Under the sea

'Sea' you later

Wish on a 'star' fish

Lately, I had the opportunity to cater to the sweet tooths of  bunch of toddlers. A lil princess called Ira was celebrating her first B'day in my hometown, Mangalore and I was in charge of the goodies. This was a fun fun time for me in the kitchen, trying to sculpt all kinds of sea creatures such as an octopus wearing a party hat, miss crab with a bow on her head and a cutie pie of a tortoise standing beside a whale and corals and seaweed... To top that off, there was a driftwood plank with Happy Birthday written on it. 


Apart from the fondant characters, I made cake pops, candies, my signature pencils and starfish and name cookies. After the manic work sessions, I focused on the next challenge - packing them to last an overnight trip.. I bubble wrapped them and crossed my fingers that none would break, packing extras wherever I could. It was for a friend's daughter and I would've been heartbroken if any would break, so I ensured I made extras. 


Thankfully, my good friend Nisha was driving down and she carried them parcels and they arrived in one piece and got assembled ever so gorgeously. Ira, your mommy is one helluva party planner. She painstakingly organised a bash that even I would turn into a kid for, just to be part of the  brilliance. What she did with the venue and the decorations will be the talk of the town for many days to come :)


Anywhoo, here's a lil sneak peak into some of my goodies at the party. A BIG thanks to the amazingly talented photographer Marco Mega for the lovely pics. I have watermarked these pics with the blog's name so that they get redirected here, but I take no credit whatsoever for the pics. If you love these pics, click on the link above to see more of his work.

Kids go ga ga over these pencils

A piece of driftwood to send over B'day wishes

Name banner cookies

Lil miss crab

The oh so cute Octupus

So that's all for now, hope you'll like the lil picture tour. Until next time, 

Get Set Bake :)

Naughty cookies

Bachelor party favours

My friend's getting married and I couldn't resist making him cookies since they are soon becoming my USP. And since he was getting hitched soon, I HAD to make them naughty. These lil cuties are PG 13, but naughty anyways.. 

Packaged and ready to be gifted

I had seen similar ones on one of my Internet trawls and had wanted to make them for some time and I'm so glad I got to finally make them for a friend. I don't remember the website i got inspired from for these, would've shared a link otherwise.. The design is self-explanatory for those wanting to try their hand at it. It's a vanilla bean cookie, decorated with royal icing. I used heart cookie cutters since I didn't have all the fancy body shape cutters. For those who want them and don't wanna try making them, give me a holler and I'd be glad to supply you with a bunch of these, customised to match your design. For now, gaze at these polka dotted naughty cookies :)

Try your hand at experimenting with different patterns and designs and, like I always say, Get, Set, Bake... 

Crinkle Cookies

Crinkly goodness

Crinkle cookies... Ever since I saw a picture of them, I couldn't get over how pretty they looked. Black and white speckled beauties, almost like a haphazard zebra pattern gone wild.. Back then, I had no idea they were called crinkle cookies and I marveled at how the effect could have been produced. 

Little did I know how easy it was. The crinkle effect is due to the lil cookie balls expanding in the heat and cracking, exposing the chocolate interior beneath the white blanket of icing sugar.  Easy peasy. And if it's easy, you know I'd want to share it with you guys. They take minimal effort and look super stunning. I made them after dinner tonight and having them right out of the oven is the best thing ever. Warm, gooey fudgey chocolate center with barely crisp edges, not to mention, speckled with chocolate chips... Yes, I went to cookie heaven. Wanna go there too? Here's how...

Crinkle cookies (makes about 20 cookies)
Recipe adapted and modified from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 70 grams dark chocolate, chopped finely
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
• Icing sugar to roll the cookie balls in

Method:

• Melt the butter
• Add in the finely chopped chocolate and mix till the chocolate has melted
• Add the sugar, coffee powder, vanilla extract, egg and beat
• Sift the flour and baking powder and add to the mixture. 
• Add the chocolate chips
• Chill the dough for a few hours until firm
• Pre-heat your oven to 160 C
• Roll even sized balls of the mixture, roll them in the icing sugar till well-covered and place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and bake for about 9 minutes till the cookie has cracked and cooked. It will be moist in the center.
• Cool till warm and serve

So go ahead, Get, Set, Bake!!

