Cream cheese snowmen

Goofy smiles

It's really cold out here and for once, I honestly thought, any colder, it would snow :D And speaking of snow, have I got a treat for you. I was on the lookout for visually appealing desserts, after my edible pencils and fondant bee run. That's when I chanced upon a picture of a snowman's head, edible and oh so cute. 
I decided to take it one step further and made snowmen and snow-women standing on a snow covered plate. What's more, I am sharing the recipe with you guys. Yes, the last few posts have been sans recipes, but I am making up for that :) 
This is a quick fix dessert as it is so easy to make and looks stunning. If you have kids around, get them involved in the process, it's just their kind of thing.

Mrs Snowman

Ingredients:

1. Cream cheese frosting (I've already posted a recipe for this on my older posts which you can find here).
2. Marie biscuits crushed (About 10 to 15 should do. Place them in a zip lock bag and pound away with a chapati belan or whatever you have in hand).
3. Your favourite frosting to cover the snowmen with.

Method:

• Mix the frosting and the powdered biscuits together to make a rough dough.
• Shape them into balls, a bigger one for the bottom of the snowman and a smaller one for the head.

Eat me before I melt

• Chill in the fridge for about half an hour.

• Flatten out the bottom ball a bit so that the 'head' can sit on top firmly. 
• Whip up a bunch of your favourite frosting and roll the balls in it or pour the frosting directly on the snowmen, making sure to leave a puddle below to mimic snow.
• Pipe on some coloured frosting onto the heads and bodies, decorating them however you like. 
• Serve chilled.

To 'Bee' or not to 'Bee'

Hi 'Bee'autiful

Saw a pic of bees and looked around for inspiration online and found the perfect one. Forgot which one it is exactly, so I can't post a link here, but I hope the pics are enough to give you guys an idea :) 

Honey I'm home :)

These are my first fondant figurines and I'm mighty tickled by how they turned out, especially without proper sugar modelling tools. From the back of bubble spoons to bottle caps that matched the sizes I needed, it was a kitchen raid all the way :)
These lil bees make great cupcake toppers like so:

Sitting pretty

Or also add a charming appearance to a cake. You can be as creative as you want with them. Remember, store them in an airtight container if you plan on using them later. I tried making the cake look like a somewhat beehive and placed one cutie pie in the center. Try your own combinations and don't forget, let me know how they turn out. For any tips/queries, leave a comment and I shall gladly help you in any way I can :)

My makeshift bee hive

Edible Pencils

Frosty Pencils

Hit a creative nerve and came up with these beauties and I HAD to share them with you  :) Don't they look too good to eat? No recipe this time, just the pics :) 

Smooth Operator

Still perfecting these coloured pencils, so once I get them perfect, I might share the recipe with you guys. I currently have two versions of them. The frosty ones and the smooth ones. Do let me know what you'll think of them. Your comments are really appreciated :)

Keep them or eat them?

Oven-Dried Tomatoes

Try it and you will be hooked

So here's the thing, since I was a kid, tomatoes and bananas would make me go eww. Slowly, that changed, I still don't like bananas, won't have them, but tomatoes, I kinda like their taste when they are cooked. I absolutely can't eat raw tomatoes even now. So why is a anti-tomato person like me writing a recipe about - tomatoes and nothing else? :p
That's because I absolutely love sun-dried tomatoes. The minute I see sun-dried tomatoes on the menu, I veer towards ordering that dish :) But they come at a steep price so I don't indulge in them as often as I would like to, so when I found a recipe for oven-dried tomatoes, I couldn't resist. The proof's in the pudding when I say that they were polished off in the next 20 minutes of them coming out of the oven, all by me :p  Some bits were almost wafer-like, as I had cut them up thinly, yumm. Hubby will have to wait for batch no 2 to sample the sour, salty, tangy red slices of irresistible tomatoes :) 


Alternative to Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Source: Purple Foodie
Ingredients: (serves 1 to 2)

• 3 firm tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon each of oregano, pepper and herb seasoning (optional)
• Salt to taste
• 5 pods of garlic finely chopped

Method:

• Pre-heat your oven to 100 C
• Slice the tomatoes finely, lay them on a kitchen towel to soak off the liquid
• Sprinkle salt on them and let them sit for about 20 minutes
• Add the pepper, oregano, herb seasoning, garlic, olive oil and toss in a bowl
• Spread the slices over your baking tray that has been lined with butter/parchment paper, top off with the garlic from the bowl
• Let it bake for about 1 1/2 hours or so till the slices wrinkle and dry up
• Peel them off and enjoy.

Tomato wafers anyone?

Strawberry Fizz

Strawberry pop

I'm slowly moving on to featuring non-bakes in my blog and what better way to start than something bubbly? Since strawberries are in season, I decided to make my popular Strawberry Fizz drink a few days ago. It's super simple to make and trust me when I say you will rush for seconds after you taste it. 

Ingredients:

• 1 pack of strawberries, cleaned, with the leaf removed
• Juice of half a lime
• A pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar (optional if strawberries are very sweet. I personally like the tang without the sugar)
• Soda
• Sprite/7-up or any other lemony fizzy drink
• Ice cubes
• A few sprigs of mint leaves

Method:

• Chop up the strawberries, drop it into your blender along with the lime juice, a few mint leaves, sugar and salt. Add in a few ice cubes and a bit of the sprite and blitz.
• Add a 1/4 measure (Fill 1/4 of your serving glass) of the strawberry mixture to a glass.
• Add the ice cubes and top up with equal quantities of soda and sprite (you can use a 3:2 ratio between soda and sprite depending on how sweet you want your drink to be)
• Garnish with a few mint leaves and serve.
• P.S: You can add a shot of your fav spirit to it and make it a cocktail too :)