Unicorn Cookies: Pinwheels

When I scheduled these classes a few months ago, I was pretty sure that the craze would be dying down by now, but it seems I underestimated the magical power of unicorns!

I'm ready to move on though... Unicorn toppers, unicorn cupcakes, unicorn cakes and unicorn cookies - that's it. Ping, I'm done.

I have really enjoyed making them, though - it's always a pleasure decorating with pastels. And it also gave me the excuse to decorate pinwheel cookies, which I've been wanting to do for a while.
 Ok, so it's a bit of a stretch - unicorns, rainbows, pinwheels...
But aren't they lovely and whimsical, too?

Here's an approach to a pinwheel cookie:
Draw your crosses, shade the smaller triangles, then outline and flood those.
Once the smaller triangles have dried, outline and flood the larger ones.
(Find a recipe for royal icing and a description of consistencies here).

 I think we can happily retire our unicorns, now. Don't you? 

No, you're right - probably not!

Happy decorating! 

xxM 

Unicorn Cookies: Gold Lustre

Ever have those days when you're just not in the zone; when your cookie decorating is anything but magical?! 

The day I made this set of unicorn cookies I had to navigate leaking icing bags, breaking biscuits, and an oven temperature that was accidentally bumped up 100'C.  

All that, and about a dozen interruptions. *Sigh!*

So, I wasn't exactly feeling the magic that day.

I had to do some cosmetic surgery on the unicorns the following day.  

But my mood improved considerably when, for the first time,  I tried using lustre dust mixed with coconut oil. What a brilliant sheen!
We don't have a wide selection of edible lustres available to us here, and generally the effect once a lustre dust is mixed with alcohol or water and painted onto royal icing isn't as smooth or as solid as I'd like.
The mixture with coconut oil, though, is beautiful! 

On the cookie in the picture, the top stripe is the lustre dust mixed with water; followed by vodka in the middle, and the bottom stripe is with coconut oil: a lovely solid sheen.  

So that's what I used on the unicorns horns and hooves - only one coat necessary.

One downside is that the coconut oil isn't a liquid at room temperature. 

You have to heat it to get it to liquify initially, then keep it in a little hot water bath to stop it solidifying one you've mixed in the lustre. 

And the coconut oil mixture doesn't sink into the icing the way the other two solutions do, so it rubs off a little.
If your cookies need to be packaged and shipped off, rather use another solvent. But if they're for a display platter, give the coconut oil mixture a try.

Because it's oil-based, it'll be an good mixture to use on modelling chocolate and modelling chocolate / fondant blends, too. 

Happy decorating!

xxM 

Mixed Berry Macarons

It's nearly time to pack up the macaron-making equipment now that warmer, wetter weather is on it's way. Because, trust me - if you haven't tried making macarons yet, the humid months are not the time to start! There are enough variables in macaron-making already. I choose to avoid the stress of doing it during climatological conditions that are outside of my control. Not that I have control issues, or anything...!

But, while we still can: let's go out with a berry blast...

These macarons are filled with a combination of white chocolate ganache and mixed berry jam.
 It's important to use a good quality jam or preserve, with lots of real fruit - you want to taste the tartness of the berries through the sweetness of the white chocolate.

Mixed Berry Macarons
Recipe by Tea, Cake & Create

Macarons

3 egg whites (100g-110g), at room temp. Aged for 2-3 days.
2 tbs (30ml) caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
200g icing sugar
125g ground almonds/ almond flour
A few drops of purple/pink gel colour


Prepare baking trays with parchment. Make sure that the parchment is flat and that the trays aren't warped.

Pulse the almond flour and icing sugar in a food processor until well mixed and finely ground.  Sift into a bowl. Discard the large granules which don't pass through the sieve.

Whisk the egg whites at low speed with an electric beater until frothy, then add the cream of tartar. 
Beat until soft peaks form, then add the caster sugar, slowly down the side of the bowl.  
Beat at high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold in the gel colour. 

Sift half the almond flour / icing sugar mix into the meringue and fold in.   
Then sift in the remaining almond flour and icing sugar. Once again discard any large granules.

Use a spatula and a figure-of-8 motion to gently fold the batter until it is loosened and falls in "ribbons" from the spatula.
(This is a tricky part - as you need to avoid both under-mixing, and over-mixing!)  

Transfer to an icing bag with the tip cut off or one fitted with a large plain round icing nozzle (not more than 1cm diameter).

Pipe small dots of batter beneath the corners of the baking parchment to keep it in place on the baking trays.

Pipe your macaron rounds - about 3-4cm diameter, about 2cm apart. Pull your piping tip to the side - this leaves a tiny tail, which will settle. 
Rap the trays twice on the counter to release air bubbles. 

Now, turn on your oven to 150'C

Leave the macarons to stand for approx. 30minutes until they form a "skin" - ie. when touched with a clean, dry finger they aren't sticky.

