Scary Edible Eyeballs - Marshmallows To Trick or Treat ! HALLOWEEN

Anyone fancy an eyeball ? 

I had a blast making these up this afternoon. From the moment I thought of the idea, I just knew that my little boy (Oliver) would adore them. 

Oliver has his 5th birthday coming up, and his party will be on 27th October - which is rather close to Halloween. I rather like the idea of potting up these edible eyeballs with some green gummy jelly in pots for his party bags and perhaps filling a chocolate skull with them too.

"Oh WOW - you're the coolest Mummy I know !", Oliver declared on the way home tonight. I'm guessing that means that he likes this idea..... Certainly made me giggle !

Might be even better with red goo in the middle. Deeeelicious !

Want to know how to make them ?

You will need : 

gel paste food colouring (I used black, blue and green). I prefer Wilton gel pastes as they dissolve easily in water, whereas some of the others don't. 

cocktail sticks

piping bag - I use these disposable 18" ones for this (you can wash out and re-use...)

4 x 15 cell bonbon (semi sphere) silicone bakeware moulds (or do a smaller batch and use two)

sugar thermometer

cake release spray - or sunflower / vegetable oil

2 or 3 plastic 3ml pipettes (or small, empty syringe - available from chemist shops)

INGREDIENTS - makes 30 eyeballs ( and a little spare mallow)

FOR A SMALLER BATCH, MAKE HALF THE RECIPE VOLUME

pack of Gelatine granules. I used Dr Oeteker.

300g sugar

2 egg whites

water

some flavouring (vanilla extract, essences or Lor-Ann candy oils)

Make sure your flavourings are CLEAR.

PUPILS AND IRISES

Prepare your 4 x 15 cell semi sphere silicone bakeware molds by spraying with cake release spray, or oil using a vegetable oil on some kitchen roll. Marshmallow is the stickiest stuff you can imagine. If any of the mould is not properly prepared, the marshmallow WILL stick to it !

Put 50g of sugar and 100g or mls of boiling water into a jug. Stir to dissolve.

Set aside until luke warm, then sprinkle over a sachet of gelatine granules and stir well.

Pop this in the microwave, and cook in short bursts. Once the gelatine is all dissolved into the sugar solution, it is ready to use.

Pour about 1/3 of this into a separate bowl. Use a cocktail stick to add some black food colouring gel paste and mix well. The colour needs to be strong - not wishy washy - for the desired effect.

Using a pipette or syringe, put 3 drops of the black gelatine solution in 30 of the cells.

Take the remaining solution and colour it as desired for the iris. You may want to split into two or three batches for multiple colours.

Do not worry if it is setting hard too fast. You can zap it again in the microwave.

The gelatine mixure needs to be warm and very fluid. If you start getting lots of bubbles on top of the solution after piping, it may be getting too cool. 

Do make sure it's also not too hot - as we don't want the colours to bleed into each other.

By the time you have put black solution in for all the pupils, the first ones will have set. Go ahead and put approx 2mls of your coloured solution over the top of the set black gel.

It will now look like this....

The next stage is to make the marshmallow. This is a stronger / little more dense marshmallow than my normal recipe, as I want the eyeballs to stay intact even if subject to quite a lot of handling. As a result, it WILL start to set up on you quickly once mixed - so you need to work fast.

MARSHMALLOW

Put 500g of sugar and 250g of water in a large, heavy based pan

Put the sugar thermometer in, and turn on the heat. DO NOT STIR.

The sugar needs to stay on the heat and boil until it gets to 120deg C

Put 125ml of cold  water in a cup or bowl and add 3 sachets of gelatine granules. You can add flavouring to this as desired. I used 5 drops of Blackcurrant Lorann Candy Oil (use a pipette - it's strong stuff... Stir well and set aside....

When the sugar syrup gets to about 110deg C, whip the egg whites to firm peak.

Remove sugar syrup from heat at 120deg C. Allow  a few seconds for the bubbles / boiling to subside, then stir in the gelatine granules mix and dissolve.

Using a hand mixer on highest speed, whip the egg whites whilst pouring in the hot sugar syrup mix. It will be really soupy to start with. Whip hard and fast until thickening and increasing in volume. It needs to remain pourable.

Transfer into an 18" disposable piping bag. Snip a tiny bit off the end, and then pipe the mallow into all 60 cells, until level with the top of each cavity.

That's it !

Leave alone for a couple of hours, undisturbed.

Carefully, place one mould with the pupils and irises on top of a mould with just plain mallow cells - carefully making sure they line up.

Press down gently on the top of each cavity, to make sure the bases of each mallow stick together.

When the top mould is removed, you'll have eyeballs just like these !

Lightly oil your hands with vegetable or sunflower oil (or cake release spray).

Remove eyeballs from mould. The small amount of oil on your hands will stop the mallows sticking to you or anything else. These can now be potted up with some jelly in little pots as I did, put onto lolly sticks (dip stick in chocolate first), eaten as is, or frozen for future use.

