Dinorawr!

How many dinosaurs do you see on this cake? You might have to look close to see all three in their natural habitat of fondant grass, leaves and polka dots!

I used fondant with tylose powder for the these dinos. I filled the molds to the top and cleaned the edges of the mold by removing any excess.  Place the mold in the freezer for about five minutes and they  will pop out very easily. I brushed with  pearl dust to bring out the detail on the tiny ones.

The cookies were a nice size for the favor boxes which I picked up at Michael's. Cookie tiles seem to be a popular trend. These little dinos are the perfect size for them. This is about a 1 inch square cutter.

The cookies are decorated with royal icing. Party City carries sixlets in EVERY color.

Volcano cake pops were actually easier to dip than round ones. I worried they would fall off the stick but I did not have any trouble with that. I dipped the stick in chocolate and pushed it halfway into the pop and covered completely. The advantage of plastic sticks is that they can be wiped off if  any chocolate should drip onto them.

I put a small handful of orange melting chocolate wafers into a disposable pastry bag with a pinch of paramount crystals and melted on half power until melted. Be sure to take the bag out and squeeze the bag to distribute the heat evenly during melting.  Cut a small hole off the the tip of the bag and pipe some orange lava on the pop.

Repeat with yellow chocolate.

Use the pastry bag of melted chocolate to attach the molded dinos!

Did you know you can  use the deeper molds for making cookies?

Fill the mold and freeze for about 3 minutes and place on a parchment lined cookie tray.

Bake at 325 for 10 - 12 minutes. Watch carefully, remove when the cookie looks dry and just before it begins to brown. I used a Wilton Roll-Out Cookie Recipe from an old year book. It is not necessary to add the 2 teaspoons of baking powder because you do not want it to rise so I omitted it.

Roll-Out Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with a hand held mixer. Beat in egg and vanilla. Mix in flour one cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Divide dough into small bowls and add several drops of gel food coloring to each bowl. Knead in the coloring with your hands until evenly distributed.  No need to chill dough before using, but if you are working with several colors, you may want to refrigerate the dough you are not using.

Vendor Credits:  Party Styling and Desserts by Jeannie GearinThepastrytip.com

Jeannie's Facebook Page

Products Used:

Mini Dinosaurs

Dino #6

Dino #8

Let the Good Times Roll!

Here is a quick and simple cake to add to your Mardi Gras festivities this week.

First we covered the cake in a green fondant.  Then using our new wavy texture to add the purple details.  I like to roll out the fondant on top of the texture mat.  This helps me to make sure that I'm rolling the fondant even.

Look Mom!  No hands.  I had to operate the camera!  

Next I turned the mat over and slowly pulled it off the fondant.  

Using a small square cutter I cut squares and arranged on the sides of the cake.  Easy!

Dust some sugar pearls with gold luster dust and place at the corners.  I also painted the board with the same gold.

Then I used green, purple and gold bling ribbon and some double sided sticky tape to add some bling to the board.

I will get the details on the mask in another blog.

Products Used:

Wavy Texture Mat
Fleur de lis - Fancy Mini

Gold Bling Ribbon

Apply Green Bling Ribbon

Purple Bling Ribbon

Other Colors of Bling Ribbon

Conversation Hearts

Just in time for Valentine's Day you can make some lovely hearts for your sweetie!

I'm going to show the steps for the two toned hearts.  I take two similar size blobs of  sugarpaste (I used fondant - you can do candy clay, gumpaste, etc).

Then I twist them together.  Looks like a colorful slug to me.

And roll into a smooth ball.

Place the smooth ball in the cavity.  Yeah, this one changed back to all pink for the photo - very odd.

Then I use my rolling pin to smooth out and push the sugarpaste into the cavity.

Once finished I pop them in the freezer for just a couple minutes so I don't squish them when I pop them out.

And all finished!

Product Used:
Valentine - Conversaion Hearts