Roller Derby Cookies

A few weeks ago I set up a vendor's table at the local roller derby bout in support of our girls--Rollergettes (sounds like "roller jets", in reference to Sufferagettes!). Using the "O" from their logo and their team colours, I made these:

Round sugar cookies. Fresh out of the oven while still warm I pressed a star cookie cutter into the cookie to make my piping guideline.

Boy, did I make a lot of these cookies! About 6 or 7 dozen, I think.

First, I piped the outline of the green icing.

I let the green dry while I piped the purple.

When they were all outlined, I decided to do the flooding.
First the green flooding...
Then the purple!

When all the cookies were flooded, I filled the star with white. I packaged one of each cookie into celophane bags, tied them up with black curling ribbon (to tie the black of their logo into it) and sold them for $3 per package, or 2 for $5. I sold all but 8 of them, and gave the rest to my very good friend (and Rollergettes' volunteer) Jill, who deserves much more than cookies for all her efforts.

I used Amanda's (she's so famed she goes by one name now) Sugar Cookie and Royal Icing Substitute, and they turned out splendidly!

Science for hungry people!

Mocha Toffee Ice Cream

Previously I've mentioned how difficult it is to bake during the summer. Well it's true! We don't have air conditioning in our house--save for a window installment in the bedroom for comfortable sleeping--and when it's hot outside the last thing I want to do is make it hotter inside.

So that, paired with the fact that May was colossally busy (I should have known!), my "May Flours" mission was an absolute flop. There, I admitted it. I do, however, have several flours waiting at home for me to turn into some gluten-free wonderfulness, and as soon as I find a day where the house isn't a sauna, they're all yours babies!

In the meantime, I've been using my ice cream maker as modestly as I can, (read: it's a epic struggle against making ice cream every single day), and so far out of the three kinds of ice cream I've made, Mocha Toffee is the best.

This recipe is super easy to make since you don't have to temper eggs; just combine the ingredients, chill, and put into the ice cream maker!

I made it special for my BBQ guests over the May-24 weekend, and again when my lovely friend Jax flew from the West for a visit. I knew she'd love it, because one of our bonding activities in university was to get together late at night for study-break mochas!

Jax enjoys the crunchy toffee bits and smooth coffee chocolate flavour of my Mocha Toffee Ice Cream. Food porn!

Thanks to Cuisinart, from whom I yoinked this recipe. I'm a devoted fan!

Mars Bar Biscuits

I have a coworker from Northern Ireland (or, "NornIrn", the way her brogue curls around it) who brought in some Mars Bar Biscuits to work one day. After tasting one, my reaction was akin to this:


As she explains it, they're super-popular all over Ireland, and they're ridiculously easy to make. Although they're a Rice Krispie-based treat, they're easier to make than Rice Krispie squares, if you can believe it! Special bonus: you can very easily make this recipe Gluten-Free/Celiac safe*! You can find gluten-free/Celiac safe Krispies at any health food store, like Noah's here in Toronto.

*Although you'd think Rice Krispies are gluten-free since they are rice, they contain Malt (a barley derivative) which is not recommended for those with Celiac disease.

Step 1: Melt 4 Mars Bars together with 4oz butter. Melt on low heat JUST until all the big lumps are gone. Don't over-cook the mixture or you will carmelize your sugar and your bars will be hard instead of chewy. Trust me on this.

Step 2: Scale out 4oz of Rice Krispies, which you will weigh on your super-awesome digital scale. If you do not own a digital scale, well, what are you waiting for? Go! Right now. I'll wait.
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*plays Jeopardy music in head*
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Did you get one? Good. You are now super-awesome just for owning one. Your baking life has just gotten infinitely better, my friend.

Anyway.

Mix the 4oz of Rice Krispies into the melted Mars Bar/butter mixture. Dump the mixture into an 8x8 pan and smooth it out using a spatula.

Step 4: Melt 1 package of Hershey's Milk Chocolate chips (in the microwave or over a double boiler) and smooth them over the surface of your Krispies, like this:

Put them in the fridge to cool and solidify, but make sure you take them out of the fridge at least half an hour before you wish to cut them or the chocolate will crack. Cut them as large or small as you want, but I usually cut 5x5 which gives you over 2 dozen bars. They're smaller, but they pack a delicious punch.

Trust me on this, unless your friends hate chocolate (and why are you friends with those people anyway?), they will LOVE LOVE LOVE these. That is, if you don't eat the whole pan by yourself first!

Thanks to Barb for the easiest no-bake recipe I've ever used!

Cookie related cuteness

OMG you guys, it's a widdle iddy biddy cutie cookie kitty! *dies*

So, it's totally hard to bake when it's hot out. I've been making a lot of ice cream lately though!

Yikes.

Between my vacation, and the big BBQ on the long weekend, and now my friend Jaclyn coming to visit, May--as always--has been a whirlwind!

I've baked some goodies, but haven't gotten around to posting them yet...but they're coming! I promise!

May Flours: Cake Flour

I know I'm starting out with a commonly-used flour, but I HAD to for my entry into CupCakeCamp Toronto!

From the Wheat flour Wikipedia entry:

Cake flour is a finely milled white flour made from soft wheat. It has very low protein content, between 8% and 10%, making it suitable for soft-textured cakes and cookies. The higher protein content of other flours would make the cakes tough. Highly sifted cake flours may require different volume amounts in recipes than all-purpose flour.

I heard of an amazing recipe in the BakeBakeBake Livejournal community called "Woody's Luxury Lemon Cake". Adapted from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, this amazing cake combined white chocolate and lemon to make what sounded like a mind-blowing taste experience. I picked this monster cookbook up from the library and set to work on converting this recipe into mini-cupcakes for CupCakeCamp.

I won't post this copyrighted recipe in my blog, but let me assure you that based on this recipe alone, I will be spending the $50 to buy this book. It was a white chocolate cake with lemon zest, filled with homemade lemon curd, and topped with a buttercream made out of a white chocolate vanilla bean custard base mixed with some of the lemon curd OMG YUM.

I'm not going to lie, this was a complicated recipe. It wasn't difficult, but it was process-heavy and thus time-consuming. When it came time to decorate, I was far too tired to cut out, paint and hand-detail 4-dozen tiny fondant lemons like I'd intended, so I tossed a few gold dragees on each and sprinkled them with edible/non-toxic 24 karat gold dust. They sure looked luxurious after that!

I was a planner and volunteer for the event, so I spent most of my time in the back room at CupCakeCamp plating cupcakes, separating out and labeling samples of each to be judged, and helping to organize people and tasks. However, I was able to take a few breaks from the back room and come out and serve cupcakes, as well as present the ones that I made. I was happy to say that mine flew off the trays pretty quickly; not only were they rather fetching looking, but people were super impressed that these cupcakes were covered in real gold!

I was quite surprised and pleased to win the award of "Most Impressive Amateur", and accepted my prize with a giddy combination of jumping and spinning. I never win ANYTHING, so it was kind of awesome. In the prize bag I got a copy of Hello Cupcake!, some Wall-E cupcake liners, a 4-section shaker of Wilton sprinkles in different colours and shapes, and a necklace with a cupcake pendant! I'm wearing it right now, and it's totally cute.

Check out this slideshow of other people's photos. Other than the first two I took during and after the decorating process, I wasn't able to take any pics of my own at the event because I was in the back, but other attendees and bakers took some photos of my cupcakes so I yoinked them and compiled them below:

Sweet success!