I so want to make a specimen jar full of eyeballs and jelly worms !

Emma and Oliver loved them !

Happy Halloween when it comes .....

Sarah-Jane Nash, www.siliconemoulds.com - 10/10/13

Making Life Size Chocolate Skulls - Includes Tutorial Video - Halloween !

How about making this life - size white chocolate skull for Halloween this year ? 

That's exactly what I did using the Wilton Dimensions 3D Large Skull Pan / Mould.

My skull was 750g of white chocolate. My little boy, Oliver loved smashing it up with a rolling pin ! I've also promised to make one for his class at school. That one is to get stuffed with jelly snakes / worms and used like a pinata for a mini halloween party.

My chocolate skull turned out so well, that due to many requests - I made another chocolate skull and filmed a video tutorial at the same time. See how to make it in the links below.

It's actually quite easy, though you do need to know how to temper chocolate. Other than white couveture chocolate, the only other things you need are modelling chocolate (easy to make) and some luster dust or tint powders to decorate.

Chocolate workshops are now available in our cookery school in Attleborough, Norfolk (UK). We will be running some novelty chocolate classes and chocolate truffle workshops in November and December. Dates to be launched in the next few days.  Keep an eye out on www.siliconemoulds.com for more info.

Here is the fun we had smashing this creation !

Chocolate Medallions with Dried Fruit and Nuts (Ideal For Christmas Gifts !)

Making these pretty chocolate medallions could not be simpler. It almost feels wrong that something so easy can possibly taste or look so good. 

There is absolutely nothing to it apart from some tempered chocolate and a selection of dried fruits and nuts.

I simply piped some tempered chocolate on to our Revolutionary Double Sided Macaron Mats and dropped a few nuts and some dried fruit on top.

These medallions literally are the simplest thing to make - but make a beautiful gift !

Quick and Easy Carrot Cakes - Recipe and Video Tutorial from SiliconeMoulds.com

I'm not going to kid you on. This is a recipe I have made many many times before. I've even blogged it before (back in 2010). Sometimes I make these little carrot cakes as muffins and other times I make it as one big cake and just cook for a bit longer.

It's moist, tasty and delicious. Not overly sweet - until you smother them with lashings of cool cream cheese frosting. Then you know you've died and gone to heaven....

Generally I try not to repeat recipes on the blog ....... but fact is that we bake favorite recipes on a regular basis. Not everything has to be "new" and I've no shame in reposting this recipe.

However, I DO have something new to share, and that is the new little carrot silicone bakeware mould I've designed. 

You may be asking yourself why on earth I'd want to make a mould that makes it fast and easy to make sugarpaste and chocolate carrots - but these really do look wonderful on top of carrot cakes. 

Hopefully you will also like my Youtube Tutorial showing how to use these. These moulds are a brand new product release and can be found HERE on our website at www.siliconemoulds.com , currently priced at £3.25

Recipe

10oz / 280g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

100ml of fresh orange juice (preferably with "bits")

2 tablespoons honey

5oz / 140g of caster sugar

6oz / 165g carrot finely grated

6oz / 165g carrot coarse grated

100ml vegetable or sunflower oil

3oz / 85grams sultanas or raisins

For the cream cheese icing - I usually just take a good 3 to 4 tablespoons of cream cheese and add as much icing sugar as required to get the right consistency. Start with a little and gradually beat more in with a woden spoon

Put wet ingredients in one bowl and sift dry ingredients into another. Add the two together and stir until just combined.

Butter a 12 hole standard silicone muffin tray if not lining with paper cases. This will generally make 10 big muffins in lined muffin tins or 12 slightly smaller ones if in unlined silicone muffin trays. Where icing with cream cheese frosting, I do like to use muffin cases inside the trays. I don't bother if I'm not icing

Preheat the oven to 180deg C - Fan oven and bake for approx 25 mins

Nectarine, Onion and Chilli Chutney - Ideal for Christmas Hampers

Sorry for the rubbish photo - but it was just a snap taken on my phone. I had not really thought of putting this recipe on the blog.

Basically, it was making use of some beautiful nectarines that were partially frozen due to being stuck to the back of the fridge !

Nicola - since you asked.... here it is - just for you.

This is a simple, bung it all in a pot recipe and it made 3 jars. I think they were 12 oz size. This was so good, I need to make some more in preparation for Christmas hampers

If you taste this when it's hot, it's going to be quite firey - surprisingly so ! However, the heat from the chilli was quite mild by the time it cooled down and I think I'll add an extra chilli next time.

Ingredients

4 nectarines

1 onion

1 large red chilli (incl seeds)

150g white sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1.1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp of hot chilli powder

2 star anise

150mls cider vinegar

1/2 > 1 tsp of salt (to taste)

Basically, bung the lot in a pot. Cover and let bubble away until onions are translucent and fruit is soft and pulpy.

