Tickly Moo

 

 

I must say that although I did see the Star Wars movies as a child, when Dan requested a Han Solo frozen in carbonite cake for his birthday, I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for!  Here is the original from the movie for those of you who, like me, may not be able to instantly recall what it looks like.  The cake is hardly an exact replica and lots of things went wrong but Dan was happy enough!

It was very much a ‘figure it out as I go’ thing and of course now I have done it once I know how I could do it far better but I am not definately not keen enough to do it again.  The cake inside was also grey (resulting in many black tongues) and had a layer of buttercream icing, covered in marshmallow fondant.

After my first attempt with fondant icing here, I have had several requests wanting to know which recipe I used.  Since this is only the second time I have used it , I am no expert with fondant and there may be better recipes out there but here is what I used.

Marshmallow Fondant

450gms (approx 16 ounces) of marshmallows

1kg (just over 2 pounds) of icing sugar

2Tbl water

1/3 cup shortening

• Put marshmallows and water in a bowl and melt in the microwave, stirring every 30secs.
• Grease your work surface and hands (very well) with the shortening and sift about 1/2 the icing sugar onto the bench and tip the melted marshmallow on top, then sift about half of the remaining icing sugar onto the top.
• Knead well (this is the fun gooey bit) until it becomes smooth and elastic, adding more icing sugar as needed.  You will need to keep regreasing your work surface and hands regularly or things will get very sticky!
• Knead in food colouring if you are using it, I use the gel colouring since it makes a nice bright colour without adding lots of liquid.
• Cover in shortening, wrap well in gladwrap and store in the fridge for a week or two if needed.

It is not hard to make but the kneading is a little time consuming and remember to use white marshmallows unless you are making pink icing.

4 Comments | In: Food Stuff, Recipes | tags: baking, cake, han solo, marshmallow fondant. | #

This month has flown by and I don’t seem to have done any of the things I have planned, lots of half finished projects & projects that have only got the the buying fabric stage!  It has been a pretty chilly winter here so far so for dinner tonight I made one of my favourites, a slow cook carrot soup.  It is a Gordon Ramsey recipe which is yummy and just the colour brightens me up and makes me feel cheery.

I also whipped up a banana & blueberry loaf this afternoon which is a great snack for the girls & holds up well in lunchboxes so here is the recipe for anyone who is interested.  You could really substitute the blueberries for any other berries you like but blueberries are always a favourite in our house.

 

Banana & Blueberry Loaf

2 cups flour

2t baking powder

1t ground cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar

2 free range eggs, beaten

125g butter (melted)

1-2t of good quality vanilla extract

3 largish bananas (lightly mashed so there are still a few chunks)

1 cup blueberries (frozen is fine)

 

• Grease a 10 x 20cm loaf tin & line the base with baking paper.
• Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl & then stir in the brown sugar.
• In a seperate bowl, mix banana, egg, vanilla extract & melted butter.
• Fold blueberries & wet ingredients into dry ingredients mixing only until just combined, do not over mix.
• Scoop into the loaf tin and bake at 180°C (350°F) for around 55 minutes.  It is ready when a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

This can be served cold or warm & is great with some butter.

I have also made an update to my Favourite Kids Books page – Never Too Little To Love & Poppy Cat’s Farm.

 

 

3 Comments | In: Food Stuff, Recipes | tags: banana, blueberry, books, loaf, recipe, soup. | #