Christmas Baking: The Sneak-Peek!

Howdy!

 

It's been a crazy, crazy week. That's the nature of the couple of weeks pre-Christmas, and this time around I squeezed five Christmas-related meals in between Tuesday and Saturday evening *pats food baby* On top of that, I was at work at 6:30am every day, spent about twelve hours there, and spent two of those days outside in 35-40oC heat. Suffice it to say that, come Friday, I was a little tiny bit exhausted.

 

But, being pre-Christmas, I had baking planned for my Friday night (plus making a salad for Saturday's Christmas lunch, which I will hopefully get around to posting before Christmas - it's a broccoli salad, and a surprisingly tasty one. Probably not much good for the Christmas dinner table for those in the Northern hemisphere, but for us Down Under it would go down well). The baking plan kind of failed when the supermarket neglected to deliver a couple of key items, and I ended up driving up to the supermarket to get them. D'oh! So I only ended up making the salad on Friday night, and it wasn't until I got home at 9pm Saturday night that I began my baking. 220-ish biscuits in four hours ain't bad!

 

Because I'm so wrecked and need to be in bed within ten minutes, I'll post the easy one. It's easy because I've made them before - it's the recipe for Margaret Fulton's Christmas Spice Biscuits that I made for my cousin's engagement party.

 

This time, instead of making pretty snowflakes and stencilling royal icing onto them, I made Christmas trees and piped royal icing on and glued some bits and pieces on instead. I used Heather's recipe for royal icing from her Sprinkle Bakes book (and I have to say, I don't think I've seen "stiff peak", "soft peak" and "flood" icing described so well before, so I recommend the book if only for that!). 

 

It's more or less as I remember mum teaching me - two egg whites, a little lemon juice (2 tsp in this case), 3c sifted icing sugar (NOT soft icing mixture) plus half a teaspoon of whatever essence you want to use (I used peppermint this time). Once I had beated the heck out of it on low speed and achieved stiff peak icing (it stands up on its own) I then took half a silicone spatula's worth out (hah! What a detailed measurement!), dolloped it in a small bowl, coloured it using gel colour then added a single drop of water using a dropper, stirred it around and tested it (the peak now flopped over on itself) I imagine if you're using liquid colour you should DEFINITELY add it before the water because it may, in itself, water the mixture down... but as I said, that's what I imagine! Check your facts first, because it's a lot easier to water royal icing down than it is to thicken it up again.

 

This is me piping, and obviously getting distracted by having to take a photo with a DSLR with my left hand - note the big blob of icing coming out!

 

This is what I call Piping Grip - it's how I choose to hold the piping bag, and works well for me. You cradle the twisted part of the bag between your thumb and index finger and apply pressure with the remaining fingers. I've also been taught another way - use your two little fingers to keep the bag twisted, then rest the fat end of the piping bag in your palm - but I feel like I have more control this way.

 

60-something biscuits, plus the mixing bowl soaking my red piping tip (note the pink water!).

 

And now I've made them pretty, with cachous (mind your teeth!) and candy-cane shaped sprinkles (which actually taste like peppermint) which I seem to recall I got from Baking Pleasures (although they don't appear to be in stock at present, which is kind of a moot point anyway because they're closed for Christmas!)

 

I can't decide which I like better - the red

 

or the green?

 

I think the green ones are more appropriate, but the red have more of a visual impact when you're presenting them. Plus I seem to recall reading that "cool" colours and neutrals dull the appetite, whereas brightly-coloured foods stimulate it. Not that anyone is likely to be dissuaded from eating a biscuit based on the colour of its icing!

 

 

Stay tuned for recipes for the other biscuits in this box. The boys at work ain't gonna know what hit them!

 

Flower Making Tutorial: Gumpaste Daisies

I feel quite advanced sharing this with you, but I finally feel like I'm good enough at something in the cake decorating world to share a "how to" with you. Today's "how to" is "how to make a daisy from gumpaste/flowerpaste". They must be quite simple, otherwise I wouldn't be sharing with you! They're the ones I used on this cake.