Remove lid and let it bubble some more until thickened. 

Decant whilst still hot into warm, sterilised jars.

Snowy Mountains (Recipe) - They Knock The Socks Off Rocky Road !

I've never been a fan of rocky road - it sounds too good to be true, but for me never really delivers.

I think it's the teeny weeny commercially produced marshmallows that most people add in which are rubbery and lack any form of flavour, coupled with too much chocolate.... it's just not worth the calories.

I also don't like the pink and white mallow things tossed in coconut and sandwiched between two cardboard tasting wafers. The concept is great but they are such a let down if you've ever actually eaten one.....

Snowy Mountains are my idea of a hybrid version of those pink and white mallow thingies and rocky road. 

I must say, I'm delighted how they actually turned out...... Pillowy white clouds of soft and divine marshmallow on top of a crunchy chocolate and biscuit base.

This recipe could be really versatile. Feel free to try your own flavours of marshmallow and perhaps even add a dollop of jam or chocolate ganache (nutella even) before popping the biscuit layer on the bottom. If you are still scared of making marshmallow at home, watch me make these on the tutorial video at the bottom of this page.

RECIPE - makes 24

500g white, granulated sugar

2 egg whites

2 sachets of gelatine granules (1 sachet sets 1 pint of liquid)

1 (or 2!) tsp vanilla extract

100g desiccated coconut

400g of chocolate

360g coconut cookies

Prepare 3 x 8 rectangular recessed silicone bakeware moulds by oiling or lightly spraying with cake release spray and rubbing in.

Put the sugar in a large pan with 250mls of water and bring to a boil. There is no need to stir.

Empty the two gelatine sachets into 125mls of cold water, stir and set aside for about 10 mins to bloom.

Put the two egg whites in a large bowl.

You will need a sugar thermometer. When the temperature on the sugar thermometer reads 110deg C, start whipping your whites with a hand held mixer to firm peaks.

When the sugar syrup reaches 122deg C, remove from the heat. Let it sitt for a few seconds until it stops bubbling, then stir in the gelatine.

Pour the syrup into the egg whites, whilst running the hand mixer on high. It will look really soupy at this stage. Keep whipping the living daylights out of it until the mixture is almost cool and clinging to the beaters - but still pourable.

Put the marshmallow mixture into an 18" disposable piping bag. Pipe the mallow into the cells of all the moulds, to within approx 5mm of the top.

Set aside for approx 1 hour to firm up.

Melt 500g of chocolate (in 30 second bursts) in the microwave. Crush 360g of coconut cookies and mix into the chocolate. Use a spoon or a fork to put this on top of the mallows and fill the remaining space in each cell of the mould.

Pop in the fridge for 10 > 20 mins.

When the chocolate has hardened, pop the mallows out of the moulds. Roll in desiccated coconut for a finishing touch,

Enjoy ! 

Luxury Dried Fruit & Nut Biscotti - The Christmas Hamper Bakeoff

What makes you think more of Christmas than the smell of mixed spices in the air, hot chocolate, mulled wine and cookies. 

Yes, COOKIES. There is little better than Christmas cookies !

Biscotti have to be one of my favourites. Crispy, crunchy, nutty, fruity. Chocolatey too if you want them to be. They store well, are gratefully received and are great for dunking. Pair them up with some homemade marshmallows and a chocolate spoon or two for a match made in heaven.

I love them with the addition of cinnamon (2tsp) - but they are equally good without. The Frangelico can be subsituted with Amaretto, Cointreau or even a bit more beaten egg.

RECIPE - makes approx 75 pieces

425g flour

375g caster sugar
400g luxury mix of dried fruit and nuts
2 beaten eggs
2tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Frangelico

extra flour for rolling

Pre-heat oven to 150deg C Fan

Prepare two baking trays by lining with silicone baking tray liners or baking parchment.


Sift flour, sugar and baking powder, then mix together.

Beat the eggs, vanilla and frangelico and combine with the dry ingredients.

Bring together until a dough forms. If too wet, you can add some more flour. It should be a bit sticky.

Now add in the dried fruit and nuts. The mix I use includes half walnuts, whole hazelnuts, almonds and peanuts. Also dried cranberries, rasins, apricots and cherries.

Separate the dough into 6 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a long sausage, approx 1.1/2" / 4cm in diameter.

Place 3 sausages on each tray - spaced well apart.

Bake for approx 20 mins until pale but just starting to take on a hint of golden colour.

Remove from oven and allow to cool on the tray for 5 > 10 mins before slicing each log on the diagonal into 1.5cm / 5/8" thick slices.

Place the slices face down on a baking tray and bake for another 8 mins (approx), then turn and repeat on the other side.

Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Once cool, your biscotti can be drizzled with some chocolate or left plain.

Keep in an airtight container or package in cello bags as gifts.

Sarah-Jane Nash, www.siliconemoulds.com - August 2013