Meringue ghosts

My 'Boo'meringues

Halloween is a day away and instead of dressing up in a scary costume, I thought I'd go the bake way and give you'll just about enough time to make these cuties if you wish, in time for halloween.

I came upon a picture of the cutest meringue ghosts online and just HAD to try them out. This is so simple to make and oh so cute to look at. It is definitely a kid-favourite dessert and more so, a woman friendly one as it is practically non-fattening. A low cal dessert that looks too cute to eat, did I catch your attention already? I can hear a few of you going aww already :p These lil 'boo'meringues as I like to call them, look so much like the ghostly trio from Casper's gang, don't they. Why, I got Fatso, Stinky and Stretch on my plate :D

The recipe for these peppermint meringues is the same as my old one. It holds a special place in my heart as this was my first recipe to be posted on any blog. I did a guest post for a dear friend and soon, had my very own blog. I had shared a link to the recipe in my earlier posts, but for the lazy bees, here's the recipe again, with directions on how to make these spooky treats..

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites
• A pinch of cream of tartar or salt (optional)
• 2 to 3 drops of vinegar
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• A few drops of peppermint essence
• Chocolate chips for the eyes

Method:

• In a glass bowl, beat the egg whites along with the vinegar and cream of tartar/salt till soft peaks form. Gradually add in the sugar while beating. Increase the speed and beat till stiff peaks form. Once you have stiff peaks, add the peppermint extract and beat a little till it is mixed well into the meringue mixture.
• Pre-heat your oven to 110 degrees Celsius (the lowest temp on your oven works best). Fill the contents into a disposable piping bag or a zip lock bag, snip off  the end to form about 1 cm hole. Pipe onto your tray lined with parchment paper.  (I used foil since I didn't have any, works the same, so use whatever you have in your kitchen). As you pipe, release pressure after the first mound, pipe again, release and lift off, to form three mounds, on top of each other. The pic is self-explanatory. You can also just pipe blobs on as your ghosts can have any shape you desire. 
• If you are feeling lazy, ditch the pastry bag altogether and just drop spoonfuls of the meringue mixture on your tray.
• Take two chocolate chips and insert them, tip side down, into your meringue mounds to resemble eyes. Bake for about 50 minutes to an hour (more or less depending on how strong your oven is.) Check if they are done by tapping on them. The meringues shouldn't be soft to touch and you should hear a tap like you were knocking on a shell. Once they are done, leave them in the oven (turned off) for another 30 minutes. 
• You can take an edible marker and draw on funky smiles like I did, but they look cute just as well. 

Aren't we Bootiful?

Foolproof Macarons

Peachy goodness

Owing to the overwhelming demand for my Macaron recipe on the Home Bakers Guild, I decided to blog my recipe out here, rather than emailing bakers one by one instead. I am humbled by the response my macarons got and it just drives me to keep at it. A big thank you to the members of the guild for encouraging me and patting me on my back for my efforts :) So here goes... 

Macarons: source, Ottolenghi, with a few changes here and there. 

Noir nostalgia

Ingredients:

• 122 grams icing sugar
• 50 grams blanched ground almonds
• 2 egg whites (approx 60g worth, room temperature), left to age for 2 days (I use non-aged egg whites and they don't make much of a difference either way for me, so you could use fresh egg whites if you are pressed for time) 
• 40 grams caster sugar
• A pinch of cream of tartar (optional)

Method:

• Sift the icing sugar and almond meal as many times as you can to get a fine mixture.
• Beat the egg whites. Once soft peaks form, add the cream of tartar (optional) and sugar, bit by bit. Stop once you reach stiff peaks..
• Add the almond meal/icing sugar mixture and powder food colour and fold. This technique is called macoranage. Click here to see a video I found on Youtube that shows you the process. The video is in french, but you can see the technique to get an idea if you are a first-timer at macarons. The batter should resemble lava many say. This is the tricky bit. It should fold back into the bowl smoothly when you lift your spatula but shouldn't be too runny that it becomes a puddle in the bowl. 
• Pipe your macarons onto your baking tray lined with parchment paper and leave to rest for 20 minutes or till a skin forms on the tops. Basically, you should be able to touch the tops and they shouldn't stick to your finger. 
• Bake in a pre-heated oven at 140 C, for 10 to 12 mins, or till the tops are hard and the shells don't move around when you touch them. 
• Leave to cool completely before peeling them off the paper.. Fill with your choice of filling and enjoy . Here's the recipe for a super-easy filling to make - chocolate ganache.

