Di-licious

This week I’m going to make a bold suggestion.  Instead of queuing up at the shops, why not give a home-baked gift instead? Every year I pull my hair out, trying to work out what to give family and friends.  I walk aimlessly around monolithic shopping centres and to what end? I walk out dejected and despondent – unable to find just the right gift.  A couple of years ago when we were all feeling budget-challenged, my girlfriends and I resolved to make our Kris Kringle gifts instead of buying them. It was fantastic. It required thought and effort. That year I gave a jar of my first, backyard plum-tree jam. I received a beautiful Christmas angel painting that takes pride of place in my living room each year. When you make a gift you give something of yourself.  A beautifully presented box of di-licious home-baked biscuits could make you THE must have Secret Santa of the season. These shortbread-style biscuits look like a slice of Christmas...

If there is one baked good that universally signifies Christmas, it would have to be gingerbread. Originally a German recipe, these aromatic cookies are very much a part of Scandinavian yuletide celebrations as well as those of the western world. Quite simply, these cookies just smell like Christmas. This gingerbread cookie recipe is enough to make a whole gingerbread house, an army of gingerbread men, garlands of cookies for decorating the tree or plenty of cookies to decorate and give as gifts. If you only bake one thing this Christmas, please give these a try.  The recipe is easily halved. If you prefer a spicier biscuit, add more ground ginger.  If you don’t like ginger so much, reduce to one teaspoon and increase the mixed spice to 3 teaspoons.  I’ve provided an indication of how long to cook the cookies for, but use your nose too – when you can smell them, chances are they’re almost done. There are so many ways you can decorate...

I've managed to tick another thing off my Baking Resolutions list .  I finally made cake pops. If you've been living under a rock the last few years, cake pops are the new darling of cake treats. Crumbled cake and ganache mixed together and rolled into balls, stuck onto lolly sticks and dipped into candy chocolate - the combinations and decorations are limitless. The undisputed queen of cake pops is Bakerella .  She first blogged about her 'experiment' in 2008 and before you could say cream cheese frosting, cake pops have taken the world by storm.   A book deal later , people all over the world are creating amazing works of cake-art on sticks.  The Pop Stars section of her blog really is worth a squizz... My first attempt is a little bit clunky - the candy chocolate coating really needed to be thinned down with some vegetable shortening.  But you know what - they were so much fun to make.  I always end up with cake offcuts and left over ganac...

When decorating birthday cakes, I love finding a way to make them a little less ordinary.  My almost mother in law (Mr Di-licious and I haven’t made it down the aisle, yet) loves quilling . I’ve never done quilling myself but I thought it would make an excellent design feature for her 70 th birthday cake. Quilling is essentially rolled up strips of paper, arranged into beautiful patterns. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to emulate the effect with thin strips of fondant.  A couple of attempts later, I realised I really needed to use gumpaste. The strips need to be rolled out really thin, allowed to dry slightly and then rolled up– quilled. I made a variety of different shapes in different colours as well as a stylised 7-0. The final design didn’t follow an existing pattern – it just sort of happened.  If you look closely you can see flower shapes in there. The tablecloth idea was actually a work around.  Originally I’d planned to ...

Hoot Hoot!! How cute are these adorable owl cupcake toppers? I whipped these up last week for a special surprise birthday delivery for my niece. I've been making cupcakes for Hannah's birthdays for the last three years.  Its always interesting to look back at photos of earlier decorating efforts - I've come a long way.  Last year was sort of the p ièce de résistance   - the famed Golden Snitch cupcakes for her Harry Potter themed party. This year we were getting ready for our epic drive to Byron Bay for my sister's wedding , so we didn't make it to Bendigo.  So no Di-licious cupcakes for Hannah.  At least, that's what she thought! Last week I arranged to come and stay the night with Olive and I brought along half a dozen cute owl cupcakes - SURPRISE! We both agree that the embossed ones make the greatest impact but the plain pink ones are cute too. I re-purposed a scrapbooking card embosser to create the embossing effect (cheaper th...

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Drive to Byron Bay for my sister's wedding so we could transport the wedding cake I'd made her. A six day break where we spent four days in the car. Insane right? Did I mention I made a wedding cake? Not your quintessential tiered, fondant creation mind you.  In a nod to our Norwegian heritage, my sister asked me to make a traditional wedding cake called kransekake. If you haven’t seen one before, kransekake isn’t actually a cake; it’s a tower of eighteen sweet almond macaroon rings – think baked marzipan – ‘glued’ together with royal icing.  Instead of cutting the cake, the bride and groom lift the top ring.  The number of rings that stay attached to the top ring is supposed to signify how many children the happy couple will be blessed with.  The rings are then broken up into pieces (starting from the bottom) and served with coffee.  The dough is a cinch to make but its the baking that brin...

The internet gods have not been kind to us this past week.  Apparently a static-y phone line can interfere with our ADSL connection, putting to bed any hopes I had to bring you this tutorial and Mr Di-licious completing an online test for his law course.  Sigh. At least I had my iPhone - I was still connected to the world so to speak, even if in a limited, small screen kind of way. But I digress. As promised, here is a 'tutorial' to help you make the cute as a button sugar carrots for the carrot cupcakes I made last week. They are embarrassingly easy to make.  Before you know it you'll have a carrot patch that's the envy of Don Burke (sorry, Aussie joke). Tutorial: Making sugar carrot decorations To make the sugar carrots, you will need: orange fondant (I used Americolor Orange to colour) green fondant (I used Americolor Avocado to colour) a skewer or pointy modelling tool to make a dent in end of carrot small, fine paintbrush water ...