Mickey Mouse (Christmas) cookies

I made some really cute looking Mickey Mouse cookies the other day. Mostly because I have to do something while sitting out the last weeks (days??) of my pregnancy, but also because they are fun and yummy!

Check out the recipe here, it's from Disney.

It does look like they might have coated the bottom of their cookies in chocolate. I considered doing that if the ears weren't sticking but they turned out great so I left them plain.







I also made an English Sticky Toffee Pudding out of a Disney World cookbook:

 

It's made with dates and put in the oven where it creates a nice chewy top with a pudding like center. Over the top came the toffee, which I totally screwed up by letting it overheat. It became really hard candy so we scooped it off. And adding custard, made from scratch which is ten times more yummy and just as easy as custard made from powder.

It looks a little unappetizing in this picture but I can assure you it's not!

Dora and Boots cake - how to

I made this Dora and Boots cake for a friend of mine who's daughter turned 3. It wasn't necessarily hard to make but it did take a while! It was like making a puzzle!

I started with a 24 cm round vanilla cake which I filled with strawberry flavored butter cream. I also thinly coated the outside with it. Usually I use ganache to make the cake straight and easy to work with but the roundness of the cake was already pretty perfect so I didn't feel it was necessary.

I then coated the cake with pink marzipan and let it harden overnight. This way I could trace my Dora and Boots picture into the cake so I would have a good reference for adding all those puzzle pieces.
The picture I took from internet. It was really tiny but I have an easy way of making it exactly the right size.

I open the picture in microsoft picture viewer and zoom in until it's the size I need. I then take some sturdy paper and trace the picture right off the screen. It saves the hassle of having to blow up the picture with a copier or something and printing it out.
After the marzipan had hardened a little I took the picture and placed it on the cake. I then used a thin pointed cake decorating tool (a scriber I guess) to trace over the picture. You have to press a little so the lines go into the cake, but not too much that it goes right through the paper.

After this I cut out all the different pieces of the picture so I had little templates. And then it was just a matter of cutting them out of fondant or marzipan. The hassle was really coloring all the fondant and cutting all those little pieces. Because the picture was scribed onto the cake it was very easy to put the pieces in the right place.

I placed the eyes on top of the face because I thought it would make them stand out more, as they also do in the animation. Dora's mouth I pressed down a little to create depth, and Boots' mouth I actually just painted on (except for his tongue) because I found it too delicate to try and cut it out properly with those extra lines. The noses are also painted on.
Boots' hair stands up a little and Dora's hair rests partly on her forehead, just for a little added depth. I also scribed some of the lines into the fondant pieces (like the collar of Dora's shirt) and painted some too (like Boots' hand). 

I added some big flowers from corresponding fondant colors to the side and the name plus age on top, just to finish it off.

I think it turned out really sweet!

Cheese platter cake

I made a cheese platter cake for my dad's birthday a while back.
Everything is cake and all are different flavors.

Lawyer cake

I made this cake for a friend who is a lawyer.
She sent me pictures of the law books she uses and I made those. I also added some judge hammer cake pops.
The cake is chocolate with raspberry jam. The pops are vanilla.

Pink Floyd The Wall cake

I made this Pink Floyd The Wall cake for my hubby's birthday.

I painted the picture of the Professor on the cake. I started with the background colors and let them dry overnight. The next day I painted all the details and lines over the top making for a pretty accurate Professor!

I added vinyl record cake pops and some tiny music details to make it look just that bit better :)

On the inside it was a chocolate cake with Dulce de Leche and lemon curd filling. Yummy!

The-A-to-Z-of-me

I came across this A to Z on smaggle.com and thought it was a neat way to tell a little about myself.

