Edible Bugs (Rice Krispie Square)

This cookie was inspired by Sheila's VW Beetle restoration project, her love of Rice Krispie squares, and her 30th birthday!!!

Earlier this year Sheila decided that it was time to fore-fill her dream of owning a classic VW Beetle, after searching high and low she finally found her bug and brought it home on a trailer. Ever since then she has been restoring the car, bit by bit. So when it came to deciding on what to make for her birthday dessert there was no question, I had to make her bug :)

Crafting this treat wasn't too difficult. First I made a large Rice Krispie square, then I used a knife to remove all the cereal treat that made the block look less like a bug ;)

Once I had the general shape I was looking for I prepared butter cream frosting for 'painting' the cookie. I used a piping bag with a flat nose for the bulking icing, and a pin hole tip for the black lining. Some white and orange gel icing pens were used for smaller accents. The white rimmed tires are repurposed white gummie rings.

I hope you all enjoyed this cookie - I know Sheila loved it!

Mr Spock as a cookie.

When asked to prepare some cookies for a birthday party and being told 'go nuts' I find myself quickly going a little over board... so for this batch of Birthday treats I made Original Series Star Trek cookies.

The recipe for the cookie base was a modified Apple cookie, adding two table spoons of cocoa powder and orange peel and juice. The cookies are also dipped in melted dark and milk chocolate. The chocolate dip makes it easier to do intricate icing work later on.

I drew Mr Spock free hand with an icing pipet, then filled in the enclosed areas with royal icing.

The uniforms and insignias were carved by hand in the cookie dough, then outlined in frosting and filled in with icing.

I hope you enjoyed these cookies!

Vegan Cupcakes

Anne asked me to prepare some Vegan Cupcakes for a BBQ party over the weekend, having never made such a dessert this is my first foray into non-dairy baked goods. I found recipes online for the cupcake base and buttercream frosting. I will note for you that your going to have to at least double the base recipe if you want more than eight or nine cupcakes - I was able to yield 16 via two batches.

Finding the 'vegan' ingredients wasn't too difficult, with a simple trip to my local grocery store I was able to find soy milk, soy based non-hydrogenated margarine, and all-organic-vegan-fare-trade gummi bears (added to the frosting as decoration).

Since the batter doesn't fill up all twelve cupcake molds in my baking trays I added some water to each empty cup in order to help provide moisture during the baking process.

The vegan frosting presented something of an additional challenge - it doesn't set like regular frosting. I attempted to work around this issue by piping frosting in a spiral pattern around the cupcake. As the frosting began to drip it would naturally just fill in the spaces between the lines... it was somewhat successful but in the end it still dripped over the cupcake wrapper's edge.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe, I think Anne's cat Calleigh approved.