Marshmallow Candy Cane treats for Christmas

 

The Candy Cane is one of the most familiar symbols of Christmas.

 

It dates back to 1670 in Europe but didn’t appear in the U.S. until the 1800s.

 

The treat we see today, where the shape is Jesus’s hook to shepherd his lambs and the color and stripes hold significance for purity and Christ’s sacrifice, became common in the mid 1900s.[6] (me too got to know it only now ;) )

 

Marshmallow -  Candy Cane Pops

 

 

 

You need

 

Candy Canes

White cooking chocolate

(red and green candy melts would be perfect for this, but that we dont get it here, had to add a drop or two of red and green food colour to the melted white chooclate)

Sugar

Red and green food colour

Marshmallows (large sized ones)

 

To do

 

Trim irregulary, the top edges of a marshmallow to make it look like an umbrella (opened, of course)

Insert a candy cane into the marshmallow.

Now melt the white cooking chocolate about 10 secs at a time, and divide it into two parts.

Add red food colouring to one and green colour to the other.

Take sugar in two bowls and add the green and red food colours to each. Some quick coloured sugar instantly done.

Now dip the marshmallow into the melted chocolate, gently let any drippings fall off the marsh...and roll in the same coloured sugar.

 



(sorry this goes as a very short quicky post...running out of time...)

Hearty seasonal greetings sent your way ....

 

 

 

 

Rainbow Popcorns

A very colouful treat to to all my dearest co-bloggers on this Friendship Day -

 

Assorted Fruit Flavoured Rainbow popcorns

 

 

You need:
8 cups popped popcorn
Butter ( half a stick)
3 tbs light corn syrup (honey is a good substitute)
1/2 cup sugar
1 3.5oz box jello, any flavor (not the sugar free kind)

How to do:

Place butter and light corn syrup/honey in a sauce pan on medium heat. Stir until butter is melted. Add sugar and Jello and stir to combine.

Increase heat and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat so it just simmers. Continue simmering for 5 minutes.

 

After the sugar mixture simmers for 5 minutes, immediately pour over popcorn in bowl. Be careful, it’s super hot!! Mix right away and keep stirring so everything gets well coated. This will take some trial and error to get the right consistency. If the mix is too thick and cooled, it will not coat the popcorns properly and fully. But, the mix  shouldn't be too thin either.

 

(click here for recipe source and step-by-step pictures of the making. I have used the same quantity of ingredients .Sorry I couldn't get some clicks myself, as you really need to get moving fast)

 

Line a baking pan/tray with parchment paper and spread out evenly.

 

Lime flavoured Jello used here and it gives a lovely pista green colour

 
Pop in the oven (pre-heated to 150 deg C) and bake for about 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool to room temp. 

uisng cherry flavour. This was the most liked....both in appearance, and taste.

Break into pieces and enjoy! 

 

The flovours used -

 Cherry (pink), Lime (green), Lemon (yellow), Apple (redish ones). You can either use them separate, but to raise the"attractive" coeficient, i would recommend you mix all of them together.

 

You can certainly eat this un-baked as well and it’s just soft and gooey, but definitely bake it if you’re going to pack it up for giving, or serve it as party food so it will be light and crunchy.



Cooled and packed in zip-lock pouches for a food sale and they were done just in about half an hours time. Along in here in the above picture, are other two varieties as well - Caramel popcorns with mini marshmallows and to the left, are Savoury spicy flavoured popcorns with roasted corn kernels.  Their recipes follows shortly. Till then..have a great time ahead...

 

A bunch of roses - puff pastry with chicken filling - tutorial

 

That was a gift by the boys for their dad, on Father's Day.

 

It was a working day and all that I knew on my way back home from work was that I need to make something for him, but , what was that going to be..well...i didn't know...

 

Couldn't go for a very elaborate meal as I had just few hours to decide, execute and complete the process. A cupcake bouquet..that was my initial thoughts, with icing resembling flowers.

 

Anyways, just on an instinct, decided to get one of these...

 

.....the rotessorie chicken . It is available literally at every corner here and the best part is that its the most handy when in times of "timeless cooking" .

(no wonder we call it "narkathilae koyi"..in malayalam..)

