Deck the halls…

I know my posts are usually baking related but I love Christmas so here is my wreath project which I am very proud of, all hand made because the stores just didn’t have my colours!

Strawberry Tree

 

These tarts were another “see what you can find in the fridge” creation. I had tart pastry left over from the lemon tarts, don’t worry it was still usable, as well as strawberries and cream cheese from the weekend before. Add a little help from Martha and we're cooking.

 This recipe I used I fumbled upon while looking for strawberry tarts that only used what I already had. Obviously I used my pastry so I can’t comment on the pastry she recommends but mine had more of a crunch to it and I think it complemented the soft light centre well.

Since the pastry had been sitting in the freezer it was a little dry when I was kneading it so I added a little milk until it was nice and doughy again. Also I was just a little short on cream cheese so I used Tofutti to make up the difference and no one was the wiser! As usual I made it in the tartlet tray and they came out perfect and because the pastry was chocolate I drizzled a little white chocolate on the finished product just coz’ it Christmas.

And just cos’ its Christmas I shaped it into a tree!

Let the Christmasing begin!

I have been doing a whole lot'a Christmas baking but first to get us all in the Christmas spirit:

A Very Late Halloween

 

Yes I know Halloween was over a month ago and I may or may not have forgotten to blog this (oops) but better late then never right? Anyhow I am sorry and here they are, my very late Halloween cupcakes.

See these were made under huge time constraint and so I went with the “look at what’s already in your cupboard and decorate” method and all completed in two hours flat!

First up, "BOO!" Since I made smaller cupcakes than usual all three letters wouldn’t fit on one so I split them up. I have always liked the fondant finish on cupcakes and even though it was my first go these were super easy to make and turned out really neat. Frost the cupcake lightly and then attach the fondant cut out. I also suggest cutting out the fondant at the very last second so the fondant does'nt start to harden. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now if it is cooler this will be enough to make it stick but since Melbourne is temperamental I found out later on that frosting does not appreciate spikes in temperature so if in doubt use something firmer like royal icing. I attached the letters with a little bit of water and held it there for a bit to make sure it stayed.  

 

For the classic "spider web" cupcake I didn’t have enough time to make an edible spiders to go with it but I think it’s still very effective. I coloured white frosting green, for a more menacing look, and warmed it a little so I could dip the cupcake right in instead of fiddling with a specular. The dipping gives it a cleaner look when it dries. However once you’ve dipped you have to be quick, draw a spiral with black writing icing and with a toothpick drag away from the centre. Here you have it:

 

 

Nothing says Halloween like creepy crawlies especially when they taste this good. For the “worms in the mud” cupcakes I frosted the cupcakes with chocolate frosting, sprinkled Oreo crumbs, halved gummy worms and stuck them in the cupcake. It was literally that easy! 

 

 

 

 

Ah and then there were the “fangs”. My love affair with vampires began thanks to Ann Rice and so naturally vampire fangs had to be on my cupcakes. Again I went with the fondant finish on the cupcake, white offcourse, and then got some teeth candy and sniped the last teeth into points. To add that little bit more I coloured some frosting red and dipped the teeth in and placed it on the cupcake. 

All the “mummies” required were two MnM’s as eyes and a piping tip with a smooth flat side. I used a basketweave tip and making sure that the flat side was on top pipe on the bandages. The beauty is that with the mummy the piping doesn’t have to be particularly tidy or symmetrical because hey it’s a mummy! Just make sure to go over the eyes so they stay on.

 

The “pumpkin patch” took the longest just because I made the pumpkin topper. For the grass I used green frosting and a large star tip. Again it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to look like grass. For the pumpkin I rolled an orange ball of fondant, flattened the bottom so it wouldn’t roll and with a skewer poked a hole on the top and indented the sides to make it a bit more realistic. With a little green fondant I made a few vines and Voila!

1UP

Another one inspired by Nerdy Nummies and since I had a Bbq to go to it seemed like a good time to try it out, yay test subjects!

This one wasn’t hard as such just fiddly. As usual I rolled the balls in to circles but to make it a bit more realistic I indented the bottom with my thumb.

Four bags of marshmallows later my sage advice about the bottoms of the mushrooms? Use gluten free marshmallows! They are firmer and therefore don’t deform when you pop them on a stick. Also dusting the stick with powered sugar helps it slide into position. And its keeps getting tricker; attach the cake pop, dip but don’t attach the marshmallow straight away. Let the chocolate dry for a bit and when you think its safe (deep breath) slide the marshmallow down and hold it against the cake pop. By letting the chocolate dry a bit first you ensure that the chocolate doesn’t drip all over the marshmallow. I do warn you though, it is messy and almost impossible, on the first go anyway, not to taint your pretty white mellows with chocolate.

