N.E.S. (Another Rice Krispie treat)

This cookie was made a retro gaming fan and old friend of mine.

The main console consists of two layers of Rice Krispie treats, covered in butter cream frosting. The controller cables are made from strings of liquorish, and the red buttons are the severed heads of red vegan gummie bears.

I hope you enjoyed this cookie! So what was your favorite NES game?

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!

MicroController Cookies

I had my cookie night turn today, unfortunately I've been too busy to try anything too ambitious... so I decided to make MicroController cookies - there simple to make and are delicious :) A MicroController, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is a very small computer on a single integrated circuit, usually intended for a single purpose in contrast to personal computers which can be used for multiple applications.

The ingredients for this cookie follow the same as my previous Apple cookies, with the small addition of adding one tsp of nutmeg, one tsp of cinnamon, and one tsp of allspice to the batter.

A variety of candies are then used to represent components embedded into the cookie bread board. I use icing gel to 'solder' the components to the boards, and to indicate various connectors and board details.

Hope you enjoyed this little treat! :)

Making Brownies in a Mug, is it Mugalicious?

This recipe goes out to Meet My Mug, a neat blog that celebrates the mugs in our lives. While your checking that blog out you should also take a quick look at Replicca Clothing Company for some awesome handmade fashion. Now on to the brownies!

Ingredients:

4 tbsp flour
2 to 4 tbsp sugar (sweeten to taste)
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
A dash of salt
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp water
1/3 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp chocolate chips (optional)

and most important of all, a microwave safe mug :)

To make this treat mix all the dry ingredients together in your mug (I chose my now retro Sun Microsystems mug). Be sure to completely mix thoroughly and break up any clumps of cocoa, flour, or sugar.

Next add the oil and water, then mix until well combined. The mixture should be solid enough to support a spoon if the mug is tilted. You may add chocolate chips at this point and mix.

Now to cook the brownie all you have to do is pop your mug into a microwave and heat for 60 to 90 seconds depending on your microwave's power.

Please be careful when you remove your mug from the microwave, it's going to be piping hot! Let cool for a minute then dig in and enjoy :)

I think that I'm going to have to try this recipe at work, I don't think anyone would mind? ;)

Rice Krispie Sushi

This treat is very easy to make, all the real effort goes into presentation. To make your own Rice Krispie sushi as shown here you'll need the following.

Ingredients:

Rice Krispies

Butter

Marshmallows - white

Marshmallows - multi-colour

Fruit rollups

Fruit Jelly Candy

Sour Jelly Candy

Extras:

Wax paper

Candy boxes

Chop sticks

Making Rice Krispie treats is strait forward, just melt butter and marshmallows together, then add Rice Krispies. Forming the treats into sushi shapes takes a little dexterity. To produce California Roll shapes first roll some Rice Krispie treats out into a sheet, then place a column of large marshmallow in the center and wrap the warm treat around the marshmallow. Place this roll to the side in order to allow it's shape to set. Once firmed up, wrap the roll with fruit rollup sheet (or fruit by the foot or other similar product). Now you may slice the roll with a sharp knife into discs. Add a fruit jelly candy to garnish :)

The rice rolls are much easier to make, just take a hand full of warm Rice Krispie treats and shape into an oval shape. Use the handle of a spoon to create an indent in the middle of the treat in order to place candies or colored marshmallow filling. Then use fruit wrapping to bound the treats together.

To complete the sushi appearance you may place pieces into a small box and wrap with a bow (including chop sticks), or arrange as a platter.

I hope you enjoy making these treats too!

Home made Space Invader Chocolates!

I received as a gift a neat Space Invaders ice-cube mold, so instead of filling it with water I decided to fill it with Milk & Dark Chocolate... here are a few pics of the result:

Not wanting to serve the chocolates plain, I decided to mount them atop chocolate fudge cupcakes with vanilla icing.

Hope you enjoyed the pics!

Happy π Day!

Pi Day is held to celebrate the mathematical constant π(pi) (in the mm/dd date notation: 3/14), being a programming geek I have to celebrate this day :)

To make my Pi pies I use a simple recipe for the pie, and then use a paring knife to create the Pi symbol.

The initial steps are to prepare your pie dough, then roll it out to fit the pie pan shell. With the pie shell created you then fill the pie with your choice of fruits & berries (I chose to make a Cherry and an Apple pie this year). After filling the pie shell you can then roll out a second pie crust to cover the pie. Now the fun part begins; use the paring knife to carefully carve out the shape for the Pi symbol. You can do this freehand or use a paper cut out trace the image on to the pie crust before carving.

With the Pi symbol carved into the pie you can now finish the pie edge with a simple crimping using a fork pressed lightly to the edge.

I hope everyone has a fun Pi day this year!

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!