Banana split?

Macarons are very temperamental, I should know. I've had disaster after disaster. From no feet at all to feet flowing all the way out to soft and hollow shells to what now. The only way you can perfect macarons is to keep at them and learn from your mistakes. From oven temperatures to humidity, a zillion factors can contribute to failed macarons. Having said that, once you achieve perfection or are almost there, your joy knows no bounds. Most importantly, don't stress yourself out too much. I have read recipes, tips, instructions and spend many a sleepless night trying to find ways to get good macarons. At the end of the day, it was a few simple changes that worked for me and that started with the right proportions that this recipe gave me. So go ahead and try it out for yourself.. This is the one dessert that failed me the most but also thrilled me the most when I nailed it.. 
I hope to start teaching whatever I know on making them after a few members from the guild suggested I do the same. So if you are in Bangalore, I'll be holding classes shortly, soon after I get batch upon batch come out perfectly and some good fillings to go with the same. Dp contact me if you have any queries during your macaron attempts. I'm always happy to help. And do post and send me pictures of your attempts. And lastly, hope the macaron gods smile on you and you achieve smooth domes, good feet and well-baked macarons that slide off your baking sheet.. 

Till then, like I always say, Get, Set, Bake... 

Sunshine on my plate

Macarons masquerading as burgers

Yellow gold

I completed a whole year of blogging a month ago and so caught up in life was I that I didn't even realize it :)

The year has flown by so quickly. I remember like it was just yesterday that I took baby steps in creating my blog and I can see how I've grown with each post. Yes, I'm a lazy blogger and have posted say, maybe, one post a month (hides under blanket to avoid blogger daggers for being so lazy).. But hopefully that will change this year.. 

I wanna say a biiig thank you to all my readers for supporting me and making me grow as a baker and as a person. This journey has just begun and I can only hope that my blog has helped you'll get more passionate about baking.. 

As always, I didn't quite plan on a special 'Anniversary' post, but what luck to have this post mark my bloggie's anniversary. The dreaded macarons form a tall summit on my plate and I have finally conquered them (well, almost :p). So here's my anniversary post, where I conquer my arch nemesis, the one dessert that eluded me, for quite a many attempts...

My quest for macarons kick-started off again after seeing numerous posts on them at the home bakers guild on FB and boy am I glad I ventured on that road again. I have these beauties to show for my efforts. I tried a new recipe and tweaked it a bit to suit my needs and I can't be happier with the result. So happy was I with the success the first time that the hubby decided to take me out for dinner to celebrate. The smile on my face said it all and he has witnessed my rants when batch after batch failed. Rest-assured, he knows I'll be making them almost every week now, trying to achieve perfection. 

'Flambe'd

What's better is that now that my macarons are coming out fine, I get to experiment with fillings and experiment I did. I tried making lemon curd for the first time and made it in the microwave if you can beat that... The tang of the lemon curd with lemon zest perfectly complimented the almondy-sweet macaron shells and I'm gonna me making macarons again so I can sandwich them with the tart lemon curd :)

Watch out for a detailed tutorial on macarons soon.. 

Till then, Get Set Bake...

Oranges and Lemons

Oranges and lemons, sold for a penny,

Oh, those school girls are so many!

The grass is green and the rose is red,

Remember me when I am dead-dead-dead-dead-dead!

Most of us have grown up singing/playing this rhyme and the game. Everyone holds hands in a circle, sings it and everyone falls down at the end of it. A simple, mindless game that has been an integral part of our childhood. But why am I mentioning it here you might ask?

That's because I have been on a cookie decorating spree lately and as always, I have to share my creations with you guys :) I found inspiration for these online, thanks to Google images, so I can't take credit for the idea, just for the inspiration and execution. Regardless, I'm glad that they turned out so well.. The oranges immediately reminded me of this rhyme and took me back to school days, playing with my friends in school :) Sigh!...

I made the baby feeding bottle cookies for a friend who is expecting and I'm mighty pleased with the results. Not too bad for a first time effort I would say, at the risk of blowing my own horn :p Jokes aside, currently, I feel there really isn't a greater joy than baking for loved ones and seeing their joy on receiving them. I packed a few goodie bags with these treats among others and hearing the gasps of joy made my day :) For all my guinea pigs out there, oops, I mean friends :p, many more goodie bags to follow. I've got a baking itch that just won't go away.