 

You need:

Gumpaste/flowerpaste - one colour for the petals and a smaller amount of another colour for the centre. Note that you should probably wear gloves when colouring gumpaste as it will stain your hands!

Daisy cutters in two slightly different sizes

 

Roller, preferably a proper, acrylic decorating one

Decorating tool with one rounded end and one pointy end - looks a little like a pencil. I think it's called a scribing tool. Or maybe a cone tool. Or something. I don't know. Don't listen to me!

 

Soft icing sugar and dusting pouch

Work mat

 

Thin, dense foam pad

CMC glue & small paint brush (dedicated to cake decorating, one hopes!)

Sanding sugar to match coloured fondant for daisy centre.

 

1. Knead your gumpaste until it becomes soft and pliable. Dye as needed. Set aside and keep covered at all times when you are not working with it.

 

2. Dust work surface with soft icing sugar/icing mixture (note that this is not always gluten free).

 

3. Roll gumpaste out until it is slightly transparent.

 

4. Cut out pairs of flowers (one larger, one smaller), making sure to press the innermost edges and give them a good wiggle to make sure it cuts cleanly. You should then flip the cutter and run your finger around the cutting edge to get rid of any little gumpaste wormy bits, before gently tapping the flower shape out/poking it gently with a paintbrush. If your cutters are plastic and new (or haven't been used in a while), you will probably need to gently bend them outwards, i.e. holding the outer edges and with the non-cutting edge facing downwards, gently bend innermost edges upwards. If that makes sense! Note also that if you are cutting multiple sets at one time you should be sure to cover them immediately with plastic so they don't dry out.

 

5. Place a pair of petals on your dense foam block and gently but firmly run the rounded end of your pointy tool thingie from the ends of each petal on both flowers in towards the centre (but not quite all the way). Make sure there are no rough bits of plastic where the tool was injection molded otherwise it will rip the petal and you'll have to start over. You'll probably have to start over again at some point anyhow, because it takes a while to get into the swing of things and get the thickness of the gumpaste and the pressure of the tool right!

 

6. Paint a bit of CMC glue into the centre of the larger flower and place the smaller one on top of it, angling it slightly so that the petals alternate.

 

7. Make a small ball, a little smaller than a pea, with your second colour of gumpaste. Lance it on the pointy end of your tool thingie, paint it with CMC glue and roll it in coloured sanding sugar. Note that the stuff I made was home-made - I just used regular white sugar and put a few drops of liquid food colouring and smooshed it around with the back of a teaspoon until it was evenly distributed, then spread it to dry on some greaseproof paper on a tray. It's a bit clumpier than the commercial stuff but I think it worked just fine.

 

8. Paint a bit of CMC glue into the centre of the smaller (top) petal and place the ball, hole side down, onto it and press lightly. Transfer your completed flower to a tray dusted with more icing mixture to dry. You could also use those flower moulding cups, but I only had three and I didn't really like the angle they set on.

 

9. Once dry, attach a flower to your cake using CMC glue - don't go overboard otherwise it will slip, and hold it in place for about ten seconds until it stays where it's put. The half-opened ones around the base were dried in the cup side of egg carton (dusted with icing sugar), and the ones around the side were dried on the flat underside of the egg carton lid (again, dusted with icing sugar). Unless I specifically need them to fit into a tight corner (like the ones around the base, which are glued to and propped up on a ball of fondant that is in turn glued to the cake), I will probably just dry them flat in the future as I quite like how they sit. But if you want a variety of stages of blooming then experiment with propping them up on things by all means!

 

Feel free to comment if you have any questions. I don't purport to be the Yoda of Gumpaste Flowers by any means, but I was successful with these ones and felt that I should spread the love! Next time I might tell you how to make those frills. Maybe.