Anyways, it was almost 6 pm and i still hadn't decided what I need to make. Had the chicken, and so, gave up the idea of the cupcake bouquet. It definitely will take some time, and my husband need to go to bed early these days as its summer and being in the Construction field, his work begins at 4 am in the morning.

 

And you..are in that kind of a state where you are just walk around, doing nothing... looking at things, believing that some idea would eventually  bloom in your mind.

 

Digging into the freezer, saw this pack of puff pastry sheets, unopened, and almost nearing the expiry date in a few months time. So, puff pastry and chicken...need to come up something with these two. Chicken puffs ?? Chicken roll ?? Aaah..not cool enough as a gift, yeah ? At some point, your mind takes you to a bouquet of roses made of flattened left over bread, which you had come across on some blog, but couldn't recollect when and where. Alright..that's it...decided..and the time was ooh..way past 6:30 pm. Had to get moving fast.

Thats how it goes :

Thaw the puff pastry sheets.

Sprinkle some wheat flour (atta ) on the rolling board and on the pin, lest the pastry sheet goes stuck to the surface.

Cut circles of few various sizes. Larger one for bigger flower, smaller circle for small flowers.

Remove the skin and mince the grilled chicken ..really small. That's some hands silently grabing a few bites off the cutting board. And for the knife..well..yeah 1 i am still old fashioned in many ways. We call these knifes "pichatthi" in malayalam, and I stil prefer to use these types compared to the new stylish ones. My father gets these cusotm made and does a few pieces extra for me, to bring over to Kuwait.  

 

Mix the finely cut chicken pieces with few tsp's of (well.whatever sauces/ dressing that you can find !)..easier to put it that way. I used the ones above.

 

Dust a plain surface with flour, place the pastry circle and make cuts on it.

 Number of cuts = number of petals.

Place a spoon ful of the chicken mix at the centre.

Wrap each petal cut around the chicken filling.

 

Apply some water at the edges of the petals for them to stick together.

 

Shape the edges of the petals slightly outside to resemble roses. Your flower is now done.

 

For the basket...

 

 

Cut thin strips of the pastry sheet and weave .

 

 

Trim the edges off in a semi-circular shape and place a thin rolled strip of the pastry along the edges to form a border. Transfer carefully, to the baking tray.

Cut small leaves of the remaining rolled pastry and assemble the basket.

 

oooh..sorriee !!!

Egg wash

 

 

i know..this does seem yuck !!!..but , it definitely is doing a good job; cant you see :D

 

Pre-heat the oven to 150 deg C and bake till golden brown.

 

 

The kids made sure that they did a good part of the making by themselves, coz, it was THEIR gift, and with me clicking all the way in between...did end up taking quite a lot of time doing this that we had to pull the DAD out of the bed to receive his gift. Anyways, it was defintiely not past 12 pm, so it was still the Father's Day.

 

 

Railway Engineeing ..edible style !

well..this is a pretty old one..done almost 2 years back for our eldest son's 6th birthday. But..being his all time favourite..thought would just make a post on it.

  

of all that i have prepared for the boys, this was the one that really got the kids off. It was instant "like" (to be read as..instant "attack" !)

There's absolutely no baking..its all store brought stuff, but..you do need a quite a bit of it.

You need

For the rails   : Potato sticks

The rubble     : Rice crispies

The sleepers : Kit-kat or any similar wafer chocolate

The base grass effect :  Dessicated coconut

                                   Green food colour

 

For the base :
Take a clean flat tray or any surface which you need to use.
Melt some jam in the microwave to just flowing consistency and apply onto the base.
Mix the coconut with green food colour.

     

 

Step 1 : Line the potato sticks in two lines parallel to each other. Thats the rails.

Step 2 : Fill the gap between the rails and a little on the outer sides of it as well, with rice crispies to resemble rubble.

Step 3 : Now fill the entire base platform / tray with the green coloured dessicated coconut.

(yeah, the train is passing though lush green fields obviously...)

 

 

 

Step 4 : Break a kit-kat finger into half and align it as the sleepers onto the potato rails.

Repeat till the entire winding railway track is done.

 some serious edible Railway Engineering works going on !

