Cakes in Disguise

Mince Pies

2013-01-13T12:01:00.000+01:00

Mince Pies they said... Easy they said... I fooled myself into believing I was a pastry expert having not made pastry in oh maybe 8 years and that was a once off occasion.

It all started when I "made" mince pies with my Mom a few weeks before Christmas. They were yummy. Full of confidence, I volunteered to make the mince pies for Christmas (as I knew this current batch wouldn't make it through the night).

Mince Pies of Various Quality

However, things weren't so idyllic when I began the process in my own little kitchen. In my mind I'd made mince pies perfectly that Sunday afternoon in my mother's kitchen. However, on reflection I realised what really happened:

My mother made the pastry.
I watched.
My mother selected the temperature.
I turned the dial.
My mother told me how thick to roll the pastry and how to do it properly.
I rolled the pastry.
My mother chose a suitable diameter cutter.
I cut the pastry.
My mother chose a suitably shallow baking tray.
I pressed the pastry into the tray.
My mother dished out the mince pie filling.
I watched.
My mother placed the trays in the oven.
I watched.
My mother stated that they were ready.
I removed them from the oven.

You see, to a child that would be baking mince pies but in reality I was my mother's assistant and I didn't really take in much of her advice. On realising this I turned to Nigella fooled by her knowledge of all things tarty. What a let down! I also decided to ignore my mother's suggestions and rolled the pastry too thick and made the pies too deep but really it was all Nigella's fault.

What was I to do with all these mediocre mince pies. I couldn't bring them home for Christmas. So I invited some friends over for mince pies and cream. Mwhahahahahaha. My friend's will eat anything. Success!

Time was ticking. I was now the morning of the 23rd of December and I had not packed, wrapped my presents, cleaned the house and of course produced the mince pies! I was also booked for the afternoon and evening. Lets just say there was a lot of flour split that morning. I turned my back on Nigella and entrusted my sanity in Gordon of all people but it was successful in fairness.

Gordon Ramsay having the lols.

In my frenzied state I doubled the recipe just incase I messed up again. I lost count of how many pies I made. It was beyond what was required for 7 people but not to worry my brother in law made sure none went to waste.

So in the end, everyone was happy and my celiac housemate didn't die despite the place being coated in flour. I would recommend Gordon Ramsey's Shortcrust Pastry as his videos make it very easy to follow and of course always listen to your mother :) Less is more when making mince pies, thin pastry, shallow pies, less filling and of course less pies!

Edward Scissors Hands

2011-10-29T10:38:00.000+01:00

Trimming the Hedge

My homemade Edward Scissors Hands costume for Halloween 2007 is by far my favourite costume I've ever made. I won two prizes for it on the night amounting to something like a 120euro! Which paid for the costume and left me with some spare cash. The wig is a Elvis wig back combed and worn backwards. I didn't go over board trying to get the gaunt look using makeup and facepaint. Simply white facepaint all over and black around the eyes and on the lips.

I spent hours searching for a suitable jacket that was cheap in Dublin after college in the rain during October. I tried charity shops, Pennys, and all those dodge shops on Henry St. Finally I found this fleather jacket in shop in Stephen's Green SC. I think it was the most expensive thing in there at like 40euro! I hummed and hawed about the cost but I devised a cunning plan. No I didn't steal it! I kept the tags on and the receipt and brought it back the following week! Once I'd wiped the facepaint off, it was as good as new. I didn't get my money back fair enough but I got a credit note.

Now most things are quite cheap in this shop and most of it looks cheap. I bought a pair of "Diesel" jeans for about 20euro. I had my suspicions about their authenticity since they were ridiculously cheap and the logo was different. But you don't find alot of contraband for sale in actual shops in Ireland so I dunno what was going on. They turned out to be one of the best pair of jeans I ever had. Saw me through my first year in college. They were so well worn that they ripped under the pocket on the back one day when I bent over! Fortunately I wasn't far from home. My Mom sewed it back up for me but sure the other pocket ripped not so long after. So I had to throw them away. :(

Edward Scissors Hands Homemade Halloween Costume

Ok back to the costume. Id black jeans and black boots on over them. I had kept an eye out for shiny black pants maybe fleather or PVC but you could only get them in goth shops at the time and they cost a bomb! The whole shiny wet look legging hadn't hit the high streets yet. I also considered wrapping my legs in black tape.... Well that didn't work.

I had a white shirt with braces on underneath had I wanted to take my jacket off during the evening. This is also what Johnny Depp would have worn in the movie. I bought some studded belts, a collar and a cuff from an extremely expensive accessory shop. You know the one. I was running out of time.

Johnny Depp as Edward Scissors Hands.

Finally, my scissors hands! A pair of black kitchen gloves. Some corrugated cardboard, tinfoil, silver packaging tape or whatever it's called and black tape. I cut out the blades from cardboard, covered them in the silver tape or tinfoil and then taped them to the side of each finger using black tape. On the ring finger and baby finger I extended the blade into a scissors handle shape. So from the side it looked like a pair of scissors. You can kind of see it in the photo above. I'm sorry the description is so rough but it was a long time ago! I think my Dad has more pictures which are clearer but Im too lazy to go find them right now. If I do I'll post them up.