Bake at 150'C for 15-16 minutes.
Check that they're not browning as the end of the baking time approaches.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes, then remove the macaron shells from the trays. If they are undercooked, they will stick to the parchment. You can pop them back into the warm oven for a few more minutes just to dry out a little more.
(Macarons are best after being filled and left for 24hrs - the filling rehydrates them a bit.) 

White Chocolate Ganache

150g white chocolate, broken into small even sized pieces

50ml cream

Place the white chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. (Don't let the bowl come in direct contact with the water).  

Stir occasionally until all the chocolate has melted.

Alternatively, microwave for 30second bursts, stirring in between - until the chocolate has melted, and the ganache is smooth.  

Allow the ganache to cool and firm up until it reaches a pipe-able consistency. 

Pipe a ring of ganache on a macaron shell. 

Add a spoonful of jam into the centre. Sandwich with a second macaron shell.  

Refrigerate the assembled macarons overnight. Allow to come to room temperature before serving. 

... and enjoy!

Happy baking!

xxM 

Vertical Striped Sponge Cake

When I posted pictures of this cake on Facebook and Instagram , I called it a "simple cake".
It wasn't....

It's origin goes back a few weeks to when I was making some sheet cakes to use for mini's. 

They baked a lot thinner than what I wanted, so I cling-wrapped them, and put them in the freezer, for some use that I'd have to figure out later. 

Well, later came and I realised they were perfect to use for making a cake with vertical stripes. 

One of those things that seems easy enough until you try it. 😅

Style Sweet CA did a much better job of it than I, so here's a link to her blog post and tutorial

https://www.stylesweetca.com/blog/2014/04/07/vertical-stripe-cake

It drives me a little crazy that my stripes aren't all perfectly even and parallel. But I'm going to pass it off as a first attempt, and part of the learning curve.... which is a curve and not a straight line !

The cake itself is ganache-covered vanilla sponge using this recipe, filled with a turkish delight buttercream. More on that in a future post 😉  

Happy baking and creating!  

xxM 

Pokemon Cake Pokeball Topper

I will admit to catching the odd Pokemon - purely for research purposes, of course!
It's hard to make a themed-cake if you know nothing about the subject, right?!

So, if you don't know much about Pokemon or the game, Pokemon Go...
 that's a Pokeball on top of the cake (essential for catching Pokemon) and that's Snorlax, my son's favourite, sleeping on top of the ball, with Pikachu on his back.
The night sky background is inspired by the game icon's background.
(Lots of research, I tell you!)

Jack had drawn a design of the cake that he wanted...

...which as you can see wasn't quite like the end product. But I included all the elements he'd requested - interpreting them in a way that worked for me. And he was very happy with the result. Thank goodness!

This is how I made the Pokeball topper:

• Smear a thin layer of  Holsum / Crisco over the polystyrene ball. 
• Drape and mould red paste over the ball  - using a modelling chocolate/ fondant blend really helps with pliability. Support the ball in a teacup. 
• Use nylon string/ dental floss to mark off an indentation where you're going to trim. 
• Allow the paste to firm up, then invert the ball in an appropriately sized bowl and repeat with the white paste.  
• Make sure that the gap between the red and white paste is as even and neat as possible. Use a strip of paper cut to size as a template/ guide if necessary. 
• Cut out a strip of black paste and secure it in the gap. 
• Finish with circles of black and white paste. 

 I like to use Holsum as my "glue" when working with modelling chocolate/ fondant blends like this, because if you need to remove the paste and re-do or re-position, the Holsum kneads easily in and doesn't leave any residual tackiness/ bleeding of colours.

With the 2D appliqué above, I used Holsum to initially place it and check positioning, then stuck it down securely with melted chocolate.  

I can't tell you how relieved I am to have successfully navigated through a Pokemon themed party! 

I am going to start priming Jack now with a theme I can get my head around a little easier for next year! 

Happy decorating!

xxM 

Pokeball Cookies

This theme...
It would not be my first choice, I tell you. But a mother's gotta do what a mother's gotta do, right?!

So here I am, decorating Pokeballs.

They're actually not so bad. Just three colours! Yay!
But that they're round. And we all know the challenges I have with symmetry!

Anyway, here goes:

• Royal icing in three colours and two consistencies. 
• Use a template to help define areas. 
• Outline with detail-consistency royal icing.
• Flood with flooding-consistecy royal icing. 
• Allow the white area and red area to set before piping in the black. 
• The little white circle in the middle is done wet-on-wet onto the black icing (which I figured was the easiest way to make sure it was round!) 

If you've got an airbrush, add a little airbrushing with red to give the balls some depth.
See - not so bad!

Now I need to go decorate a Pokemon inspired cake. Give me strength!
😉

xxM