Gorjuss Inspired Woodlands Cookies

Yes, it was just last month that I said I was planning on keeping things sweet and simple in the cookie classes this year. And then I come along with this Gorjuss doll inspired "Walk in the Woods" cookie class....

Not so simple, perhaps - but oh, so sweet.
And an opportunity to decorate woodlands-themes again. My absolute favourite!

The first step in decorating the Gorjuss girls, was getting their image on the cookie. 

Two gorgeous Gorjuss stamps made that easy. 

Stamping on cookies is really simple, and I've covered the technique before - here. 

After the image is on the cookie, it's just a matter of staging which areas you fill with icing. 

I outlined an area with detail consistency royal icing using a small Ateco 00 piping tip, then flooded with 15 second icing using an Ateco 01 tip. 

It's important to let the icing set before flooding an adjacent area.

Another option, which is a little quicker, is to paint on the colour.   

                                     

Edible paint is made by mixing a little powdered colour with  clear alcohol or water. 

Here's a post I did recently on painting on cookies - http://teacakeandcreate.blogspot.co.za/2018/01/painted-tropical-leaf-cookies.html

The take home message from that post is that because your "canvas" tends to dissolve if it gets too wet, the trick with painting onto royal icing, is to avoid going over recently painted areas with more paint - too much moisture dissolves the icing. Rather allow coats to dry in between applications, or complete an area with one application of paint only. 

                          

It's so very satisfying to see these cookies come to life as you fill in the details.

Full kudos, of course, to Santoro, the creators of the Gorjuss range!

Happy decorating!  

xxM 

Pumpkin and Carrot Muffins

What's better than carrot muffins? Try carrot and pumpkin muffins -yes,  yum!

I am a big fan of orange vegetables: pumpkin, butternut and orange sweet potato ❲not so much carrots, unless they're cooked or baked❳...

In fact, I ate butternut so regularly at one stage, that I turned a light shade of orange. 

Really. True story! 

That was back in the day when I was a little ...um... obsessive about what I ate. 

I'm a lot more balanced now. 

And a normal shade of peach. 

But don't let talk of carotenemia put you off these double-veg muffins! 

You don't really taste the carrots or the pumpkin; they add a lovely, subtle background flavour, and contribute a lot of moistness to the final product. 

I've included ground almonds in the recipe because these muffins are destined for school lunch-boxes, and I wanted to up their protein-content. You could replace it with normal cake flour, if you don't have almond flour.

Pumpkin and Carrot Muffins
Recipe by Tea, Cake & Create

Preheat the oven to 180'C
Prepare 2x 12 hole muffin trays with cupcake cases

Ingredients 
320g cake flour
50g almond flour / ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp salt
50g pumpkin seeds

250g brown sugar
250ml canola oil
4 large eggs

250g finely grated carrots
150g mashed / pureed roast pumpkin


Sift together the dry ingredients ❲excl the sugar❳. Add in the pumpkin seeds.
In another bowl, whisk the sugar, eggs and oil together.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients, followed by the pumpkin and carrots. Mix until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin trays. Sprinkle the tops with a few extra pumpkin seeds, if desired.

Bake at 180'C for approx. 20min, or until the top of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed.

Remove from the muffin trays and cool on a wire rack.
Once cool, store in an airtight container.

I usually freeze half the batch, and thaw a couple at a time as needed for school lunches.

Happy baking!

xxM

Kitchen Tea Bouquet Cookies

I remember sketching wedding gowns as a child - they always had sweetheart necklines, huge puffy sleeves and flamboyant skirts ❲I was a child during the 80's; watching Princess Diana walk down the aisle when I was 6 made a lasting impression! ❳ 

There's still a little girl in me that loves designing wedding dresses, and wedding cakes too - but I'll  stick to making the cookie kind, thank you!

These cookies were part of a special kitchen tea class we did in March.
The colours were ivory, pink, dark green and taupe; with lots of roses - wet-on-wet ones, and also pre-made, dried royal icing roses ❲simple swirls, ribbon roses, and blooms piped with a petal tip❳.

The beauty of making dozens of little icing roses in advance, is that they can easily be added to any cookie and add a pretty extra dimension to your design. 

         Bouquet Cookie:

• Flood the cookie with ivory royal icing
• Decorate with wet-on-wet roses. These take a little bit of practice - but are quite forgiving in this cookie because they're part of the background. 
• Pipe on some stems. 
• Now leave the icing to set. 
• Arrange a selection of dried royal icing roses onto your bouquet. 
• When you are happy with the arrangement, pipe a dot of royal icing behind each and secure in place. 
• Pipe on a few more stems, leaves, gypsophila dots, and the bow. 

And if you need a little help with your roses, three of my favourite cookie decorators can help you -  

• View Sweetambs tutorial on wet-on-wet roses here; 
• Sweet Sugarbelle's tutorial on simple swirl roses here;
• The Bearfoot Baker's tutorial on piping royal icing roses here. 

Practice makes pretty 😊

Happy decorating!

xxM

Easter Plaque Cookies

So these were the Easter cookies that didn't make it to the finals. 

Looking at them now, I'm not sure what I was so dis-satisfied with...

The colours were bothering me, I wanted something fresher. 

And the designs seemed too fussy. 

But my dissatisfaction probably had more to do with my headspace on the day that I was making them, than the cookies themselves.
I mean, just look at that bunny peeping over the edge of the cookie - he's totally huggable, isn't he⁈ And eminently edible.... 😋

Probably the biggest reason why they didn't cut it though, was because there was a fair amount of trimming involved in the cookie-baking process:
the mini egg cut out of the egg; the trimmed-off bottom of the large bunny face; and the plaque cookie ⦗bunny holding plaque, pic above, and lamb with plaque, pic below⦘.
For those I used a normal plaque cutter, and cut off one end using a small heart, to create that scalloped bottom.

Not so fussy, really, but just a little too much to take on as bulk-baking for busy classes. 

They weren't discarded, though  - instead of being class demo's these cookies went to school cake-sale, and all found loving homes 😉

Perhaps I'll give them a try again next year. What do you think?

I hope you've had a lovely Easter!

xxM