Butterfly Brownie - A new glamorous brownie design

You know, I had no intention of making these, they weren't some long thought out and planned design that I'd had in my head for ages and agonised over getting just right, these just sort of happened on their own, when I was practising making some butterflies and just happened to have a tray of brownies nearby.

After making these butterflies, I decided that they were too small and made some bigger ones and then decided that the bigger ones were too big and reverted to using these ickle bitty ones. The butterflies need to have a day to harden so that their wings can set and it is a good idea to bake the brownies a day before you stamp them out, so that they cut better.

Making and Cutting the Brownies
I always use this recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook for making any brownies that I want to stamp out shapes from. It make a deliciously dark, fudge dense brownie that cuts out easily without too many crumbs. It is best if you leave it for about 24 hours before cutting out the shapes and if you the weather is warm, you may want to put it in the fridge for 30 minutes or so before cutting.

I find i get better result if I turn the slab of brownies brownies upside down before cutting them out. Remember as well, before cutting, to check that the cutter you are going to use is a good size for whatever mould you are using for the fondant. (see below for the equipment I used)

Making the Butterflies

What you need

Butterfly Cutter / Embosser (Patchwork cutters)

Pink petal or gum paste

Sugarcraft cutter or cutting wheel

A little vegetable fat (trex)

Piece of stiff cardboard and greaseproof paper

A little edible glue or piping gel to attach it later

The butterflies are cut out using a butterfly cutter from the Patchwork Cutters Butterflies, Ladubirds and Bees set. When I bought these the man in the shop said to me that these are not cutters - they are embossers and this is partly true. If you roll out your gum paste really thin, the patchwork cutter will cut through the paste, in practice I find my paste is usually part cut, the cutters are good value for money and I like the effect they give, so I think they are worth a little extra effort.



1. Grease your board with a little vegetable fat to  prevent the paste form sticking (Or use cornflour if you prefer)

2. Roll out your petal or gum paste really thin. I use the 9" rolling pin from Wilton with the pink guides attached.

3. Use the patchwork cutter to emboss / cut the sugar paste. This is one of the medium sized butterflies from the kit








4. If the cutter hasn't cut all the way through the sugar paste, use a cutter or cutting wheel to cut out the shape.

5. Gently lift each side of the butterflies wing from the outside inwards to release from board





6. Fold the cardboard into a V shape and line with greaseproof paper.

7. Carefully lift the butterflies and gently lay them onto the V shape. Make a few more that you need, as the chances are, one will break somewhere along the way

Moulding the Fondant

What you need

Purple sugarpaste or fondant (Amethyst Regalice by Renshaws)

Piped roses mould (Karen Davies)

A little trex

A cookie cutter that works with the mould you are using

Moulding is one of those things, where some days your luck is in and other days, not so much. Today was a good day for me and even using plain fondant (rather than modelling or gum paste) these just popped right out of the moulds for me. It was rather cool in my kitchen, so that probably helped. If you are not having such a good day, then check out Karen's moulding video here for some tips. If all else fails and you don't have, or want to use lustre or modelling paste, just pop the mould with the fondant in it into the freezer for about 15 minutes. It is then guaranteed to pop right out, you will though need to leave it for about a day to thaw and dry out a bit afterwards.

1. Make a ball of fondant a bit bigger than a walnut and need it a little till smooth

2. Rub a little vegetable fat between your palms

3. Roll the fondant ball between your palms so that it is lightly coated in the vegetable fat to stop it sticking

4. Turn the mould over and flex the mould to pop the moulded fondant out




5. Use the same cookie cutter you used to cut out the brownies to cut the moulded fondant to the shape.










Finally assemble all your bits together. Start with the brownie bottom side up, spread with a little edible glue or piping gel and gently press the moulded fondant on top. Finally attach the butterfly. You kind of need to push his or her little bottom into the fondant to get then to sit at a nice angle.

Happy Baking and Decorating!

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Triple Rose Lemon Polenta Cookies

We have a little tradition at work, where we bring cakes in on our Birthday to share with the other members of our team. Persoanlly, I have always thought that this is a bit backwards and that people should be buying cake for me on my Birthday, but, you know how it is, you go with the flow.


One of my colleagues in another team, brought in some very delicious home baked cakes, I managed to sneakily blag one via one of my friends who is in her team. These cakes were lemon, polenta and blueberry. Well, you know what, these were some of the most delicious cakes I have ever tasted, so obviously I immediately confessed to having snuck one of her cakes and very politely asked for the recipe and this was produced the following day.

I have baked the recipe for the lemon, polenta and blueberry cake twice now, I to develop and perfect a variation on the frosting for these, to make it both delicious and pipe - able before I can share those with you ...