Repeat with different colours and ta da! I settled on 1UP(green with white dots), Super (Red with white dots) and Life (Red with yellow stars). Because I pre-cut the shapes the hardened a little when I put them on. I suggest waiting until all the pops are dry and cutting out the shapes as you so they mould to the cake pop and don’t stick out as much.

 A bit messy but they taste great!

Pretty in Pink Butterflies

So I subscribed to Cake Decorating, the magazine. Yeah I am that person but in my defence they come with freebies! So far I have the first three, the first came with butterfly cutters and pink glitter, the second with piping bags and tips and the third with letter embossers. Apparently October is the month for birthdays so I thought the best way to say a blanket “Happy Birthday” to multiple friends (and really the only way I know how) was with double chocolate cupcakes.

 

Butterflies toppers first; I’ve used store bought gum paste before (for the bunny ears) but I don’t really like the taste so first mission was to make marshmallow fondant. My little sister has been making her own fondant for ages and I was always assumed it was rocket science but for the most part it’s just sticky. Most of the recipes I found are exactly the same. This video from about.com is probably the most thorough. My only tip is to use powered sugar when kneading, the mix can get very sticky. Since I couldn’t find a packet of only white mellows, I bought three packs of the strawberry and vanilla and separated the colours. I don’t like wastage so instead of colouring the white fondant I used the pink mellows for pink fondant.

Once the fondant is done I suggest refrigerating it for a bit so its firm enough to work with. For the butterfly toppers to look 3D the butterfly cut outs need to dry in the form. You can buy fondant forms/shapers but you can also make it yourself. To make the form take a large sheet of foil and fold accordion length wise.   

 

Once the butterflies are completely dry, if you’re unsure leave to dry overnight, you can decorate. I used a little bit of water to paint on the glitter and attach the cachous.

You can attach the butterflies once the glitter has dried. The thing I learnt a couple of hours later was that frosting doesn’t dry hard like butter cream and the moisture from frosting causes the butterflies to wilt a bit. My suggestion, use butter cream frosting or add the toppers just before you serve.

Magic Goodies

So my partner plays Magic The Gathering every Friday like clockwork and being the good girlfriend that I am I decided to bake him themed cookies. This particular Friday they had an event on and I didn’t want anyone to loose out so Thursday night I set out to make a hundred sugar cookies from scratch!

 I honestly did think that this would be easy, time consuming but easy. Boy did I have another thing coming! The sugar cookies were easy enough. I’ve made sugar cookies before from Joy of Baking. Joy of Baking is my first choice for recipes because most of the recipes are tested so I know it’ll turn out perfect and mine turned out amazing! I doubled the recipe to get the hundred cookies and I would suggest only baking them for only 10-12 minutes depending on size. Because they are chocolate sugar cookies you cant see them going brown so be very careful not to burn them.

Cookies done and now for the icing; again I used the recipe from The Joy of Baking. I used royal icing because it dries had and therefore easier to transport. I’ve used this recipe before but it was a very long time and never in on such a large scale. First things first, you want the icing at piping consistency. Anything thicker and you’ll need to spatular it on and anything runnier and it’ll just roll off. The best way I found to put the icing on was to pipe on a circle outline and then fill in the circle. If you don’t want the layer of icing to be too thick then put a little bit on spread it with a toothpick. Also remember that the type of food colouring you use will affect the consistency so if you want really vibrant colours I would suggest using gel or powder food colouring.    

Now for the chocolate toppers, I initially got the idea for these from Nerdy Nummies but I wasn’t about to make a hundred cupcakes by myself so I just used the chocolate toppers. In theory this looks easy; you get a template, trace it out with chocolate and leave it to dry. Not quite. This probably goes without saying but tape both the template and the wax paper that you are tracing on down. I melted the chocolate in the piping bag and then snipped a tiny hole. Because the hole needs to be relatively small make sure all the chocolate is melted otherwise it will block the opening. If I had opted for a basic shape maybe this part would have been easier but some of the symbols are tricky so this part took a lot longer than I thought. It also didn’t help that I don’t have a very steady hand so I ended up going to bed at about seven am! Here’s the end result.