A. Age: 28, also coincidentally the number of weeks I'm pregnant.
B. Bed size: A little larger than a Queen, but nowhere near a King, those are huge! Anyway it wouldn't fit in my little apartment and I like being able to reach out and feel my hubby instead of having to move across the field of bed to find him.
C. Chore that you hate: Washing dishes, could there be anything worse! They just keep coming, it never stops! I need a dishwasher!!!
D. Dogs: I have a rabbit named Sam who thinks he's a dog. My parents have a wirehaired dachshund called Indy. He's a sweety except when he catches mice and moles and eats them.
E. Essential start to your day: Breakfast.
F. Favorite color: Right now it's anything that fits into the baby room, mostly green, blue and pastel colors.
G. Gold or Silver: My ring has both and the rest of me has neither.
H. Height: 5’5, kinda short for a Dutch person but just fine for anywhere else :)
I. Instruments you play: Clarinet, though not for a while so maybe not.
J. Job title: Decorated cake, cupcake and pop maker, plus baby machine at the moment.
K. Kids: On the way, just one thankfully.
L. Live: Amsterdam, but rather not.
M. Mother’s name: Henny
N. Nicknames: Jazz, Jazzy, Yzy, Mijntje, Mientje, Babe etc...
O. Overnight hospital stays: No and I'd like to keep it that way!
P. Pet peeves: People who try to get on the train while others are still getting off, drug tourists (that's just sad...), Amsterdam...
Q. Quote from a movie: “Are you sure this water's sanitary? It looks questionable to me! ” – Tantor in Tarzan
R. Right or left handed: Right
S. Siblings: An older sister. I like her :)
U. Underwear: Those lacy secrets from Victoria.
V. Vegetable you hate: Peppers, grose.
W. What makes you run late: I guess exercising at the end of the day is pretty nice, otherwise I don't do late. Oh unless my sister and brother in law are coming by, they are always late so I don't bother being on time either.
X. X-Rays you’ve had: One of my arm that kept hurting, they found nothing. And some of my teeth which every dentist always compliments me on because they are so pretty for someone my age. Blush.
Y. Yummy food that you make: All my food is yummy that's why I started a cake selling business and my BF almost never cooks.
Z. Zoo animal: Anything weird. I love weird in animals, people and shoes!

Winnie the Pooh cake

For my birthday in April (woops, that's a while back) I made a Winnie the Pooh decorated two-tier cake. It was my first time sculpting with modeling fondant. I didn't make it quite right because it kept cracking but nevertheless Pooh turned out pretty nice. My niece recognized him, and Piglet too :)
The honeypots turned out really cute.

For my dads birthday I made a cheese platter cake. It was a platter of cake shaped like different types of cheese and each had its own flavor. I'm still waiting on the pictures of that one.

For my BF I'm going to make a musical cake, because he has a super huge record collection :)

How to make Easy No-bake Mickey Mouse cake pops

I really liked the No-bake cupcake tutorial and I had been trying to figure out how to make easy Mickey Mouse Pops so here's the combo!

Easy No-bake Mickey Mouse Pops
(Also check out my other Mickey Mouse/Disney Cake Pops How to. It has some other ideas for making and sticking on the ears. And has the stick the other way.)

I made the ingredients list so you know how much you need for the amount of pops you want to make, instead of making you make a certain amount of pops or having to due complicated mathematical things to figure out how much you really need.

Materials:
- Pack of Oreo cookies (2 oreos per pop)
- Cream cheese (1/4 tablespoon per pop)
- Dark chocolate, enough to be able to dip all of them. I'd use about 500 grams for a dozen I think.
- Red sprinkles
- Mini marshmallows (or large ones if you live in a country that charges about 50 cents per mini marshmallow like me)
- royal icing (or tiny white drops)
- Lollipop sticks


Preparation

 









Take your oreos and make them into crumbs. You can do that with a food processor or if you don't have one put the cookies into a plastic ziploc bag. Push the air out and zip the bag closed. Take a rolling pin and roll over the bag until the cookies are crumbs.
Now mix the cookie crumbs with the cream cheese until you get a dough like substance. Put this in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Now if you have mini marshmallows you can skip this part, otherwise:

Take a few big marshmallows and something to make small circles. I used an apple core remover thing (sorry don't know the correct term for that) Push out little circles.

Making the pops

Take your cookie dough out of the fridge and roll it into balls about the diameter of a big marshmallow or walnut. Put these on wax paper on a plate and put them back into the fridge.
Now take a really small bit of chocolate and heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds on half power (400 watt on mine). Stir, heat for 15 seconds and repeat until it looks like the picture below. Don't over heat it or it will burn and be useless to you. Now just keep stirring and the pieces will melt. If not microwave another 10 seconds and stir again. This should temper the chocolate so it hardens when it cools.

Lay out your lollipop sticks, the mini marshmallows and the chocolate. Take your cookies back out of the fridge.