So despite spending about 100e on the costume I won 120e and got a credit note worth 40e back for the jacket. So I was happy with that outcome! The make up was so heavy that some people didn't recognise me at all and most people who didn't know me thought I was a guy... I got some looks when my boyfriend kissed me after I won the prize in one of the pubs. There are some really good homemade Edward Scissors Hands costumes out there. Especially for kids who look great!

If you can't get a jacket and belts and stuff just go for the black polo neck, white shirt and black braces look. Much cheaper and looks just as good if not better as the leather look can be hard to get right. I just about managed it. For other simpler costumes have a look at some of these Pokemon Costumes. Good example of how you can make braces out of ribbons or even knit them in that Pokemon Post. Or if you are looking for a group theme have a look at this Stretcher Race.

A Wooly Costume

2011-09-09T19:09:00.001+01:00

Simple Sheep Costume

So I dressed up as a sheep one Halloween. The homemade costume went down a treat. I purchased some cushion stuffing from my local fabric shop for a small price. I then stuck it in layers to a nightdress using pva glue. This took a long time and was incredibly messy. I was lucky that my friends helped out. I also stuffed some of the left over stuffing under the nightdress to give me a more rounded shape. A friend of mine lent me her hood from her wet suit and that coupled with a lot of black facepaint transformed me into a sheep. My ears suck and should of been made of fabric or black card not corrugated cardboard painted with the face paint! I also put face paint on my arms but I'd advise wearing a long sleeve black top.

Considering the Irish weather this would of a great costume for a kid going trick or treating as they will stay warm. However, I was indoors and burning up! There wasn't a chance I was going to nightclub in it. Also the stuffing was surprisingly heavy and gave me a sore back. But overall it was a pretty practical costume. I was happy :) Also the shaply figure I had was not intentional it was simply caused by resting my arms or holding a drink.

I'd also like to mention another fine costume from the party I attended that year. One of my friends dressed up as Duff Man from the Simpsons. Why was it such a good costume? Well if I remember it correctly her purchased it all in Pennies and took the cans from the bin so it probably didn't cost more than 20 euro to make which is what I like to hear!

Sheep and Duffman Costume

Mad Scientist!

2011-09-06T22:35:00.000+01:00

Easy Mad Scientist Costume

This wasn't a Halloween costume but one for a school play. It was traditional each Christmas that the final year students would impersonate the teachers in funny skits. I was playing the part of a student that got covered in sut during a chemistry class! I just popped on my lab coat (which I had for actual Chemistry labs) and covered my face in charcoal I nicked from the art room par my eyes because I would have my safety glasses on of course. I back combed my hair and I think I put charcoal in it as well judging by the colour of it and blue hair spray (Why? I had it so why not?). You can't see it in the photograph but I also had LEDs through my hair that flashed during the performance as if I was being electrocuted or something. (Our Chemistry teacher was also our Physics teacher)

More Mad Scientists

For props we had test tubes filled with lemonade and a few drops of food colouring (I think we had yellow, green, red blue etc). We stoppered the test tubes and shook them before going on stage so that during the performance they randomly popped sending the stopper flying and lemonade fizzing everywhere. It definitely provided the biggest laugh as unfortunately are jokes were appalling.

If I was to do this costume again I'd obviously use black face paint instead of charcoal and a lot less of it. (charcoal is very difficult to get off. It was very embarrassing walking home from school half covered in black. I had to wear my Santa hat to hide my hair). I would also put my safety glasses on before applying the black so that none of it gets in the space where the glasses should of protected me from the explosion. I'd put black on my lab coat too.I'd try pin my lab coat open and tie up in the air as if it was still during the explosion. I'd def bring testtubes with me :) O and put talc in my hair first before the black.

Cupcakes and Yellow Yokes

2011-09-05T21:07:00.001+01:00

Cupcakes with Chocolate and Lemon Butter Icing

These are some tasty cupcakes I made awhile back when I was learning how to make butter icing. Don't ask me what the recipe is because I don't remember :) I was experimenting. I used an angled spatula to do the icing which made it much easier than a knife. I'd love to get a small angled spatula to ice with since piping is a pain in the bun!

Small Angled Spatula

I also made a horrific tray bake around the same time. I thought it would be a great idea to colour the icing and sponge yellow since it was lemon flavoured... well you can see for yourself. I also decided to try decorating with Jelly Tots since jellies on cupcakes seem to be all the rage these days. I was unconvinced as in order to keep the cake fresh I had it in the fridge which made the jelly tots very stiff and difficult to chew. They were alright at room temperature but I wasn't converted. Maybe I'll try some other jellies instead.

Scary Lemon Traybake with Jellytots.

Easy Cupcakes

Chocolate Chip Gingernuts!

2011-09-02T17:49:00.000+01:00

Mmm Biscuits

So I started making these biscuits back in the Spring and they are yummy! I got the recipe here on Delia Online. (Good Old Delia). Anyway I love ginger and I love chocolate! I hate the mess golden syrup makes though :( The recipe is easy enough and is illustrated below. Chuck the ginger powder, cocoa powder, flour and bicarbonated soda in a bowl and stir it. Then rub the butter in making a crumb. Add the sugar and chopped up dark chocolate and stir and then mix in the golden syrup with your hands. (Messy work). Squeeze the mixture into a ball, roll it out and cut it into biscuits.

