Boba Fett Pizza and Darth Vader Brownies

I'm woefully behind on blog postings. I have photos upon photos taunting me to publish them with black and white words surrounding them on this blog but alas that part of blogging takes time I've not been giving it. Many things seem out of place to post after such a long time and give me more hesitation. Then last night I had an epiphany that I shouldn't care! I should just share. If it's a Christmas post in July so be it. After all don't we often find blogs and scroll through them out of time? And with the beauty that is Pinterest we can now pin those things we want to recall in the proper season. Are you a Pinterest addict? I'm in love. You can see my pins here and if you need an invitation to join the fun send me a message.

So without further ado I'll get the ball rolling with the Star Wars Day, May the Fourth Be with You! This one seems mildly appropriate to post today since my city is a buzz with DragonCon this weekend. I first became aware of Star Wars day only last year thanks to facebook.

In 2010 I  whipped up a Han Solo in white chocolate carbonite, three Yoda colored vanilla lollipops and a large Darth Vader shaped rice crispy treat. Darth isn't chocolate rice crispies. He's the regular with added food coloring for the dark lord. This year I couldn't repeat my goodies so I decide to use my Vader pan to make brownies!

But not any brownies, Double Choclate Oreo Brownies! If we're going on the dark side we need to go all the way. I gathered the above ingredients and got cracking.

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Ham Solo in CandyBaronite

I'm a fifteen year vegetarian married to a bacon loving omnivore. This doesn't cause conflict since he genuinely loves eating good vegetarian meals and I also indulge the meat beast within him from occasion. One such occasion of indulgence bore Ham Solo in CandyBaronite!

I was initially just considering dipping bacon in chocolate to make Christmas goodies.

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I Like Candy, Part Two: Darth Vader

In my previous post I mentioned the start of my new found curiosity for making candies and chocolates. It was all a lead up to this entry. I needed a reason to make a solid Darth Vader mask out of black chocolate. And I found it. My friend's fortieth birthday. He's a Star Wars fan; he'd appreciate it. I was very excited. I had plans to make Vader from a mix of milk chocolate and Bailey's Irish Cream. I was melting my large amount of chocolate over a double boiler fashioned from a large bowl when my bowl tipped, steam slipped inside the lip of the bowl, and my chocolate seized. I blogged about that mistake and the resulting yummy truffles here. What I didn't mention in the blog entry was in addition to the truffles, before I froze the chocolate seizure, I scooped out more and pressed the Bailey's-chocolate into my Han Solo in Carbonite candy mold. 

All his features didn't turn out perfect since the chocolate wasn't pourable and therefore unable to reach the small voids. However, after a toss in cocoa I thought he was decent enough to take pictures of with toys. And eat. I mean, come on, he's made of milk chocolate and Baileys. I think a dip in a hot cup of coffee would be the perfect way to release Han. 

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I Like Candy, Part One: A Hunger Born

I was going to post about my chocolate creation this past weekend but thought I should do a first post to explain how this whole candy thing started. I've been baking and decorating shaped cakes for years for family and friends. Never for money or request. That makes me nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs since I'm self-taught, my only lessons being watching my mom decorate cakes when I was growing up in the eighties. Fast forward to this past February when my super fab next door neighbor asked if I'd bake a cake for her son's fourth birthday party. She said she'd pay. Oh my. I told her I'd do it for just the cost of ingredients and still felt trepidation. The theme was Lego; the design left to me. 

Originally I thought I'd do a giant Lego brick cake. Have you seen them? Basically a sheet cake with cupcakes on top all iced a solid color. Effective but I thought maybe I could do better. I did have a silicone cake mold of a Lego Man I had purchased at Lego Land. Maybe I could use that. I did a test bake in the mold and realized it would not work with cake. Cute as a brownie. But with added buttercream icing, because I do not, will not do fondant, the details would be lost. 

Then an idea occurred to me. CANDY! I'd always seen the bag of Wilton Candy Melts on the cake aisle at Michael's. Maybe I could make a candy man from the mold. And I did. And it was easy. And it was awesome! Then I made candy Lego bricks from a Lego ice cube mold. 

The cake was a big hit. And a candy love was born.

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