Zambia, Paper Bag Princess and Mario Cakes

So I haven't posted in several months... oops. I was super busy this past semester with school and even when I got a chance to bake I didn't have time to write up a post, and half the time I forgot to even take pictures.

But I'm back at work now so I now have time to both bake and post!

I'm going to start with a few of the cakes I made over the past few months. No new recipes, just my usual standbys.

I made this one just last night, for some friends who are off to Zambia to do their final nursing practicums.

This was one of the ones where the reaction was the best part. I was already super happy with how it turned out and then when I saw how the girls reacted to it, it really made this one of my favourite cakes I've ever made.

This next one I can't take credit for really, my brother's girlfriend did pretty much all of the work on it but I just had to show it.
We made it for a girl who's favourite colour is grey and who was going as the paper bag princess for halloween. And, as an added bonus, inside was a rainbow cake!

And finally, I made this one for my cousin, and I know I have more photos of it but I can't figure out which camera they were on. So I'll probably write another post for it when I find them later.
I was using a new icing recipe which didn't turn out to be very good for piping and decorating, so I did a last minute grocery store run and improvised. Jelly Bellies are a little different to work with than icing, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

Pinwheel Cookies

I've made these twice now and I'd have to say they are really not my favourite to make. There's a lot of rolling out and chilling and rolling out again. It takes a long time, too long in my opinion.

The recipe calls for them to be made into corners which is how I made them the first time. The second time, however they were for a fundraiser at my dad's work and so I dyed them the colours of the fundraising organization.

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 egg

3 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt

Optional:
1/3 cup Irish cream flavoured coffee whitener (I didn't add this)
1 tbsp cocoa

Beat butter and icing sugar. Stir in egg. Then add in 1 cup of flour and the salt. Mix well. Mix in the second cup of flour until is is completely incorporated, then add the final cup of flour. Mix in the rest of the flour well.

Divide dough into two or more sections. (I'm going to just use 2 for an example but extras are easy to add in) If desired, mix coffee whitener and/or cocoa into one portion. Mix until evenly coloured. Shape each portion into a log, wrap in plastic and chill for 2 hours or so. Roll out between two sheets of wax paper until it is about a 4x24 inch rectangle. Do this for each portion of dough. Then stack the sheets of dough on top of each other. Roll the stack of dough-sheets together. Roll the dough from the short end (if you're making corners, if making circles, roll from the long end) like a jelly roll. Wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and chill for 6 more hours or overnight. Cut roll into 1/4 inch slices. Then, if you like, cut each slice into quarters. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.

If you wish you can make a chocolate coating to dip the quarters in.

Melt 1 cup milk chocolate chips in the microwave (or however you prefer). Toast some almonds and/or coconut. Dip the rounded edge of the cookies in the chocolate and then in the nut mixture.

Toy Story Cupcakes!

So, I saved the best for last this week. I made these cupcakes for a friend who was having a birthday over the weekend, you may remember the cakes I made for her last year. This summer I posted on Facebook asking for suggestions for what to make for my brother's cake and this particular friend suggested Toy Story characters. Those weren't exactly what I was thinking of for my brother but I made a note of her suggestion for when her birthday rolled around.


I'm still working on perfecting the art of buttercream transfers, so there are some issues with the eyes and also with the alien's ears and half of Woody's hat being missing, but overall I'm really happy with how these turned out. And I had so much fun making them on Sunday, it was great! Plus the look on my friend's face when she saw them was priceless. :)

A Long, Long Time Ago, in a Kitchen, Far Far Away...

So the second item I bought at the Williams Sonoma was a set of pancake molds. And not just any pancake molds, they were Star Wars Pancake molds! They are so much fun to make, even if it is a little time consuming.

Start with a Pancake recipe - this is my family's favourite:

3 cups flour
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 eggs
3 cups milk
4 tbsp oil

Mix together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. In another bowl (preferably one with a spout) beat together eggs, milk and oil. Add dry ingredients to liquid and whisk until almost smooth.
Pour onto grill 1/4 cup a a time. Cook until bubbles break through on the top side, flip and cook until the other side is brown.

Then, instead of using the regular grilling instructions, take your pancake molds and grease them. Then put them on your pancake grill and pour in enough batter so that it will spread to fill the mold (you may need to thin out the batter a bit with a tablespoon or so of extra milk) and use a knife to make sure batter gets into all the corners.

Then wait until the bubbles come through to the side you can see, remove the mold and flip the pancakes over. Wait until they brown, then serve them hot or put them in the oven (on warm) to keep them warm until everyone is ready to eat!

And enjoy biting off Yoda's ears!

Message in A Cookie Cutters

So I haven't posted in over a month, mostly because the day after my last post, I came down with pneumonia. Pretty much I was unable to get out of bed for a week and a half and then the entire month since then has been spent recovering and trying to relax, right in the middle of back to school. So I haven't had a chance to bake anything, until this weekend! I've made 3 new creations in the past week and I can't wait to post them all.

I'm going to start with the cookies I made on Thursday for my co-workers.

So, a few weeks ago (while I was still sick and should have been resting instead of going on a marathon shopping trip) I managed to take a day trip down to the States where I got to visit one of my favourite stores of all time - Williams Sonoma. It is where I got my Star Wars Cookie Cutters and my Apple and Star Pie Molds. On this trip I bought four items, each of which will have its own blog post soon.

The first are my Message In a Cookie Cutters...

What are Message in a Cookie Cutters you ask...

Well, you start with some letters for a message...

And a cookie cutter...

Then you put them together...

With some sugar cookie dough...

And start stamping away!

And Voila! Personalized cookie cutters for any occasion! I made these ones to thank my co-workers for the wonderful Get Well Card and Gift that they sent me while I was sick!
These cookie cutters are really great, the set also came with Star and Heart shapes, as well as a few pre-formed words and also 3 of every letter, plus a few extras! These cookie cutters are so customizable and sugar cookies are so fun to decorate. And of course you could use gingerbread, or shortbread or any similar cookie of course!

Have a slice of Watermelon - Cake!

I found this idea from a Livejournal community a year ago. I have a friend who loves watermelons, kind of like how my other friend loves cephalopods, and I knew as soon as I saw this cake that I had to make it for her. More than a year later, I finally got the chance to!

The inside looks like a watermelon as well! (Even though the chocolate chips sank to the bottom of each cake)
And it even tastes like watermelon!
The original recipe called for Watermelon Kool-Aid but considering I couldn't find any, so I threw together a different recipe from a modification of my Great-Granny's Lemon Cake recipe.

1 box yellow cake mix (I use the dry ingredients from this recipe instead)
1 pkg Watermelon Jell-O
1 cup water
4 eggs
3/4 cup oil
2 drops red food colouring
1/2 cup - 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour cake pans. Mix cake mix with Watermelon Jell-O. Mix well. Add water, eggs and oil and beat with electric mixer for several minutes. Stir in food colouring and mix a little more. Carefully, but quickly, stir in chocolate chips, then immediately pour into cake batter pans. Sprinkle a few more chocolate chips on the top and then pop in the oven (again, quickly, you're trying to make the chocolate chips not sink to the bottom) Bake 30-40 minutes.

Ice with Pink and Green icing and top with more Chocolate Chips to make it look like a watermelon!

Super Simple Peanut Butter Cookies

Exactly as the title says, super simple, no flour, peanut butter cookies. And yes, they do turn out just fine.

1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350. Mix ingredients together. Drop spoonfuls on cookie sheet. Bake 6-10 minutes depending on how done you want them.

Enjoy!