I was however, inspired by the lemon, polenta and blueberry cakes to make some lemon polenta cookies. I used a variation of my simple sugar cookie recipe with lemon flavouring added and about a third of the flour replaced by polenta. The polenta gives the cookies a beautiful colour as well as a lovely crunch. Depending on what is in you cupboard or fridge, you can either use lemon zest for flavouring or a teaspoon or so from a bottle of lemon flavouring


Recipe

200g / 8oz butter or block margarine

200g / 8oz caster / superfine sugar

zest of 1 lemon or 1 teaspoon of lemon flavouring

1 egg

125g / 5oz quick cook polenta (corn meal)

275g / 11oz plain flour

Mix the polenta / corn meal into the flour then make and bake as per these sugar cookies

Decoration

Equipment

Rose cupcake topper mould (I used one from Karen Davies)

Modelling paste

Petal Shaped Cookie cutter

Petal dust. (I used Primrose, Lemon Ice and Spring Green all by Sugarflair)

Couple of clean paintbrushes

Edible glue or piping gel

This is the lovely mould that I used from Karen Davies. This mould is intended to be a cupcake topper, Karen shows you how to use it herself here. 

You can either mould a the full circle in the mould and then cut out the shape with a petal shaped cutter, or just mould the roses in the centre and cut out a flat petal shape from rolled fondant. I used the latter method.

What a difference a little modelling paste makes

You can use ordinary fondant for making these moulds, modelling fondant gives a much crisper and more detailed finish. Modelling paste is fondant or sugar paste that has had "stuff" added to it to make it stretchier and less sticky. You can also get sugar flower paste, this has about twice as much of the "stuff" added to it which is why you can made modelling paste by mixing ordinary fondant and sugar flower paste. For a very finely detailed mould, you can also use sugar flower paste for moulding, be aware that sugar flower paste can dry rather hard and may not be that nice to eat.

If you can't get hold of modelling or sugar flower paste, you can get better results by freezing the fondant in the mould.


This mould has been made with ordinary fondant or sugar paste

This mould has been made with modelling paste. (I used one by Squires Kitchen)

What a difference a little petal dust and lustre makes

I started by painting the leaves in Spring Green, then the centre of the roses with the Primrose colour and finally brushed all over the roses with the Lemon Ice

Finally, assemble the cookies using edible glue or pipping gel to stick the different elements together.

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Espresso Cupcakes

If you are anywhere near as obssessed by interested in cakes and cookies as me, then when I shared my lavender and lace cookies with you, your first thought was, I wonder what that would look like on a cupcake?

Well, we aim to please, so here are some dainty little espresso fairy cakes. Like an espresso I have made them diminutive on size, but big on flavour. The easiest way o add coffee flavouring to a cake is to use instant coffee, you need 1 teaspoon per egg for your recipe. If you want a more subtle coffee flavour use a level teaspoon, for an espresso type flavour use a heaped teaspoon. Just remember to dissolve the instant coffee in a title boiling water before mixing in to your cake mix. (I may have forgotten this part in my excitement at making these little cakes - minor cake disaster averted by the addition of another teaspoon of instant coffee mixed with just boiled water)

Recipe

I used a two egg mix to make about 12 of these fairy cake size cakes. Start by weighing your two eggs in their shells, they will probably weigh about 100 to 150 g or 4 to 6 ounces. Then weigh out the same amount of

Margarine / Softened Butter
Caster / Superfine Sugar
Self Raising Flour

You will also need
Two teaspoons of instant coffee
1 tablespoon just boiled water

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F or 175 C
Pop some cupcake cases into a bun tin

Cream together the margarine or butter together until light and fluffy

Gradually beat in the eggs adding a spoonful of the flour should the mix start to curdle.

Dissolve two teaspoons of instant coffee in about a tablespoon of just boiled water.

Mix in the dissolved coffee

Add the flour and stir until just incorporated

Spoon or pour the cake mix into the cupcake cases
Bake for about 15 minutes.

When cooked the cakes will spring back when lightly prodded

These cakes are decorated in just the same way as these lavender and lace cookies, just using brown fondant and gold coloured pearls. 

Lavender and Lace Cookies

Whenever I bake a batch of sugar cookies, I always make more that I need, in some different and sometimes random shapes for practising various techniques on. I had had these cookies in mind for a while and my plan was to make fondant lace and then top them with a rose, when I came to do it, I found that I preferred the look of a few (shop bought) sugar pearls instead.

These are lavender flavoured cookies adapted from a basic sugar cookie recipe. The same recipe I used for the Lavender Chrysanthemum cookies find it here.

If you have never tried decorating cookies with fondant, this is a great place to start. I used this beautiful "Amy Lace" mould by Karen Davies who is generous enough with her talent to make many wonderful moulds. If you pop by her shop, bet you can't just buy one!

