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Publié le Montag, 10. Dezember 2012 10:15
Santa’s Little Elves So it’s already the Christmas season – cards being sent, cookies being made, Christmas trees being put up etc. And my favorite part? The holiday baking that fills our home during this time of year. Each and every holiday I make gift baskets to give to our friends and neighbors filled with homemade egg nog, cookies, candies and sometimes even treats such as apple butter jelly or dandelion honey. Well this year I wanted to do something special, something that no one has seen before so I started perusing my cookie cutters when I was struck by an awesome idea! Elves! Yeah, yeah I know not very a very novel idea, however, my elves will be made from ice cream cone cookie cutters – now that’s not something I’ve seen before – Yes! After making them I thought, well it is close to the holiday season and maybe others will like to make these cute little guys themselves so I’ve come up with a quick “How To” tutorial. Hopefully you’ll have just as much fun making these guys as I did. And hey, if you do make them please share a photo – it would be SO great to see your creations as well J. Step one: Take an ice cream cone cookie cutter and start cutting out your cookies. I used LilaLoa’s End-All Chocolate Cookie Recipe: Step two:   Step Step three:Use your cutter to cut out the hat, face and hair and/or beard. For the girl elves cut out the full face and for boy elves only the top half of the face as the bottom half will be covered by the beard. Step four: Glue all your pieces onto your cookie using either edible glue or Karo Syrup. Step five: To make the eyes use a piping nozzle or round cutter and cut out white circles and then roll with your hand small black dots to attach to the white circles. I like to make my elf eyes a little bit of an oval shape than circle ones. In my humble opinion when I made my elves with round eyes they looked sort of surprised and well a bit crazy and know Santa would probably never hire someone like that I tried another take on the shape and it seemed to help. To achieve this look after attaching the black inner eye I squish the entire eye together a bit- here in the photo you can see the difference. Step six: Roll out a bit of fondant that is the same color as your beard or hair color and make eye brows and if needed a moustache. Attach the eyebrows just above the eyes while the moustache should arch a bit to make it look a bit mouthy (see next step for photo). For the girl elves take an edible marker and draw a couple of eyelashes on the side of the eyes. The mouths of the boy elves should be made from the same colored fondant that you used to make the skin. Roll out a small rope and place it under the moustache, the distance between the moustache and the bottom lip is up to you. As for the girls do the same as the moustache and bottom lip of boy but make them smaller and not so far apart. Use a small modeling tool to make an indentation in the top lip. Step seven: The pom poms are next, you can either choose round or flower shaped both work really well. Pull out the color you’d like to use and if using the flower shaped confetti cut 3 pieces in half and use this as the boarder for the hat and then glue one at the top of the hat. Step eight: Ok, add any last minute touches such as pink sparkely pedal dust on the nose and cheeks because elves are just so sweet right?!? How else can they be so jolly I might ask. I also added a hair ribbon for the girl elf’s hair to give it an extra touch. And there you go! Sweet little elves just for the making in seven easy steps! Did I mention you can make Santa like this too? No? Well now you know – yey! |
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Rebecca: Publié le Donnerstag, 5. April 2012 14:53
Hoppy or should I say Happy Easter everyone! Is it me or has Easter come way too early this year? I remember last year thinking, "Whew, Easter is at the end of the month, plenty of time to decorate and make goodies.". Well I have to admit this year I've been slacking and have yet to put up a single Easter decoration let alone plan on what goodies to give to the kids! So what to do, what to do? My daughter has been pestering me that she would like to give cookies to her Nonna and Nonno this year and then the idea came - cookie pops! Fun, easy and something a little different then just a cookie :). My small bunny head cookie cutter and a 10cm lollipop stick (paper not plastic). Since I do not own cookie pop moulds I make it easy on myself and roll out the cookie dough to 10 cm thickness and cut out the cookie. Once cut out I insert the lollipop stick into the middle of the cookies to the halfway point, no further or else this could break your cookie. *Tip: Place fingers on the cookie as you push the stick in to