Do give me your feedback on them and also share any other ideas that you would like me to execute on a cookie.

As always, I have used a simple sugar cookie recipe (added orange and lime zest for the fruit cookies to give them that added flavour) and designed them using tinted Royal Icing. For the feeding bottle cookie, there's no tutorial as such, as it is self-explanatory. I made them without any fancy cookie cutter, it was completely freehand. The oranges and limes take a bit of know-how, so if you are interested in replicating them, do contact me if you have any queries, I'll be glad to help. I can make a step-by-step tutorial like I have done earlier and post that too if I get enough queries for the same. 

If these have inspired you, like I say always,  Get, Set Bake.

Rum and Raisin skewers

Boozy Chocolate Raisins

I loved Cadbury's Fruit & Nut as a child, still do in fact. I would always hunt for the squares with the most raisins in them and give the other pieces to mom :) There's something about the chewy bite of the raisin against rich chocolate that gets me drooling. Of course, now, its the adult version of it - Rum and Raisin chocolates that get me going... hic :p
There's a little story behind these rum and raisin skewers, one that I would love to share with you readers. I recently went to lunch with a few members of a Foodie group that I am part of. A restaurant was chosen and off we went, to meet fellow foodies. We got along like a house on fire and no one could say all the ladies were meeting each other for the first time. After three fabulous courses, we were stuffed like little Ballotines, almost to a point of no return, thanks to the amazing food at Chianti (a must visit if you are in and around Koramangala, Bangalore or even if you aren't as it's worth the drive). We barely managed to finish our dessert and out came a platter of drool-worthy Rum and Raisin skewers. It's safe to say that at the risk of having to lie down there thanks to over-eating, we managed to polish off the skewers as they were so delicious. I came home and days went by, but I couldn't get the skewers off my mind, among the other yum creations at the place. 
Thus, my second, third and many other trips to Chianti took place as I tried to sample all my favourites from the menu. The cherry on the cake were the skewers. But sadly, after my second visit there, the skewers disappeared. I still couldn't get them off my mind and so, I decided to try and make them myself. Seemed relatively simple and so much so, that making them was a breeze. And the taste? An empty plate in less than two minutes vouches for their yum quotient. Best of all, you don't need to bake them or spend hours on them and they are the perfect after dinner bites.
Here's how you can make your own Rum and Raisin skewers.

Rum-soaked raisins skewered onto toothpicks

Covered in a blanket of chocolate

Ingredients: 

• Dark chocolate
• Raisins
• Some rum 
• A teaspoon of water or so (I diluted mine with a wee bit of water as I didn't want them too strong, but you can do away with it for a skewer that packs a punch)
• Toothpicks

Method:

• Soak the raisins in the rum for about an hour or two.
• Pierce them into your toothpicks, about three on each, and place them on a tray covered with foil.
• Melt your chocolate and pour over the skewers
• Wait till they set or pop them in the fridge for 15 minutes if you are impatient like me.
• Gobble away.

Alternatively, you could just arrange the soaked raisins in small piles on the foil and pour the melted chocolate over them, making mini mounds of chocolate-covered boozy raisins.

Cake in a teacup

Who says tea cups are to be used for tea alone? Try chocolate cake instead 

Sometimes all you need is one simple change in your menu or in this case, mise en place. Ever been in the 'Must eat cake' phase? I go through it so very often. One can't ignore these persistent cravings I tell ya :) I wanted individual servings and small ones at that. Who wants to wait for the cake to cool and cut slices out when you can dig your spoon right in, yeah. 

But just because you are eating alone, doesn't mean you can't make it look pretty. So, I devised upon a plan. Pulled out my mini teacups that I never use and decided to bake in them. These lil teacups are oh so cute, they'd belong perfectly in Alice in Wonderland, after she drinks the label 'Drink Me' and shrinks. 

Anywhoo, I made a tiny portion of chocolate cake batter (did I mention the 'must have cake' craving coincides with 'must have chocolate' craving?. I tossed in some marshmallows and waited as patiently as I could for five minutes while this beauty baked and dug in, barely managing to save one cup for the hubby. The lil spills that came from adding a lil too much batter into the cup only made it look prettier I reckon, what say?