Making the biscuit dough

Pop them in the oven and hey presto. You don't have to use cookie cutters, you can simply squash balls of dough like Delia suggests as they look more rustic. Since I love ginger so much I prefer using fresh ginger grated up instead of powdered ginger. If you rather cookies than biscuits leave them in for about half the time. It is very easy to burn them so if in doubt just take them out. Better underdone than burnt says I. Also they will still be soft when you take them out. They will harden as they cool.

Chocolate Chip Gingernuts

Saucy Blackberries

2011-09-02T17:15:00.000+01:00

Sieving the Sauce

So as I mentioned in my previous post I picked lots of wild blackberries. I made an Apple and Blackberry Tart with about half of the them and then with the rest I decided to make blackberry sauce. Easy peasy, for every 100g of blackberries you need 25g of sugar or to taste. Pop the blackberries and sugar in a saucepan with about a teaspoon of water and simmer for about 15mins. I'm showing that coincidently my nail varnish matches the colour of the mixture and I know a good cook never wears nail varnish while cooking but this varnish is extreme wear according to the bottle and was a present all the way from the US.

Simmering the Blackberries and Sugar

Blackberries after Stewing

So once the blackberries are suitably stewed I poured them into a jug and allowed them to cool. Once they had cooled I blended them using a hand blender. Very messy work since I was too lazy to use the correct jug i.e. a tall narrow one. Anyway once the mixture was uniformly blended I passed it through a sieve to remove the pips. This took forever, since the sieve is a particularly fine one and the mixture was thick. However, with lots of squashing using a spatula I got most of the puree/sauce through the sieve. I poured the sauce into a lovely bottle I recently purchased lemonade in and gave the birds the pips. I can't wait to use the sauce. I am thinking meringue and icecream maybe??

Messy Blending

Blackberry Sauce

Who you calling a Tart?

2011-09-02T16:42:00.001+01:00

Blackberry and Apple Tart

So the first of the blackberries have ripened here in Ireland so I decided to pick some on my way home through the woods yesterday. I picked just shy of a kilo of lovely ripe wild blackberries. Firstly I rinsed them and then let them soak for a couple of hours to kill any bugs. Then I rinsed them again to wash the bugs away. I then had to decide what to make. The obvious answer would be jam but it was late and I wanted something quick. So apple and blackberry tart as requested by my parents was chosen.

Wild Blackberries

I made a basic all butter pastry i.e. simply butter rubbed into flour. The pastry turned out surprisingly well considering the last time I'd made pastry was 6 years ago and that was only once! Once the butter was rubbed into the flour I added a drop of water and mixed it into a ball using a knife. I think I used a too much water as the dough was a bit sticky but I still managed to roll it out. The pastry was a bit too thin but it was ok.

Making the Pastry

So next step was filling the pie dish with the pastry, lining it with baking paper, filling it with blind baking beans and blind baking it. Blind baking helps prevent soggy pastry and allows the pastry enough time to cook as sometimes as in my case the filling does not need as long in the oven. The beans are used to help keep the shape of the pastry.So while the tart was blind baking I began preparing the apples.

Pastry before Blind Baking

I filled the tart with a layer of about 3 sliced eating apples already coated in sugar. (I didn't have any cooking apples) I then piled on about 400g of blackberries which had been mixed with some brown sugar and flour. I really should of cooked the apples in the tart for awhile before adding the blackberries because when I took it out of the oven some of the blackberries had burned and the apple could of done with more time but hardly a disaster.

The Tart out of the Oven

While the tart was baking I placed about 50g of blackberries, and one sliced apple in a saucepan with some sugar and apple juice and allowed it to stew. The juice from the black berries gave the apples a lovely red colour. I poured the juice from the saucepan over the tart and then decorated the tart with the apple slices. I was very happy with the tart. The pastry was a bit scarce. I'll know to make more the next time but over all yum yum. I decided to make blackberry sauce with the remaining blackberries.

Apple and Blackberry Tart

Girl with the Pearl Earring

2011-08-31T23:28:00.000+01:00

Girl with the Pearl Earring Costume

Long story short. I was studying the book by Tracy Chevalier called 'Girl with the Pearl Earring' as part of my comparative studies during my Leaving Cert. Woeful book I might add. Anyway, the book was inspired by Johannes Vermeer's painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. Which is a lovely painting. I decided since the book and movie (the movie is actually more boring than watching paint dry since you are watching a movie about paint drying) was popular that I would dress up as the girl with the pearl earring for Halloween. I got my Mam to sew my head piece out of some scraps. I found a cheap lace top and voila. However, I have never had my ears pierced so the pearl earrings were not as straight forward. Before gearing myself up to make some crazy clip on earrings I thought I'd see if my local odd stuff shop had any and guess what! They did indeed. So outfit complete. Off I went. No one at the party I attended had a clue who I was but I didn't care. :)

Johannes Vermeer's painting Girl with a Pearl Earring

Scarlet Johansson as the Girl with the Pearl Earring

Chocolate Bull!

2011-08-14T10:21:00.001+01:00

Chocolate Bull Cake

Once again a fine example of a novelty cake that my house mates made and I didn't. Can you see the trend? Anything I get involved in ends up messy! Anyway they made this cake for ME! It was for my 22nd birthday. Why a bull? Well that is my boyfriend's nickname. (No sniggering!) Anywho it is once again an awesome chocolate pudding cake covered in chocolate cake covering which you can see is very cheap. The nose is made of Wagon Wheels which if I have to be honest I don't really like but a common phrase of mine is 'Well I wouldn't buy them but I'd still eat it like'. In addition to the wagon wheels two chocolate buttons and some white icing (I think maybe it is the filling from an Oreo?) was used for the nostrils and ring. The ears are halved Oreos (Another I wouldn't buy them but eat them biscuit). The horns are wagon wheels halved. Then the eyes are Oreos with one piece of biscuit removed and replaced with a chocolate button. This cake is fantastic because it is so simple! Only needed chocolate, Wagon Wheels, Oreos, Chocolate Buttons and maybe a bit of icing. It was very tasty too. I love my housemates.