Dip a stick in the chocolate and push it into the cookie. If the ball becomes a little less round it's ok. If it is too much just reshape it with your hands.

Now take your mini marshmallows, these are the ears of course. Dip the marshmallow partly in the chocolate and paste one on both sides of the stick. Once again put the cookies in the fridge for 15 minutes.

While waiting on those cookies to cool, make the royal icing and temper the rest of your dark chocolate. This is not just melting so use my How to temper chocolate.
You need enough chocolate so that you can dip all your cookies in the chocolate all the way. Take the smallest deepest container you can find that will still fit your pop including ears. That way it will take the least amount of chocolate.
Set out the chocolate, red sprinkles and royal icing.

Take out your pops, dip them in the chocolate taking care to coat the ears but try not to coat the stick. Try also to do just one dip because otherwise the chocolate layer is too thick and there will be the possibility that the ears fall off. Let the excess chocolate drip off and then dip the pop half way into the red sprinkles. Put the pop back on the wax paper and into the fridge. Do the rest of your pops and put each back into the fridge as you make them. When they are all in leave them for another 15 minutes.

The chocolate I had left after dipping, I used to make little chocolate bonbons. Just pour it into a mold or spread it on some wax paper. Sprinkle the rest of your red sprinkles on there and you have some nice leftover treats. Pop in the fridge until set.

After the chocolate on the cookie pops has hardened take them out of the fridge and pipe little round circles on both sides of the "pants". If they stand out too much, use a moist finger (water not spit please) to lightly push it down.

Tada! I wanted to decorate the stick a little too but I couldn't decide how. So I just left it like this. Could have done with a white background too... hmm.
You could also make these pops into Minnie Mouse by adding more white circles on the "skirt" and making a tiny bow out of red fondant for on top, or make it in pink.
They would also be pretty impressive if you stuck the stick in the bottom instead of the top. Then you can push them in some styrofoam or a cup of sugar and you'll have a real eye catcher at your party!

My hubby and I tried them and they tasted yummy!!! Super snacks for kids birthdays or pretty party treats for goofy (well, Mickey really) grown ups.

Happy Popping!

No- bake Cupcake Pop tutorial

It's not mine but so worth watching if you plan on making cake pops.

No-bake Cupcake Pop tutorial

Starting a decorated cake shop

Ok so it won't really be a shop. I'm just starting a business in decorated cakes, and just plain yummy pies. I've made quite a lot and since I can't seem to find a decent (or any) job, this is a good time to start my own business :)

I haven't quite figured out what it is going to look like but I do know I am not including the color pink in my name, logo or website. All cake stores here seem to be pink, and not a little pink, very very pink! Any guy wishing to make a nice cake (and lets face it, with Buddy on tv I'm sure there are a lot of men out there), is never going to want to go into a store that is so extremely frilly.

Well I have thought of the name, which is translated is Cake and Art. Though in English it doesn't sound wonderful, in Dutch it is nice and it makes for a nice logo because the word art is part of the Dutch word for cake (huh?? you say...: taART)

So I'm hoping to get the business going sometime soon and then I'll happily link you to it. In the mean time check out this fabulous fabric I got for the nursery (yes I said it, I'm pregnant woohoo!): World of Susy Bee

Sharing some treats

Just wanted to share some of my recent treats.


1personPizza

 First up is this 1 person pizza. Yummy! Pizza is so easy to make. I generally use wheat flour to make the bottom so it's good for your digestive system. As a sauce I just use tomato puree, adding garlic and Italian herbs. I like the puree because I hate runny sauce on my pizza. Then some nice serrano-ham, some cheese and after it's baked, top it off with rucola lettuce. Yum!!




Plum Strawberry Pastries

 Plum season has started again, or at least they are selling them in the supermarket again. To make these sweet treats take a square of puff pastry and cut out two opposite corners. (Take a close look at the picture if this confuses you.) Prick a few holes in the pastry between the two cuts. Cut your plums in pieces and add some cut up strawberries. Sprinkle with sugar. If your plums and strawberries are really sweet you won't even need this, unless you like your pastries really sweet. Put a bit of the fruit lengthwise between those two cuts. Now fold the loose corners over the fruit. Lay all the pastries on a baking sheet on a wire rack. Scoot into the middle of the oven which you preheated to about 380 degrees (190 celsius). They'll stay in there for about 20 minutes. With 5 minutes to go you can sprinkle some coarse sugar over the top.
After I took them out of the oven I glazed the fruit with a bit of diluted raspberry jam. Just to make the top fruits a bit moist.