make sure of it's position and that your stick does not come out of cookie. Check both front and back of cookie, if you can see the stick through the dough add a little bit more dough to this place to help reinforce it. Dont worry once backed you can hardly tell you had to touch it up! Place your cookie pop in your oven to back allowing a little bit of extra time as due to the added thickness. Some decorators have different opions when it comes to the next step - how long a cookie needs to cool before decorating. Some say decorating on a cookie that hasn't cool properly can lead to possible icing cracks or uneven finishes. For me I wait at least a day, especially in summer when it's hard to tell if the dough is truely cooled or not. However, with these cookie pops I was in quiet a hurry and decorated them the same night as I had baked them, so far - no cracks! After your cookie pops have cooled youu can start decorating with royal icing. First outline your cookie and then flood. And now comes the funnest part of all - letting your imagination flow! Add details to your cookie pops with other royal icing colors. Have fun, enjoy! Remember, any mistakes can be eaten - what a great incentive right!?! And there you have it! A fun, funny, easy Easter cookie pop that's sure to please just about anyone :). Hopefully Nonna and Nonno will enjoy theirs as well. Happy Easter everyone! Please feel free to share what you did on Easter. Did you make something special as well? |
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Rebecca: Publié le Samstag, 17. März 2012 13:20
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Erin go Bragh, luck of the Irish and everything green. Happy St. Patrick's to everyone from Rebecca's Sweet Treats. Thinking about this holiday reminds me of being in Chicago crossing the bridge to Michigan Ave (a.k.a. the Magnificent Mile) and looking into the river which had been turned green for St. Patrick's Day. I remember thinking, "Will this river ever be the same?" and sure enough in just a week the river was once again it's lovely shade of sludge brown. But here in Switzerland it's a whole other story as far as the Irish celebrations are concerned. Pinch someone here on the 17th for not wearing green and your likely to get into a lot of trouble (smile). So I decided what a fun thing it would be then to bring a little bit of the luck to Evilard? But how to do this. There are so many creations out there, what to choose? Cookies of course, but which design? Shamrocks, Leprechauns, rainbows... ah yes! Why not a pot of gold? Swiss people like money and adding a little bit of luck to that would just be the icing on the cake (sorry, couldn't resist). So I dug out my Halloween cauldron cookie cutter as well as a round circle cutter that was approximately the same size. After cutting out the cookies, I cut the flames off of the cauldron and cut the circle in half then then aligned the two cookies together on a baking pan. Baking them together and then allowing them to cool I was then able to apply black royal icing to the bottom of the cauldron making a pot. I then colored some fondant gold and rolled it out to a thin consistancy. Taking icing tip #12 I then cut out various sized circles and set them aside to dry a bit. Using an alphabet embosser I stamped out the letter "S" into the middle of several of the larger circles. Then using a knife I added two slits down the middle of each "S" to make dollar signs. Using a simple paint brush and water I attached the money pieces to the cauldron (some people like to use Karo syrup but this is sometimes difficult to find in Switzerland). Once attached I then used gold luster dust to add some BLING to the money pieces. And now onto the finishing touches. I added writing to each cauldron with royal icing and then finished off the entire thing with an additional touch of luster dust and voila! a new pot of gold to make any red blooded Irish or Swiss happy to receive. And there we have it, a nice way to bring the luck of the Irish to Switzerland! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and please feel free to let me know how you spent your St. Patrick's Day. What goodies did you create this year!?! |
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Rebecca: Publié le Dienstag, 13. März 2012 09:57
Hello all of my wonderful cake fans and welcome to Rebecca's Sweet Treats blog page! Today is a new day here in the kitchen as I will now be introducing new ideas and stories to my web page! I am very excited about this and hoping you will love reading and sharing comments on my stories. The stories will be shared with you each Friday so that everyone will be able to sit back and enjoy reading all weekend long ;). Wishing you all a wonderful week and great baking! Rebecca |
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