Me as Lady Gaga eating my Bull Cake

Smashed Guitar

2011-08-12T14:02:00.000+01:00

Guitar Cake

Another example of a crazy cake where we got carried away. Two circular cakes side by side. Then covered in chocolate cake covering aka cheap cooking chocolate. I made this horrible looking black icing to fill in the hole. Not the best call I've ever made. The neck and head are made from Rocky bars which are biscuits covered in chocolate. Since it would have been too big to have laid out we made a broken guitar which worked out pretty cool with the liquorice lace as strings. I then I wrote happy birthday on it with a decorating marker. A rushed job and a silly idea. Everyone still ate it!

Babymau5

2011-08-07T11:59:00.000+01:00

Babymau5

So the musician Deadmau5 is known for wearing a large cartoon mouse head on stage. Therefore there is alot of merchandise etc. associated with his brand. One fan gave him a teddy bear called Babymau5. Two of my friends expressed a desire to buy a Babymau5 which I thought was unneccessary. I set about making them teddies. Pictured about is Formalmau5 which is the second teddy I made. Far from perfect but full of character. Simply red felt, white felt, two white buttons and stuffing. The buttons were tricky to attach and had to be sewn through the head to keep them from wobbling therefore in hindsight I would have used flat buttons. I don't have a photo of the first teddy at the moment but I will get one off my friend. Have a look at Babymau5's Facebook page where fans have unloaded pictures of their teddies and pictures of Babymau5 around the world!

Deadmau5 on Stage

Deadmau5 with Babymau5

Malteaser Cake

2011-08-05T22:14:00.002+01:00

Tiered Chocolate Cake Decorated with Malteasers and Chocolate Fingers

As you can see from the reference on the photo I did not actually make that cake. It was the inspiration for a cake I did make today however it doesn't look so appealing so I thought I'd lure you in with a pretty picture! It is my parents wedding anniversary around now so I thought I'd make them a mock wedding cake and well there ya go. Unfortunately, white chocolate fingers and malteasers were not available in my local shops. Maybe in Tesco but I didn't have time or the transport to get to Tesco. So with the help of my boyfriend we had to improvise.

Believe it or not but I'm actually not a big fan of cake unless it is very fresh sponge cake. As a result alot of my cakes and cupcakes are actually a chocolate pudding mixture. Mmmm. But I wanted tiers. First mistake. I poured the pudding mixture into a cake tin, a small tart tin and a ramekin. Popped them in the oven and let them cook for about twice as long as the pudding recipe would suggest. They are still pretty gooey and fragile when you take them out. I stacked them on top of eachother. At the start this looked great but they slowly started to sink into eachother resulting in more of a blob than 3 tiers.

A Hint of the Mess to Come

Next issue, the lack of white fingers and chocolates. Why bother says you. Well, after some research on Google Images I decided all milk chocolate versions were just a bit boring. So melted some white chocolate and tried dipping some of the milk chocolate fingers in it. The chocolate was too thick. I added some milk. The mixture wasn't making the fingers white enough. Chucked in a load of icing sugar. Perfect. Well sort of. It was still very messy and rough around the edges. My diligent boyfriend dipped about a third of the fingers and malteasers into the white chocolate mix and laid them out on cling film to dry. Now because the mixture had to be fairly thick to give a good covering it meant that a achieving an even smooth finish was quite difficult. Basically we got the white chocolate everywhere! It also made the white ones much bigger than the milk ones.

So it was messy looking. The white ones were out of proportion. The whole thing started to sink and lean to the side. Did we care? Nope it tastes absolutely awesome!

Malteaser and Chocolate Finger Tiered Chocolate Cake

M&M Basket Cake

2011-08-03T23:26:00.001+01:00

M&M Chocolate Finger Basket Cake

Now I didn't make this cake. My housemates did and it was yummy. It was for our other housemate who loves chocolate M&Ms. I'd seen a basket cake made with Kit Kats on the internet that my sister showed me. The cake is a overcooked chocolate pudding which gives a gorgeous moist hybrid between a chocolate fudge cake and a chocolate pudding. I am a big fan of them. Then they iced the cake in chocolate fudge icing, stuck the chocolate fingers on and then covered it in M&Ms. Simple and awesome looking. Probably one of the tastiest cakes I've ever had. Here are some examples of Kitkat basket cakes; Miss Oven Mitts, College Baker.

Classic Sponge

2011-08-02T21:38:00.000+01:00

Rose Petal Sponge Cake

So despite saying I was going to lay off the rose petal treats it was the only jam in the house so I made rose petal jam and cream filled vanilla sponge cake. Quite the mouthful in many ways. The sponge cake was made using Delia Smith's All-in-one-sponge which is the recipe I always use because it is dead easy. On my mothers instruction I used Soya butter to my disgust but you couldn't taste it in the cake. For more about the all in one sponge cake have a look at a previous post: Rose Petal Fairy Cakes but the basic ingredients are flour, baking powder, eggs, caster sugar and soft butter. I also used vanilla extract.