That's how simple it is to tszuj up a bite-sized portion of cake. Perfect for those romantic nights when all you need is your loved on, good food and a chocolatey treat to tie it all up together.

So the next time you don't want to pull out your baking trays for a tiny portion of batter or are too lazy like me, try this. Just make sure your teacup is oven proof. If not, use a microwave cake recipe and Get Set Bake!

Gumpaste figures

A teenager's favourite things

Today's post is gonna be a just drool post, no recipe or tutorial here, but an interesting one, nonetheless. Reason being -  I am down with a nasty cold and apart from wanting to chop my nose off a hundred times, I am hibernating on the couch, on the bed and anywhere else I can plop my tired lil body on. 


However, no cold is gonna, dag nabbit, there comes a trio of sneezes in quick succession. Back from sneezy land, as I was saying, no cold is gonna stop me from posting something today. Why? Cuz I am oh so happy. Something regarding my blog and bakes has made headway today, my first step and this calls for a celebration, at least in the blogosphere, where I can pretend my flu and cold don't exist :D  


So here's presenting to you, my dear readers, my first tryst with gum paste. A dear dear friend wanted to gift her teenage cousin a hat cake with figurines of all things a teenager loves. I had 3 days to come up with something and the nervous me, called as many bakers/decoraters as I could to get them to make the gum paste figurines. As luck would have it, no one could make them in such short notice. Thank god for that, I can safely say in hindsight now :). That led to me frantically call a local vendor and request a batch of gum paste, something that they don't sell. Thankfully they obliged and I set out on my experiment, fingers and toes crossed. I holed up in my room on a workstation and spent the entire day coming up with these lil cuties. With no fondant or gum paste tools whatsoever, I rummaged through the whole house, finding stuff that I could use instead of imprint mats, balling tools etc. Call me substitution queen I say :p


At the end of the day, sore fingers aside, I couldn't believe I made these. The blackberry esp, took me a loong time, what with those tiny lil buttons to make, not to forget the BB logo that I HAD to recreate with lil bits of gum paste that I almost needed a magnifying glass to spot. Glutton for punishment, that's me :)


Anywhoo, I left these figures to dry and whilst they dried, my heart swelled with pride every time someone ooh'd and aah's about them. They don't hold a candle to some of the awesome decorators I know, but I'm mighty glad with my first time effort. Why, I still can't believe I made them. The cake came out well too, but lets not steal the thunder from these beauties now shall we?


Tooting my own horn, ain't I? :) B'day girl loved them and ate them all in fascination. No better thanks than that I must say. Well, there you have it, my sneezes are getting the better of me, so that's ciao from me till my next post.


Till then, Get Set Bake peeps. 

Simple cupcake decoration

All you need is love

I love cupcakes, both baking/decorating and eating them. They offer you so much in terms of creativity and don't make you feel as guilty as eating huge slices of cake. Whats more, each cupcake can be decorated in a different way, with different flavours, making it so much more than a whole chunk of cake. Not to say that I don't love cake, but cupcakes sit just a teensy bit higher on my lust list than cake :p
Today, I'm gonna show you how you can tszuj up a cupcake in 3 easy steps:

1. Bake your cupcakes in your favourite flavours. 
2. Pipe butter cream icing/frosting on the top ( you can find the recipe for butter cream frosting here
3. Cut out hearts out of red fondant and place them on top. You could also make teeny roses from fondant and use them as 3-D toppers. Viola, you red heart cupcakes are ready.   

Go on, Get Set Bake them :) 

Mini ombre cakes

Ombre on my mind

Some time ago, I caught the ombre craze. For those in the dark, (I was too, until lately), ombre is a french word that means shaded, a graduation of a shade, from light to dark. This translated into cake language, means a cake with layers of different shades of one colour. I was eager to experiment and the results didn't disappoint me. I chose pink for this experiment but you can choose any colour under the rainbow. The possibilities are endless. Here's how you can create your own ombre mini cake. 