Plum pie (which tastes surprisingly like rhubarb pie)

I had a few plums which were threatening to turn bad so I made a pie. The crust is cookie dough, easy and yummy. I rolled it out and pushed it into a small tin (about 6 inches/ 16 cm) using the leftovers to make the wire top. The filling contains mostly plums, a handful of cranberries and a few blueberries. I added about a teaspoon of cornstarch just to bind those juices. You have to adjust this amount when your plums are really juicy and/or when you make a larger pie. I also added a crumb topping under the wire top. It's made of a handful of crushed walnuts, the same amount of oatmeal, some sugar (depending on your sweet tooth, I'm not a great sugar eater) and a bit of butter to bind the crumbs. You could add a little bit of juice if you have it, that will give it a little more fruity flavor but it's no biggy if you do not.

Bake temp is about 360 F (180 C) and bake time ?? hmmm don't really remember. I think it was 35 minutes. Just check once in a while. Fruity pies like these are done when you see some of those juices boiling up thickly at the edges. Take it out of the oven and leave it on a wire rack to cool. You need it to cool down considerably so the juices will set. If you have a hubby like mine, who wants to eat everything the moment it's made (flattering but not always handy ;) try to make it when he's not home hahaha. Or remember to put a deep enough plate or dish under the pie when you cut into it. If you are able to wait, wait until it is lukewarm. That will give you a pie that can hold itself but is still that nice warm out of the oven taste. And otherwise eat it at room temp, also very nice!

How to make a raincoat

Ok it's been a while. But good news: I finished the raincoat and it works! So here is the rest of the how to. Read the first raincoat entry to see my original idea.
Btw, this is not for the novice sewer! Though it is quite easy to sew the coat, pinning it is not and you cannot rectify mistakes.

First find a coat pattern you are familiar with to use. I took the pattern for this coat which I already made twice. It's very important to take a pattern you know because you do not want to make a mistake while making a raincoat. It leaves a nice row of holes which do not vanish as you can see in the picture below and you want to keep the amount of holes to a minimum in a raincoat! Also, when choosing your pattern, try to keep the pieces it consists of to a minimum and no tiers. The fabric is very sturdy so it doesn't hang down the way other fabric does. This is especially important to note when you're thinking about making a tiered bottom like me. THAT DOES NOT WORK!! It will look weird, trust me I tried it! To make a skirt like bottom for your coat, just take one piece of fabric and make flat pleats. Because the fabric is so sturdy it will poof out with just a few.

I would recommend a coat pattern which contains a hood (obviously), mine didn't so I added one myself. As I wasn't quite sure what I was doing I ended up getting this nice row of holes right under the hood, oops.

  

Second, find the thinnest needle you are comfortable using and some polyester thread. To me it seemed logical that the raincoat would be most watertight (watertighter..?) if I kept the thread holes tiny. You need polyester thread because it repels water, so no cotton! Because that will soak up the water and pull it through those tiny holes. I tested this first (so you don't have to ;)) and the picture proves it works! (amazing my own ideas actually turned out right ha!)

Third, read these tips before you start:
- Make some tea and get some cookies, making a raincoat can be horribly frustrating (though not super hard) so you need some comfort food near you. Not too near though, you don't want to test the watertightness (?? these are not the right words hahaha) of your coat with tea.

- Get acquainted with your pattern. Know what your doing, it's very important.

-  Always keep in mind that every hole you make in your coat is there to stay. This means that I do not recommend putting ornamental stitching on your coat or any amount of stitching that is not absolutely necessary.

- Use a short stitch so everything is stitched strongly together with the least amount of space in between when you open up seams.


So are you ready to start?

Place your pattern on your fabric and scotch-tape it on there. DO NOT PIN IT because that will leave holes where you do not want them. Trace your pattern and measure on the seams. Now pin around your patterns within the seams. This way you don't have to cut out all the pieces separately but you can fold the fabric.