The Ingredients for an All-in-One-Sponge

I doubled the recipe so as to make two cakes but when I took them out of the oven they were a bit shallow as I suspected. Upon turning the page of the cook book I discovered that for layered cakes 50% more cake mixture was needed. Not to worry. So what happened to the other cake... Well I attempted to make lemon curd but it was all lumpy and not worth photographing and well the cake was disgusting. Still gobbled it up all the same. Fortunately, the second cake was simply filled with rose petal jam and cream and then dusted with icing sugar. Yum Yum!

The Sponge Cake Cooling

Rose And Cream Sponge Cake

Cookie Monster Cake!

2011-08-01T22:23:00.000+01:00

Simple Cookie Monster Cake

My friends and I like making novelty cakes for eachother's birthdays that have some connection with that person. The themes can be quite obvious or totally obscure. One of my friends loves the Cookie Monster so it was easy to sort his cake out since there are plenty of examples on-line of Cookie Monster cakes and cupcakes, such as this site Coolest Birthday Cakes which has loads of examples of novelty cakes. You might see a few of mine there. The cake is simply a normal chocolate sponge which had been allowed to cool.

Firstly, we poured melted chocolate onto the top of the cake and let it set a bit. The eyes are Jacobs Coconut Creams which are a marshmallow biscuit. They were stuck onto the cake with melted chocolate. Then to complete the eyes Cadbury's Chocolate Buttons were stuck on with a bit of melted chocolate. Note that his eyes are wonky on purpose. Then with a knife the shape of the mouth was outlined in the chocolate.

The icing is buttercream icing with alot of blue food colouring and more icing sugar than usual to get the stiff peaks. Possibly half a bottle of colouring maybe more. In order to get the fur like texture a piping syringe with a star cap was used. I started at the bottom and worked around in layers so that the icing wouldn't slide downwards. Just after I'd squeezed the icing on I'd push the syringe into the icing and then pull away. This stopped the icing from being pulled off the cake as the syringe was pulled away. This resulted in neat peaks.

Finally to finish it off we placed a cookie and some crumbled cookie in his mouth. Due to the large amount of food colouring in the icing no one could stomach it! The icing was very bitter so be warned sometimes it is better to buy colouring paste in order to get the right colour or it won't taste great.

Pink Party Cakes

2011-07-31T10:47:00.001+01:00

Pink Love Heart Chocolate Cupcakes

So I went a bit mad in Tesco one day buying lots of pink cake decorations. I made these yummy buns with chocolate fudge icing, pink sugar balls and pink love hearts. I just loved them. I also found an entire large tube of pink smarties! I thought oh these must be for breast cancer awareness but no it was just a big tube of pink smarties because Nestle know how awesome that is.

So I gathered up various pink items, marshmallows sugar balls, Barbie Sprinkles etc. and invited my mates over for some messy cupcake decorating! We created an absolute mess and all felt sick afterwards but it was great fun! Be warned some of the cupcakes are a bit naughty looking!

Messy Pink and Chocolate Cupcakes

Messy Chocolate Cupcakes

We also attempted to make fudge and decorated it with the left over smarties etc. It was nice but not really fudge.

Attempt at Fudge

Glittery Cupcakes

2011-07-30T15:52:00.003+01:00

Glittery Cupcakes

My housemate who co-creates most of our novelty cakes was having her 21st birthday at her parents house so I knew they'd be getting her a cake. So as not to interfere we decided to make cupcakes instead. I had recently just got a cupcake stand as a present and some gorgeous black foil cupcake cases so we were ready to roll. We knew she was wearing a black dress with red shoes so we thought about making red and black cupcakes. We mixed the icing up but for some reason the colours wouldn't work. The black was too grey and the red was too bright.

So after we threw out an obscene amount of icing we decided to do something simple as we did not have time to pipe any icing. So we mixed up normal icing i.e. water and icing sugar and poured it onto the cupcakes. I had some green/pink edible glitter so we just sprinkled it on top of the cupcakes and voila! We had created simple tasty and pretty cupcakes. It certainly was a change from our usual creations. My other housemate created the top cupcake using edible gold stars and silver sugar balls.

Mini Glitter Cupcakes

Another example of using the glitter was for another friends 21st in their house where once again I knew the parents would be providing the cake. This time we made mini cupcakes using silicon moulds which meant they had no cases but that didn't matter as they were bitesize. This time we did pipe un-coloured buttercream icing and then decorated the buns with the glitter and balls etc. Making and decorating mini cupcakes is quite time consuming so I invited some friends over to help decorate them. It is great fun and you can have a chat while doing it. The guys are particularly good at it.

Chocolate Rose!

2011-07-29T20:01:00.002+01:00

Bouquet of Chocolate Roses Wrappers

I had a great idea to dress up as a sweet like the purple one for a box of Quality Street for Halloween 2009. But despite finding coloured cellophane in a local florist and wrapping myself in it, the costume was a complete fail! I started to panic at this point because it lunchtime and I was having a Halloween party that night but no awesome costume. However I had a plan!