  

aah..green fields...train...and whats that comes first thing to mind ??

Thujae dekha...tho yeah...jaana...

Shahrukh, Kajol....!!!! <3

 

alright..alright..!
(I'll get back to you, Shahrukh !..let me just finish off the train first )

 

 just had few bits and pieces of the Ben 10 toy train set so used the same for the cake. You see the engine ? Atleast, got something of reasonably the same scale.

 

For the bogies....you need cake rolls (i have used the store brought ones with vanilla filling inside) and any kids eatables (mini sized) - jellybeans, chocosticks, mini biscuts, M&M's....etc...

 

Step 5: To load the bogies - slice a small portion of the top of the cake roll as shown in the picture above.

 

Step 6 : Apply some whipped cream/frosting to the top of the sliced roll (ref. picture above again). This is to make the "loads" hold on to the "bogies".

 

my little porter at work

 

 Step 7 : Get ready with all the luggage that you want the train to carry and get going...start loading one item per each bogie - the roll.

 

...jelly threads, stick prestels (to resemble wodden logs), mini biscuts, chocoloate coins (thats treasure!)...anything thats sure to attract the kids.

 

 Step 8 : Using some whipped cream, glue some ring shaped wafer chips to the cake sides  - the wheels...and ..you are almost there!

 

"..mamma..what's those white round balls in there??"

well...they are boulders ..part of the landscape design, my dear ;)

 

 

 and that's your Happy Birthday candles on top of the hill

 

something similar

 

that's my Big baby with his all time favourite Birthday Cake !

 

 and for Mr. No.2..it was obviously the candles that attracted him...which he terribly misunderstood to be burning lolly-pops! He was definitely not pleased.

 

 

Indian railways....kuwait edition ;)

 

and thats when the hi-jackers left...

Can even the worst terrorist group plan something as disastrous as this !

 I doubt.

 

alright..now that i have made the post...so..back to Mr. King Khan....

 

 

 

oh welll !!!! ;)

 

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"Edible Terrarium" - the making - tutorial

You need :

Glass containers

Cooking chocolate (dark or semi sweet)/chocolate spread

Granulated sugar

Desiccated coconut

Food colours – green, red

Icing pen – white colour

Marshmallows

Tooty-fruity (green ones)

Store brought chocolate cake mix (which is the most easiest way). I used the eggless chocolate cake recipe from MariasMenu, the same that i had used for my "Gangnam Style" cake.
 

How to:

 

If you are using store brought chocolate cake mix, then prepare it as per packet instructions.

Pour the mix carefully into the glass containers, just to about an inch or less. Its best to pour the mix using a funnel so that the glass stays clean , but I just scooped in few spoonfuls. Bake at 180 degrees till done.

Take granulated sugar in a bowl and add few drops of green food colour .

Mix thoroughly , not to forget ..have your hand gloves on.

Take the marshmallows, cut at edges..just roughly to make it resemble boulders.

Roll the marshmalows in the green coloured sugar till they are well coated with the sugar.

 

Using marshmallow fondant (click “here” for the detailed post on how to make the fondant), make mini toads.

 

 

Take some desiccated coconut and add few drops of green food colour. You needn’t mix it thoroughly, as its visually more appealing to have the different tones of green – dark, light..you got it?.

Now, melt some dark chocolate in the microwave, or using a double boiler and apply on top of the cooled chocolate cake in the glasses. This is just to make a base for the grass (green coloured coconut) to stick on to the soil.(the cake). You can very well use some melted chocolate spread, nutella or even fruit jam.

Sprinkle the green coconut and a bit of the green coloured sugar on top of the cake..well..i will call it soil.

Carefully insert the toad , the boulders, (big and small ones using a tweezer) in..and few daarrrk green coloured tooty-fruities. Just about anything that you feel will bring about the wild forestry effect. (I have used Dr. Oetker icing pen to do the white dots on the toad heads).

Well..you are just about there !

 

Wrap and decorate …. your  fancy. I personally prefer to have a mini greeting card too along with such gifts tied around the neck of the glass jar. Think it has become customary for most of the gift items that I prepare. (Few similar ones in "this" post…not edible thou).



Hope you liked it! :)