Halloween Eyeball Wreath

I couldn't sleep last night so I got busy making the Halloween eyeball wreath I've been imagining.

I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to do it so I gathered a bunch of supplies from my craft stash. The wreath form and black ribbon were a dollar each from the Dollar Tree, the black glitter leaves and flowers are from Michael's and cost a dollar too, the black tulle is leftover from another project and the eyeballs are bouncy balls and a big bag cost only $4 at Target. I wanted to wrap the wreath in black grosgrain ribbon but it turns out I needed two spools to cover the form. So I changed course and wrapped it in the black tulle.

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Baking Martha's Marble Cake with White Chocolate Glaze

Another baked good off the list from efforts to bake every recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. Number 6 out of 173 was not a random pick from a friend but a custom order. My dad had me bring the book over so he could choose his recipe; he picked two. He wanted Marble Cake with White Chocolate Glaze for his birthday cake and come Christmas I'll be making him Baking Soda Biscuits.

But first came the marble cake and my previously mentioned frustration with the Baking Handbook. A hard to find ingredient not being called out as such. The culprit? Dutch-processed cocoa. This is my third recipe from Martha's book involving cocoa powder. All three specified Dutch-processed cocoa. I used natural unsweetened cocoa in both the One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes and the icing on the Black and White Cookies. For my dad, I decided to see if I could track down the correct cocoa. I could not find it at Kroger, Publix or Ingles. I did track down a box at Whole Foods...for TEN DOLLARS. Yep, this cocoa costs twice as much as natural baking cocoa. 

Not all Dutch-processed cocoas will say such on their label. The ingredients always tell the tale. Natural will only list cocoa. Dutch-process will list cocoa and either say Dutch processed, like above, or simply alkali. That's what your looking for: alkali.

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A Death Star Birthday

 We celebrated my middle moppet turning seven this weekend with the feast and cake of his own choosing. I spent the weekend making it happen creating my first ever stacked cake with a Death Star on top along with a buffet of baby back ribs, collard greens, corn, fried okra, mac and cheese, and lima beans. With a BBQ sauce mustache above his gorgeous grin he hugged me and told me it was a beautiful day. Happy Birthday, little man!

Making the Death Star come to life.

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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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Chocolate Seizure

I've started experimenting with candy molds and candy making. This weekend is a friend's 40th birthday and I thought he'd appreciate a large chocolate Darth Vader mask. Since I make a tasty Bailey's Irish Cream-Chocolate Mousse, I thought I could make Vader have that same Bailey's flavor. However, the large quantity of chocolate I was trying to melt with the alcohol over a makeshift double boiler did not want to cooperate. My bowl tilted over my pot of boiling water, steam came inside and the chocolate seized. Ugh. I was not happy.

The chocolate looked ugly, and definitely could not be poured into a mold. But it was SO yummy. I rolled up a few balls of the difficult chocolate and let them harden in the freezer. Then I rolled them in a little cocoa to make a Bailey's-Chocolate Truffle. I froze the rest of the chocolate and soon I'll make more small truffles. I'm thinking I need to bake them inside a cupcake like I did the buckeyes last month. Can you imagine them dropped in to the middle of a mocha cupcake with a homemade Bailey's buttercream frosting? *drools* I'll keep you posted when I make those babies, for sure. 

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Soup's On: Taco Soup

This is the essential soup in my household. I make a large pot every week to keep in the fridge. It's a tasty, filling, low calorie, high fiber meal. It's portable to be taken on picnics and hikes. It's even good cold. I've served this to satisfied friends when they've come over for lunch; my middle child asks for it along with a veggie burger almost daily. When we go on playdates and pack lunches, Thing Two does not want a sandwich; he want's this soup. And it's super simple and fast to make from pantry items. The recipe has been modified from a version of Taco Soup my Weight Watchers leader gave me several years ago. One cup of soup has approximately 100 calories, less than 1 gram of fat and 6 grams of fiber. If you're a Weight Watcher member like myself, that's only 1 point per cup.

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Make Your Own Halloween Tea Lights

I was thumbing through my latest issue of Family Fun Magazine when I came across instructions for turning ping pong balls and battery powered tea lights into spooky halloween eyes. I quickly did one eye ball. Then I found orange ping pong balls that afternoon and thought why not create miniature jack-o-lanterns? So I did. Then 9yo, owl-obsessed, Thing One asked if I could make him an owl...with a spooky tree. So I did. Then the ideas from the kidlets kept pouring in.

Lights On

Lights Off

The Entire Set In Action

Now Barbie has a jack-o-lantern.

If you want to make your own all you need to do is cut an X in the bottom of the ping pong ball, pop it over the "flame" on the battery powered tea light then create your design using permanent markers. Super, super simple. You can also use a pencil to draw your design first and make adjustments since the pencil marks erase off the ball easily. Similar, but not nearly as attractive, single blinking eye battery lights sell at Target for $2.99 each. My boys were full of praise for me when they saw the Target version...and its price. I already had battery powered tea lights on hand but my local Dollar Tree also sells two packs, batteries included. And the ping pong balls can be found for around $2 for an 8 pack at the grocery store or big box stores. My neighbor even tells me she saw them at The Dollar Tree.


I think I may need to do this at Christmas, too. Glowing Christmas trees, or candles, or ornaments, or angels...

I was so in love with my first three creations I took a quick video to share with my friends on facebook. Unbeknownst to me, my man snagged a video of me. Oy. Enjoy the Behind the Scenes.

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Chewy Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Brownies

I love brownies. Seriously. Love. Brownies. I could give up all other desserts in favor of brownies. The only way I do not like a brownie is with nuts. Do not do that to a brownie. It is an offense to the chocolate perfection. I know this; the brownies speak to me. The brownies also spoke to me when I first saw the Ultimate Edge Brownie Pan. They told me to buy it. The told me if I bought it they would bake. I resisted their cry until the day my neighbor shared she too had been hearing the voice of the brownie. We decided to co-own the best little brownie pan that ever was. 

This past weekend I realized I'd been holding the brownie pan of awesomeness hostage too long and needed to send it next door for a few months. But before I let the pan go I had to make one more batch. Why I didn't turn to Martha's Baking Handbook, I do not know. Instead I made these...

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Baking Martha's Black and White Cookies

Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook Black and White Cookies

Prior to my adventure to bake recipe number 5 out of 173 in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, my knowledge of the Black and White Cookie was limited to the Seinfeld episode. I see this cookie occasionally in glass bakery cases and recall Jerry's assertion to "look to the cookie" for racial harmony. 

“You see, Elaine, the key to eating a black and white cookie is that you wanna get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet still somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie, all our problems would be solved.”

Sadly it seems this New York specialty cookie was born not to show us how everyone can get along but as a way for local bakeries to use their leftover cake batter for extra profit. A little extra flour was tossed in with the batter and a cookie was made. Regardless of why this cookie exists, I'm glad I got to know it. Cake never tasted better as a cookie.

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