that ruler I got in a sample bag like 15 years ago at the Ekka (fair), advertising is still paying off ;)

Toadstool Cookies

The toadstool cookies were hand cut chocolate sugar cookie decorated with hand cut rolled fondant and the white dots were a icing sugar glaze. Well actually just water and icing sugar mixed up to the consistency I wanted.

(The test cookies were all rolled fondant)

Dragonfly Cookies

The dragonflies were made using a cookie cutter from Details Details and decorated with fondant, silver cashous, white glaze, silver luster dust and the bodies were a mixture of cocoa and icing sugar, the same recipe I used for the cross on the hot cross muffins I made CLICK here for link. The chocolate glaze was not the best for piping but I was really loving the taste at the time. I just piped it in one big thick line up the middle.

Here is one of the reject dragonfly samples, he was too cute, sometime life is like that :(





Credits

Top 4 photos by Polkadot Prints
Party styling printables treat bags etc by Polkadot Prints


Friday, April 22, 2011

Coconut Easter Eggs fun for the kids


I love to spend time in the kitchen with my kids. We always have a great time even though more often than not it means 3 times the cleaning at the end.

Making these super sweet coconut Easter eggs together has become a tradition that we enjoy together every year. Sometimes we invite along friends and make it a Easter egg making party along with a bit of Easter basket making craft and the kids get to take home all the eggs they make at the end.

Make sure that everyone washes their hands before you start....although once you start there will probably be lots of hand licking. For that sticky spitty reason I like to make sure that everyone has a separate basket ready to pop their finished eggs into.


The sweet baskets in the pictures are from Sharnel Dollar Designs.

Coconut Easter Eggs make around  30 eggs

Ingredients
500gm icing sugar sifted
3 cups dessicated coconut
1 tin condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
food colour

Combine icing sugar, coconut, condensed milk and vanilla in a large bowl and mix well and all ingredients are combined evenly. I love to let the kids do the mixing even though it takes a little bit longer and a lot of cleaning up afterwards. As this mixture is quite firm you might need to help the kids out towards the end.

Divide mixture into 4 and colour as desired. Make sure the colour is mixed in well and distributed evenly. If it's just for the family I don't see any problems with letting the kids mix the colour in with their freshly washed hands squashing it together and kneading it.

At this stage the mixture should not be too wet, you can leave it uncovered for 10mins or so to let it set a bit, or if you are concerned you have added to much colour pop a tiny bit extra coconut and icing sugar to firm it up.

Break off small pieces about the size of a ping pong ball and roll between the palms of your hands to form into an egg shape. This part is especially fun for kids and I always let mine break off sections and roll however they want. Making perfect eggs is not important but having fun is.

If you would like to make 'real' looking eggs leave some of the mixture plain and colour some yellow to make 'yolks'. Make the yellow into a tiny ball and then flatten out a ping pong ball sized piece of natural colour mixture, flatten it out and wrap around the yellow 'yolk'. Roll the egg in between your palms until it resembles an egg in shape.

Eggs can be stored in an airtight container for at least 7 days if they last that long.