Close-up of Costume

I rushed off to the local shop and bought 4 tins of Cadbury's Chocolate Roses! I knew I'd never get it done on my own so I roped a few of my male friends in with the promise of dinner. So while I cooked a load of spagetti bolognese the guys started unwrapping the chocolates and organising the wrappers. By the time I had served the dinner you'd think they'd be stuffed with all the chocolates they'd been sneaking but no they gobbled it up. Fortunately my housemates turned up to help with the finer details of making an outfit aka sellotaping me into it.

What was left of the 4 Tins of Roses..

We began sellotaping the wrappers together and then made them into a top and a skirt. I combined my outfit with a few silver accessories including a tiara and a sash that said 'Chocolate Rose' and off I went with my bouquet of Rose wrappers as the Chocolate Rose of Tralee. The Rose of Tralee is a beauty pageant held in Ireland each year where the contestants are known as say the Dublin Rose or the Sydney Rose. I was the Chocolate Rose in my shiny dress. I was happy! Not my best costume but my far my most colourful well maybe my Pokemon costume was more colourful but it is debatable. Least I didn't make my boyfriend wear a matching vest: Starburst Wrapper Prom Dress!

Chocolate Rose of Tralee Costume

I ♥ Macarons!

2011-07-21T23:15:00.001+01:00

Homemade Rose Macarons

Yes I did! They weren't perfect but way better than I expected considering all the hype about them! I first came across Macarons when my French mate brought some over for my housemate as a present and I just happened to be at the table at the time and it would of just been rude of me not to try one. They were from Ladureé. At first we were like did you bring these from Paris! But no Ladureé have a counter in Brown Thomas in Dublin. So I tried a rose flavoured one and it was devine! I was hooked and armed witha a voucher for Brown Thomas I had, I bought a big box of Macarons from Ladureé. One of every flavour. Nom Nom.

The Perfect Macaron after Seriouseats.com

A friend of mine who is an excellent cook told me she had got a book on macarons but said she was disapointed as the language wasn't great and it resulted in a not so perfect macaron. Now I think she might of been talking about I ♥ Macarons the must have book on macarons but it is translated from Japanese and supposedly mainly just pretty pictures. So after alot of reading of blogs and so forth I decided to give rose macarons a go, following the advice of this guy, David Lebovitz, who seems to be the dude when it comes to pastries or something like that. He refers to a 'foot' which is the bubbly looking bit on the bottom of the macarons. See the photo above. I didn't achieve this but heres hoping I will next time!

Pencil Marks for the Macarons

Powdered Almond, Powdered Sugar, Granulated Sugar and Egg Whites

Anyway I started off by drawing circles that were about an inch in diameter on some baking paper to act as a guide when I piped the mixture out. I drew 30 of these circles, 15 on for each baking tray. I had ground almonds already but I ground them some more so they were more powdery. However this made the almond clump together. This meant I had to roast the almond on a baking tray to dry it out. I put it in the oven for 10mins and hoped for the best. In the meantime I powdered some sugar in the blender. You could use icing sugar but sometimes this has added cornflour which supposedly causes the macarons to crack.

Mixing the Colour into the Egg Whites

I whisked the sugar and egg whites up and added the colour (half a cap of red colouring) and a cap of rose water to the mixture at this point as I was folding the rest of the ingredients in later and wouldn't be able to mix the colour at this point. I also made it slightly redder than I wanted as I knew the almonds and powdered sugar would dilute the mix. The almonds were still clumped together after roasting and it required alot of effort to sieve them into the egg whites with the icing sugar as they kept clogging up the sieve. I eventually got there.

Piped Macarons Ready for Baking

My Syringe with a Plain Cap

So the mixture was easy to but into my syringe piper unlike butter icing which is a nightmare! Runny enough to flow out easy, thick enough to control and pipe into nice domes. I'm sure a skilled hand could spoon them out neatly if no piping bag was available. Once I'd piped them all out I had to rap the baking tray against the counter a few times to flatten the top of the macarons as they are meant to have flat tops not domes. Popped them in the oven at gas mark 1 for 15mins. They looked great. Maybe starting to golden a little which I didn't want as it would ruin the colour. I let them cool and then things went down hill a bit.

Macarons Fresh Out of the Oven

When I tried to lift the macarons off the baking paper they started to crumble! Perfect shells had formed but there was mainly just a big void of air in the centre with a bit of gooey macaron STUCK to the baking paper! Then I realised I'd used greaseproof paper not baking paper, hence the sticking problem but not why the centre was nothing but air, my Mom thinks I should of left them in for longer. Oh well I'll know next time. Never the less out of the 30 shells as I'm now calling them I managed to salvage maybe 18 or so of them i.e. 9 Macarons. :( I was not a happy bunny but I was still excited as they looked awesome!

Homemade Rose Macarons

I mixed a bit of butter, icing sugar and some rose water up and using my syringe piped it in a circle around the outside of the bottom of the macarons. Ideally I should of filled them but they were so fragile they were cracking under the weight of the filling. It was a very rich filling anyway so it didn't matter. I didn't add any colour to the the filling as the pink and white contrast is quite pretty. I was thinking of flavouring it something different. Maybe vanilla but I was too lazy to go get some from the cupboard (Does anyone else think its strange seeing cupboard written down as everyone glosses over the p?)

Homemade Rose Macarons

So there was a lot of wastage, not a lot of sticky centre, no foot but who cares. They were delicious! I am however going to lay off the rose flavoured stuff for awhile! If you are going to make them I'd read up on it first as there are loads of tips such as leaving over night to develop in flavour. Yea about that.... Anyway if you wanna read more about my tasty adventures check out my Chocolate Fondant or if you want to see some of the costume parties I've been at try the Stretcher Race!

