Tuesday, November 17, 2009

8-Bit Brownies


To create an 8-bit brownie all you need is some brownie mix, a pan, plain white frosting, food colouring, some pallet knifes, tooth picks, and if available a icing pipette.

To start choose an 8-bit image you want to create, here I have chosen Link.

Then determine which colours you will need to create in frosting, this guide may help you achieve the hues your after: http://www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/coloring/colormixingchart.htm. For my design I only need green, tan, brown, and yellow. To make things easier on myself I tend to make a large batch of white frost, taking small portions aside to make each required colour (saving aside some white frosting to fill in left over surface later on).

Now for the fun part...

First dirty ice your brownie. This means to coat your brownie with a thin coating of frosting.

Then use a pallet knife to score the base coat of frosting into a grid pattern.

Now you can follow your pattern, filling in each square in your grid with the appropriate coloured frosting :) When your done, just use your left over white frosting to cover over the grid pattern markings.






Obviously filling in the grid pattern will require a few techniques to get all the frosting into the squares. Here are a few tips:

  • An icing pipette is the easiest way to apply frosting to each square. Using the pipette does take some practice, however once you have the knack you'll enjoy the results.
  • Pallet knives will allow you to spread frosting over a large area quickly, if your design doesn't have too many colour variations then it will speed up the process. I use the flat edge of the pallet knife as a wall to help keep frosting from crossing lines when initially spreading it on.
  • Tooth picks. I use these to pull frosting into the 'corners' or towards the edge of different colours.
  • Frosting consistency. A creamy frosting is easier to spread. Once the frosting begins to set it will start to pick up crumbs from the brownie surface - you will want to avoid having crumbs drawn across or mixed into the frosting (it disturbs the colour effect).

I hope that having the above guide helps to motivate you all to try out making an 8-bit brownie, enjoy!