Ingredients:

• Recipe and ingredients of your favourite vanilla/yellowcake
• Round cookie cutters in your desired size
• Food colouring
• Buttercream icing

Method: 

• After you make your batter for the cake, divide it into three or four batches and add one drop of your desired food colouring to the first bowl, 2 drops to the second bowl and so on to get a graduated tint across the bowls.
• Now bake your cake in different pans for each colour.
• After the cake has cooled, take your cookie cutter and press into the cake, getting circles of each colour.
• Stack the colours on top of each other, going from light to dark, sandwiching them with a filling of butter cream frosting. I also sandwiched a dark slice between two light ones, so you can experiment as you please. 
• Pipe a swirl or a rose on the topmost layer and dig in.

So get set and bake it, it will be a crowd-pleaser for sure :)

Butterfly cake

Butterfly fly away

Fancy this for a lil one's b'day to make her day extra special :)

Black Sheep Cookies

Counting sheep?

I love decorating cookies. Till a while ago, cookies to me conjured up images of either standard cookie-shaped biscuits or plain round mounds of yummness, occasionally spattered with chocolate chips, fruits etc. But all that changed the day I discovered cookies decorated with royal icing. Soon I realised cookies can be a work of art by themselves. 
While mine are nowhere near art, yet, I do manage to have fun with them and hope to inspire you to do the same. I recently joined a group on FB that gets all 'black sheep' together in a forum. The ones who paved their own path, didn't go with the flow and followed their heart. Admit it, we all have a bit of a black sheep in us :) If you think you are a fellow black sheep, do join the group on FB here
For the very first meet (oh the stories and people, I felt more grey than black compared to some of the amazing people I met and their adventures :) ), I wanted to bake the members something. Any excuse to try and make something yum I tell you :)
I wanted to make cupcakes and decorate them as black sheep, but kept that for another day thanks to transport issues. So cookies they were and I came up with this:

Black beauties

 You can personalize your cookies any way you want. For instance, I used a basic sugar cookie recipe and baked the cookies. After that, all I did was flood the cookies in black Royal icing (recipe here) and then once it dried, I piped white dots on the edges and the lettering to commemorate the event. You need not be a piping expert for flooding and dots. The text requires a lil bit of practice, but if I can do it with no training whatsoever, so can you :)
Happy cookie decorating folks. 

Eye Candy

'Eye' got candy

I have been wanting to do a step by step tutorial for long now but kept pushing it off for lack of time. Today, I decided to stop procrastinating and get down to it. Today, I am going to show you'll something that is very simple to make and so versatile in its uses. I came across this idea a long time ago, but it wasn't until I got an order for them that I got down to doing it. This is a great exercise that you can indulge in, come summer, with your kids as they will have a good time making them and an even greater time playing with them, of course, most of them will end up in their tummies before going on dessert projects :)
So without further ado, here they are. I have used them on smiley cookies, but their applications are endless. After all, a couple of baby blue eyes can up the aww factor of almost anything. 
First, lets get started with the basic recipe for the icing. I use royal icing as it sets hard and lasts for a long time, some, almost a year if stored properly. I used the basic recipe found on Joy of Baking and tweaked it a little to suit me. You can experiment with the host of recipes available online once you get comfortable with it. I prefer to use meringue powder rather than raw egg whites as many debate the factor of raw egg whites containing food-borne pathogens such as salmonella. Better safe than sorry right. Here's the recipe for the Royal Icing:

Ingredients:

1. One cup icing sugar
2. 3/4 tablespoon Meringue powder
3. One teaspoon vanilla extract
4. 1/4 cup warm water 
5. Food colouring in baby blue and black

Blue-eyed treats

Method:

• Whisk the sugar and meringue powder.
• Add the vanilla extract and the water, bit by bit, whisking as you do so.  (Even though the recipe calls for 1/4 cup of water, you might need much lesser depending on the consistency, so add a little at a time)
• Beat the mixture on medium speed for about 5 to 6 minutes. You will notice that the consistency is runny at first, but stiffer as you beat.
• You can test if the icing is ready by using the ten second rule. You do so by lifting the whisker and letting the icing drop back into the bowl in ribbons. If the surface of the mixture becomes smooth in 10 seconds, you are good to go. If it is quicker than ten seconds, the icing is too runny and you need to add more icing sugar and if it is much longer, add a bit more water. 
• Divide the icing in batches and colour them accordingly.  You will need more white, a little less blue and much lesser black.
• Fill them into your individual piping bags. I use butter paper, roll them into cones and pipe away, but you can use various icing tips available. Make sure it has a small round opening for this recipe. Here's an example of a good tip from Wilton.
• Line your counter with butter/parchment paper and start piping like so:

Leave the candy eyes on the counter-top to dry. They might take anywhere from 4 hours to a day or so depending on the humidity of the area you are in. Once they are completely dry, peel them off carefully and store them in an airtight container. To attach them to cookies, dab a tiny dot of royal icing on the backside of the cookies and stick them where you want. 