Chocolate Fondant!

2011-07-20T16:40:00.000+01:00

One of My Many Chocolate Fondants

I love chocolate fondant. I first came across it on a wonderful trip to West Cork with my sister and her husband. We tasted lots of wonderful desserts on this trip but the fondant was by far the best. We found the restaurant by chance up a little lane in Baltimore. It is now called The Mews but I don't remember what it was called when we visited it in 2008. Since I don't have any pretty ramekins or cups I make my fondants in a plastic cases that M&S chocolate fondants come in. (Yes I love it so much I've a collection of cases from M&S) Just grease the cases and dust them with cocoa and the fondant would pop right out onto a plate but they do look much nicer in cappuccino cups.

My Sister and I Enjoying our Dessert in Baltimore

For those of you that don't know chocolate fondants are like chocolate pudding but much more fluid in the inside and crispy on the outside. Therefore cooking them at a low heat and keeping an eye on them is essential. Nothing worse than cooking them through. The whole point is to break them open and let the chocolate flow out. I find this recipe by Gordon Ramsay excellent and wouldn't change a thing. To add to the chocolate indulgence some people suggest putting a square of un melted chocolate in the middle of each fondant but I haven't noticed much difference and therefore don't bother. However I do like putting truffles in the centre especially white chocolate ones as this is an extra surprise when you open it up. I've varied the flavour with some essence every now and then but plain old dark chocolate and vanilla ice cream is simply the best. Even better than Biscuit Cake!

Another Tasty Dessert from Co. Cork

You Can't Beat Apple Pie, Co. Cork

More Marshmallows

2011-07-19T19:52:00.001+01:00

Scary Coloured Marshmallows

So I attempted the marshmallows again. Tad obsessive but I want to get them perfect! This time I opted for some flavours! I split the mixture into 3 bowls and added a cap of food colouring and a cap of essence to each bowl. The green ones are peppermint, the yellow ones are lemon and and the pink ones are rose. A cap of colour was far too much and it produced gaudy colours to say the least. Also extra lemon essence wouldn't of gone astray and alot less mint! I love mint but this was just too much. The mint ones have to be stored separately as the mint started seeping into the other ones. The rose flavoured ones were perfect!

Mmm Rose Petal Jelly aka Jam

Now rose essence is probably quite difficult to get your hands on so instead I use rose water which is more dilute and available in most pharmacies because it has many beneficial properties. It is often used as a cleanser by people with dry or sensitive skin. It can also be added to your shampoo to prevent hair loss. Just make sure it is pure rose water not rose water and glycerin as I've no idea if it tastes nice. If you are feeling very adventurous you could try distill your own rose petals. My Mom did this about a month ago and made lovely rose petal jam which is great on bread or as the filler in a cake.

Back to the marshmallows. They were still not as fluffy as I'd like and I think this is partly to do with the whole not having a sugar thermometer and hence not reaching 130 degrees Celsius and the fact that when I separated the mixture in the 3 bowls it cooled down alot and began to set. This made it extremely difficult to pour it into the tins to let it set. Therefore I think alot of the air was squeezed out of it while scraping it out of the bowl. Also I greased the cling film with oil this time instead of butter and I had no trouble at all getting the cling film off. I enjoyed some of the mint mallows in a cup of hot chocolate last night while watching some Harry Potter in preparation for the final movie!

So another not so perfect attempt at marshmallows as they still look rubbish but I'll get there eventually! It was alot easier this time as I'd an extra set of hands to help manage the mess and so forth.

Marshmallow Madness!

2011-07-14T22:23:00.008+01:00

Cover of the April Edition of 'Delicious'

So after my Mom showed me a recipe in a magazine called 'Delicious' by BEA VO for marshmallows I've been dying to try them. Unfortunately the recipe is not on the magazine's website so you will have to make do with my instructions if you'd like to try make them yourself. The magazine suggests using strong flavours such as spices, coffee, chocolate, nuts, vanilla, liquers, berry fruits and citrus fruits and not flavours such as apple or peach. One my first attempt I used lemon juice but as I'll explain later the attempt was a complete failure. One my second attempt I was less adventurous and simply went with vanilla.

The Gelatine Sponging

Firstly, I sprinkled some gelatine into water and allowed it to soak it up in a process called sponging..... It is not very exciting. While that was going on I put some caster sugar and golden syrup and a tiny bit of water in a saucepan. I thought I'd made quite the mess simply measuring out the golden syrup but the worst was yet to come! Now my greatest downfall has been this step. On my first attempt a couple of weeks ago a number of things went wrong. Firstly, I bought Maple flavoured golden syrup by accident. I was furious! Grrr. Then the recipe said to cover the syrup and sugar in the saucepan with water. Me being an eijet just lashed the water into the pot which led to my mixture being too runny and not mixing properly. This resulted in a separated mess that just tasted like maple syrup and not lemon flavoured marshmallows. Straight to the bin which is saying something because my family are not ones to throw away food!