Now you can sew the coat together as you're used to doing. You do not need any extra stuff to seal the seams. There is rubber tape you can tape over all the seams, but I didn't and my coat works fine. Do remember that you can only pin on the seams, not anywhere else!

To make the seams extra sturdy but not have a row of stitches on the outside of the coat, I double stitched all seams like you can see in the picture below left. I did flat-stitch the bodice seams because I figured the water would flow off easier if the coat was as flat as possible (right picture). I only did this for seams that I was afraid would catch and hold the water while being rubbed while walking. Rubbing the seams with water on them makes them take in water and makes you wet.
















All right, so your pinning your pieces together in the seams and sewing like your used to. Keep trying out your coat to see if it fits, either on a doll or on yourself. If it's too small, you have to start over, sorry. It happened to me too, if it's any consolation :)

 Below you can see the bodice which turned out just as I hoped. After that I spent quite a while fixing on the bottom half. As I said, I tried the tiered bottom first and it was a disaster! I'm sorry I don't have a picture of it, it looked awful hahaha. But after a few tries and a considerably shorter bodice I got the skirt-like bottom I wanted. To close the coat I used a plastic zipper. I really wanted one of those invisible zippers because it would have been just that, invisible, but I couldn't find one. Instead I used a pink zipper as an ornamental addition to the coat. I made sure the zipper was of good quality so it didn't leave holes when closed.

 

And here is the end result in use at Walt Disney World's Christmas Party. Where sadly it was pouring rain which made it the most expensive cocoa and cookies I've ever had :)

 I hope you find the tutorial at least partly useful. I might have forgotten to mention something so if you get confused or have any questions or comments just post them here and I'll answer as quick as I can.

How to make wood pattern fondant and scones :)

I love baking :)
I just made some scones. It's been 15 years since I did that. The last time was in middle school and they tasted awful! My friend and I got the amount of salt wrong, yuk! I decided to make these because as I already said I love baking, and because there's a pot of lemon curd in my fridge which just screamed SCONES! The recipe wasn't the best in my opinion so I'm not posting that. You can google and find much better.



Btw if you read my last post, the cake turned out fine. Actually better then I expected and everyone loved it. Plus it tasted great, or so I heard. That's the only downside to making cakes for other people, you can't taste them ;)
It was my first try using buttercreme instead of ganache. I'm not wildly thrilled. It works a lot easier and quicker but jeez that has trouble with temperature fluctuation! Every time it got a little warmer bubbles started to appear and I hate it when a cake doesn't look absolutely neat. For this cake it was ok to see the layers but generally I want those to be invisible. Maybe I wasn't using the right recipe buttercreme, it was nutella.
I did spend a while trying to find out how to make fondant look like wood. Eventually I just winged it. It worked out really well!


To make fondant look like wood:
You need a base color (I used chocolate brown). Take enough to cover the whole cake, because you're using just a little of the other colors.

Now take about a sausage roll of a much darker color (I used black) and the same amount of a much lighter color (I used white). You need these colors to deviate enough from your base so when you're kneading all of them together they don't vanish into your base color.

Now knead your base fondant a little, push it down so it makes a rectangle the same length and a little broader than your two sausage rolls (the other two colors). Lay the two sausages on your base, not touching each other. It's very important not to start kneading like you're used to or you're just going to mix everything together. Instead fold your base lengthwise in half with the sausages on the outside. Pull it apart and fold it the same way again. It's like pulling taffy. Repeat this about 5-10 times, depending on the amount of fondant. Don't make the lines of dark and light too thin because you also have to roll it out so they'll get even thinner. If after you rolled it out, it doesn't look right, you can just start afresh with two new sausage rolls of dark and light fondant.

I hope it's clear. If not, don't hesitate to ask in the comments! 

Venting

I just spent a few hours working on my woodwork cake and am now totally discouraged. It has to be done the day after tomorrow and it's not going so well. I had to back the 4 layers separate because I don't have a square deep dish pan. I also had to make the batter from scratch which I never do. This resulted in two layers being ok, I hope and two being totally ruined because the batter didn't mix well and the cake sagged. Sigh. Now I have to bake more tomorrow. Also it has to become a box, with dove-tail joints and I just noticed that I already iced the bottom two layers without cutting the cake and it's corners are round.... aaaah! This is the last time I agree to make a cake with just 3 days to do it in.