You can use any lace mould, embossing sheet or rolling pin to get a similair effect.

Decorating

Equipment

Lace mould or embossing sheet

Lavender colour sugar paste or fondant

Small rolling pin

Marzipan spacers (optional)

Small round plain or fluted cutter, (that you have used to cut out your cookies with).
Edible Glue or piping gel (optional)
Sugar pearls 

Method

I remembered to snap some photographs of what I was doing when making these, they are only snapped with my phone, but, I hope that you will appreciate them to illustrate the method.

Roll out your sugar paste to about 1 cm thick, using the marzipan rollers as a guide if you have them.

If your sugar paste is sticky then rub a little vegetable fat (trex) onto the surface.






Place the rolled out sugar paste on to your mould or embossing sheet and roll a little more to impress the pattern from the mould or embossing sheet on to the fondant











Position a cutter over the part of the patterned sugar paste that you want to use and cut out

Carefully lift the sugar paste and place on top of one of your cookies.

You may need to use a little edible glue or piping gel to make it stick






Brush the holes in the lace mould, or anywhere else that you want the sugar pearls to stick with a little edible glue or piping gel and then  place a sugar pearl in position. A pair of clean tweeers can be helpful.




Before you go, please indulge me with one gratuitous china shot, this vintage plate is just too pretty not too show you

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Lavender Chrysanthemum Cookies

These cookies could be either Dahlias or Chrysanthemums, the mould I purchased said it was a chrysanthemum mould, so I have called them Chrysanthemum cookies, but feel free to make them as dahlia cookies if that is what you prefer! The two flowers in fact originate on different continents,  even thought they look so similar.

The lavender in the title doesn't just refer to the colour of these flowers, these sweet little cookies are flavoured with lavender as well. 

This recipe is an adaptation of a basic sugar cookie recipe. These are such sweet little cookies, that I have given a recipe for a half quantity of cookie dough. I have used a lavender flavouring by Beau products, you could replace the sugar with lavender sugar if you prefer a more natural flavouring.

You can make lavender sugar by wrapping two tablespoons of dried lavender flowers in a muslim pouch and leaving them if a tightly sealed jar containing 1 cup of caster sugar. Leave the flavours to permeate for about two weeks. You could also just mix one to two tablespoons of the dried lavender flowers in with the sugar, this gives pretty flowers in your biscuit mix too. 

Lavender Sugar Cookie Recipe

100g / 4oz Butter / block margarine

100g / 4oz caster / superfine sugar (or lavender sugar if using)

1 egg white (two tablespoons)

1 tsp lavender flavouring (if using)

Violet gel colour (optional)

200g / 8oz plain flour

Method

This is best done in a mixer, if you want to do it by hand, rub the margarine into the butter until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs, stir in the sugar and then mix in the egg white until it forms a dough, pressing together if necessary.

In a mixer:

1. Mix or beat the butter or margarine with the sugar and lavender flavouring or lavender sugar. 
2. Mix or beat in the egg white with a little gel colour if you want to use it
3. Mix in the flour until a cookie dough forms.

Roll out the dough on a well floured surface until about half a centimetre or a quarter of an inch thick. Cut out your cookie shapes, choosing  a cutter the same size as the mould you are using or a little smaller as the cookies may spread slightly when cooked.

Decorating the cookies

Equipment

- lavender coloured fondant or sugar paste
- chrysanthemum mould
- edible glue or piping gel
- edible gold paint if you fancy painting one gold.

I have decorated these cookies using this Classic Chrysanthemum mould by First Impressions. This mould does require a little patience and may to be the best to start with if you have not tried moulding with fondant before.

I find it difficult to pop the moulded paste out without putting it in the freezer, so, because I am going to freeze it, I often make it with ordinary sugar paste rather than modelling paste. 

Method

1. Take a piece of sugar paste about the size of a small walnut and knead until smooth.  If your fondant is very sticky, rub a little vegetable fat (trex) between your palms. Roll into a ball and press firmly into the mould.
2. If you have too much sugar paste, remove the excess. I like to do this by rolling a toothpick across the top, from the centre outwards
3. If you don't have enough sugar paste, add a little more
4. Use your finger to smooth around and tidy up all the edges.
5. If you are lucky, flex the mould and your flower will pop out. (One of mine popped right out)
6. If your flower doesn't pop out, place it in the freezer for around fifteen minutes or longer if necessary.
7. Use edible glue or piping gel to attach the flowers onto the biscuits.
8. If you want to paint one or more, wait 24 hours until the flowers are dry. They get a little moist as they unfreeze. I used two coats of Squires Kitchen edible gold paint to get this effect

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