Measuring out the Golden Syrup... Messy

The tricky bit about heating the golden syrup and sugar is that you are suppose to heat it to between 130 and 140 degrees Celsius. Any less and the marshmallows won't be very fluffy. Any more and the mixture will burn. The sensible thing would be to go out an buy a sugar thermometer or whatever they are called but oh no I was like I'll totally be fine.... Yea I burnt it. I blame my boyfriend for phoning me at that exact moment but really it's my own fault. My Mom managed to do it without a thermometer so why couldn't I? What was worse that wasting time and ingredients is cleaning the pot! Basically I had made burnt toffee and it made an awful mess. I was hoping that my Mom wouldn't come into the kitchen and see what an absolute mess I'd made! A couple of boiled kettles later and no one will ever know.

Mmm Burnt Toffee

Absolute Nightmare!

So after I destroyed all the evidence of my previous mess I started again and nailed it! I brought the mixture to the boil. Then I boiled it for only 3 minutes and took it off the heat. While the mixture was cooling down I whisked the gelatine 'sponge' and then added the syrup and sugar and whisked it all up. Added a cap of vanilla essence and a cap of red food colouring and kept whisking away for ages yet it didn't seem to be getting any thicker. Supposedly, it will form a consistency like bubble gum...

Attempt Number 3: Success!

It may look nice but gelatine stinks!

So I got fed up whisking and decided to line a tin with cling film, which was greased and coated in cornflour but when I returned I noticed a sticky drip hanging off the whisk like an icicle. So I started whisking again and it finally began to thicken up and look very tasty! Poured it into the tin, covered it and put it in the fridge for two hours to set. I went off for a run to keep myself distracted and make room for lots of Marshmallows!

Is that like Bubblegum?

Mmm Tasty Tasty

A Little Runny for My Liking

So after two agonising hours I could not wait anymore but I had plenty more work to do. Unfortunately I hadn't greased the cling film enough and it just wouldn't come off! The marshmallow was incredibly sticky! I had to douse the place in cornflour to stop the marshmallow sticking to everything! No point trying to cut it with a knife as it just sticks to it so out comes the scissors my favourite cutting device. So once I'd cut a square I painstakingly removed the cling film from it while covering it in cornflour the whole time. This resulted in not very square marshmallows and lots of cornflour.

Cutting up the Marshmallow into Squares

Painstakingly Removing the Cling Film

So after all the effort and mess I'd made some oddly shaped tasty marshmallows! They we still very sticky and not as fluffy as I'd like. According to the magazine the lack of fluff is probably due to not reaching 130 degrees. Although they definitely became less sticky and more tastier the next day. The day after that I don't know as we'd eaten them all by then! Next time I make them I hope to get them even better! I'm thinking maybe rose flavoured ones. I posted the recipe here: Homemade Marshmallow Recipe or if you just want to look at more of my creations have a look at Summer Time Treats, or Yummy Biscuit Cake!

Nom Nom Nom Homemade Marshmallows

I Wanna Make Marshmallows!

2011-07-14T22:07:00.005+01:00

My Homemade Marshmallows

Adapted from Delicious Magazine April, 2011 Edition

April 2011 Edition of Delicious

Ingredients

120ml liquid, cool
23g powdered gelatine (2 sachets of Dr. Oketer Gelatine Powder)
440g Caster Sugar
160ml Golden Syrup
Oil for Greasing
Corn flour for coating or icing sugar
A sugar thermometer

Flavours

Delicious suggest using strong flavours that the sugar won't overpower; spices, coffee, chocolate, nuts, vanilla, liqueurs, berry fruit, and citrus. Not so good flavours would be apple and pear and other more subtle flavours. For fruit flavoured marshmallows use a puree or even a smoothie as the liquid in step 1. Likewise if using spices they need to be heated gently in water for 20mins to form a infusion which can also be used as the liquid in step 1 but don't forget to strain it and let it cool down first. For fatty flavours such as nuts, cocoa, or coffee and alcohol based drinks or extracts such as Baileys, or vanilla extract reduce the volume of the mixture and therefore shouldn't be added until step 5 and just use water in step 1.

Recipe

Pour the liquid into a bowl and sprinkle over the gelatine and set aside to allow the liquid to soak up the gelatine
Heat the golden syrup, sugar and enough water to cover in a saucepan on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.
Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to the boil. Wait for the mixture to reach 130 degrees Celsius and then take it off the heat and allow it to cool for a minute. (I found 4 minutes after the mixture begins to boil is about 130 degrees. Above 140 degrees it begins to burn)
Whisk the gelatine and liquid on a medium speed and then start to gently add the syrup down the sides of the mixing bowl. The mixture should grow in volume like a stiff meringue. (This took a long time to happen)
Once all the syrup has being added continue whisking until the mixture becomes really thick and cools down a bit. A bubblegum texture should form on the surface. Add any flavours now and whisk briefly.
Line a tin with cling film and grease well with oil and pour the mixture in. Cover and allow to cool for at least 2 hours in a cool place.
When firm remove the cling film and coat in corn flour, and then chop up using a greased scissors and greased hands! The marshmallows can be eaten straightway or kept in an airtight container for upto 2 weeks. (I found they improved overnight)

To read more about my attempt at marshmallows and to see photos of the recipe in action view my post Marshmallow Madness or have a look at some other treats, Biscuit Cake and Summer Treats!

Pin the Tail on Pikachu!

2011-07-11T22:20:00.002+01:00

Pin the Tail on Pikachu!

I'm not the only one who threw a Pokemon Party. I love this pin the tail on Pikachu from Pam's Party Planning Pokemon Party.