For instance, for the smiley face cookies, flood the cookies with your choice of coloured royal icing, once they dry, attach the eyes, pipe out smiles, a nose and eyelashes if you please and there you have it, a smiley face cookie.Experiment with consistencies according to your design.

The elusive macaron

Pretty in pink

I made these treats for V day but never got around to posting them, so here it is: better late than never right? 
Yes, these are indeed Macarons. I've had three failed attempts at these beauties, but going by the number of posts online with people 'desperately seeking Macarons', I don't think I have fared so bad in my pursuit of these french delicacies.
 Adrian Zumbo, you are to blame for my fixation for these gorgeous treats. Ever since I saw his Macaron tower on Masterchef Australia, I've been dying to try to make a decent batch. I am yet to perfect these lil mounds of joy. Truth be told, half out of this batch were not privileged to grace my blog, but did fare pretty well in my tummy :) So, once I perfect the recipe, a detailed tutorial will be coming up. Till then, feast your eyes on my Raspberry Macarons filled with chocolate ganache. 
Sinful, yes, resistible, no!

Cookie Mania

Melon mania, inspired from this link from pinterest

My latest obsession is designing cookies. Chanced upon a blog on the most amazing cookies ever. These are nothing short of works of art and this is where I found my new-found love for cookies decorated with royal icing. Marian is a cookie goddess and if you do manage to come back after ogling at her goodies on her site, do check out my humble beginnings in the cookie decorating field :)

Swirls galore

These cookies are made using a basic sugar cookie recipe and have been decorated using tinted royal icing. 

I heart cookies

Do give me your feedback on them as this is the first time I have attempted them. Be sure to see more of them in the near future on my blog.  

Three's company too

Peppermint Chocolate Thins

Chocolate anyone?

I love After Eights, so much so that when it came to naming a column on party events in the city that took place at night at the news paper I worked for, I cheekily named it After Eight. So naturally, it comes as no surprise that when I saw a recipe for chocolate thins on Vanilla Clouds, I immediately tweaked it to make it pepperminty. Do check her blog out, it's got some pretty good ideas. 


If you are a chocolate lover (I know you are :p), this one is something that you will love making and eating. Before you think, no way hose, I'd rather eat them than slave in the kitchen making them, let me tell you that it's a no fuss, no bake recipe and you can make these chocolate discs in minutes. After that, you just need to let them set before you dig into them. They make great gifts too, especially if you are visiting someone for dinner and don't want to carry a dessert per se but do want to show your appreciation for the invitation. In fact, this recipe is so simple, I am gonna do away with my usual recipe format and just ease you into it :)

Chocoholics treat

For the chocolate thins, you simple have to:

• Melt some dark chocolate and a teaspoon of butter over a double boiler or in a bowl sitting on another bowl of simmering water.
• Add in your flavouring, I used peppermint essence.
• Spoon out the melted chocolate on a piece of baking/butter paper, flattening it into a disc with the back of your soon.
• Add your choice of sprinkles/edible glitter.
• Leave on the counter top for about 20 minutes or until set and gobble away.

Edible Ladybirds

Smile for the ladybird please

An old pal was shifting to Bangalore and 2012 was upon us with the blink of an eye, so I didn't need any more reasons to make something special. I had bookmarked this for a long time and finally decided to make them and it was well worth the wait. These cuties will make any heart melt and many wouldn't wanna eat them, just keep them around and stare at them (fly did this, I kid you not :p)
So, without further ado, here are my fondant ladybird cupcakes. You can use any ol' cupcake for this decoration and I must thank Diary of a Ladybird for a detailed description of how to make them. Do check it out if you plan on making them. I added my own two bits to them, so can you, but her pic by pic descriptions leave no room for errors. I hope you enjoy making them and eating them as much as I did. On that note, a Biig welcome to Candy, my 'lumper' :D and a Haappy New Year to all my readers (I'm 12 days late, but better late than never right :p) 

The one in the centre was my whimsical geometric art cuz I had some fondant remaining