Gluten-free Invincible Star Cookies!

Ok, so this was a pretty easy thing to make. I whipped them up fairly quickly for something I made from scratch. I followed the ingredients from this website www.livingwithout.com/ and altered it with a few substitutions as I didn't have all these things on hand. The alternate recipe is posted here:

1½ cups confectioner’s (or icing) sugar
1 cup of margarine (or for those who want to make it more vegan friendly you can use 1/2 cup apple sauce, ( was gonna try it but mine was too old, so I had to toss it))
1 egg (or 1 teaspoons ground flax seed mixed with 3 tablespoons of water (I used this substitute, as I'm not an egg fan))
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2½ cups all-purpose flour mix
½ teaspoon xanthan gum
3½ teaspoons baking powder

A lot of the ingredients I used were organic like the icing sugar, the flax seed, the vanilla extract, and the baking powder. Now, most of the directions on the website on how to make the cookies I followed www.livingwithout.com/ though to make the cookies a lot more yellow like the invincible stars in Mario I added a lot of yellow food colouring to the wet ingredients as I was mixing it. Don't worry, it was all natural food colouring (from India Tree) If you like you can make yellow icing, but I wanted mine to be pretty simple and not too sweet.

Then, after I made the dough, I made it into a ball and put it in the freezer for about 20 minutes. Then I cleaned up, took out the ball and rolled it out between two sheets of parchment paper. I just cut them out using different sizes of star cookie cutters I had, and put them on a few parchment-lined cookie trays and popped them in the oven for 10 min. when it was preheated to 350 degrees.

Once they cooled down a bit. I heated up some dark chocolate chips in a little glass bowl in the microwave at 15 second intervals, stirring as I went until the chocolate was all melted. Then I spooned the chocolate into a ziploc bag and cut a tiny hole at the tip to pipe on some eyes and voila! They're done!

Perfect for any time of year really, but I wanted to make something simple, nerdy, cute, and stars are kinda a Christmas thing, seeing as it's getting so close to that time of year. I made it for a few friends and one of the people coming over had a gluten allergy. I tried to make these for her, but they ended up cancelling, due to the crummy weather outside. I don't blame them, it's awful out. Anyway, if you have the ingredients you can make these yourself, or you may even try other recipes like gluten-free rice krispy treats made into stars, and so on. You can do so much with star cookie cutters! Have fun!

You can see the flax seed in these guys. They don't really taste like anything really once they're baked. You can normally smell it or taste it in the wet batter though. I just like them as a healthy alternative to eggs.

If you're new to baking gluten-free stuff, remember this stuff can crumble and fall apart easily, they're really soft when they first come out of the oven. So let them cool a bit before transferring them over somewhere else to cool.

Back to the Future Clock Tower Cake!

Hello! To those who haven't seen it, this is the cake I worked on for my "little" bro's b-day. It made sense to make as it was a set of movies we both watched repeatedly growing up. I actually consider it my fave trilogy...yes, even better than Star Wars...yeah I said it. I can even see the hordes of Star Wars nerds running to beat down my door now to tell me to "Take that back!" I even picture my older brother among them. Though I'm sure you can't blame me, the trilogy was an amazing one, and every time I bring up those movies I have yet to find someone who's seen them to tell me they disliked them. Oh sure, people will have their favourites in the trilogy; I myself love the 2nd one the best, as it has 3 different times in it and a complex storyline...plus is was hilarious to see their take on the not so distant future. All the movies had one thing in common, and that was the same scene of the clock tower being struck by lightning. I felt the iconic image of the clock tower was perfectly round enough to make a fantastic nerdy cake design! I even researched it to see if it's been done before and no apparently not in Google images, though I did see an Uncle Jail Bird Joey cake which I even contemplated making if things went sour with this one. Luckily I had been thinking of doing this for months and had a back-up plan to things if they went wrong. There were a few stressful moments when making the cake but everything went surprisingly well. The first attempt at making the cake I tried making a gluten-free cookie of the clock face to simply place on top of the cake, however, like most gluten-free cookie recipes there was a complication...it fell apart. Luckily I didn't resort to panicking and decorated the cake the day that I planned to and gave myself some extra time to do the little details. So I made a yellow gluten-free cake from a package as I've seen a lot of chocolate cakes and wanted to try something different. Then I whipped up a gluten-free vanilla frosting also from a package that I spread on the cake to support the fondant I covered the cake with. I then rolled out the fondant and placed it on the cake and to give the clock an antique look I mixed some of my India Tree yellow natural food colouring with pure lemon extract to create a nice wash and painted that onto the fondant with my food paint brushes. The food colouring mixed with lemon extract (or even vodka if you wish) reacts as a watercolour paint that absorbs nicely into the fondant and the more you wash over it the more vibrant the colour appears. Once that was done I used my picture reference of the clock tower that I printed up to do the next steps. These are the pix I used:

This one was my uber nerdy reference for complete geek accuracy on having the time set on the exact time Marty travels back to the future:

So I began cutting the Roman numerals out of fondant with little metal alphabet cookie cutters I luckily found at Degrees Kitchen Store. I placed the fondant on with water once I figured out exactly where I wanted it to go. It took a bit of adjusting to look accurate but it came together nicely. Then once everything was all set I hand painted on melted dark chocolate for the contrast with the clock and put the rest in a ziplock bag to cut a hole in the corner and pipe out onto the edges for a more textured edge of the clock. This was the most nerve-wracking step I much admit but even though it wasn't accurate to the picture it was effective enough for me not to worry.

For the finale and the whole reason I had the idea to do this for my bro's b-day in the first place, I used an ice cube tray I bought forever ago at The Silver Snail comic book store that had Back to the Future logos and license plates all over it and I decided to melt white chocolate into it. Again I used the same technique as I did when I was antiquing the cake and mixed natural food colouring with lemon extract and painted it on the chocolate. Interesting fact: It didn't sit on the chocolate as well as it did with the fondant as the chocolate was a bit waxier and slightly melty, plus the lemon was more evident on the chocolate (as told to me by my brother's girlfriend who tasted the logo) where as the taste almost seemed to disappear in the fondant. It was an interesting experiment none the less and I think it made the cake all the more dramatic:

And now for a few fun pix from the Back to the Future themed party. This is me dressed up for the occasion:

And this is my little bro who appears to love the theme of his party. No, he isn't three, we put three candles on his cake to symbolize past, present and future, a tradition my family started because we were sick of putting a gazillion candles on a cake, and frankly so many candles can ruin the look of a beautifully made cake before it's hacked up to pieces and eaten! Plus this past, present and future thing works quite well with the theme, don'tcha think?

Note here he was doing his Biff Tannen impression. You know, the one in the second movie where Biff uses his cane to beat Marty over the head to repeat his famous catch phrase, "Hello, hello! Anybody home! Think McFly! Think!"

Anyway, I enjoyed making this cake and luckily I didn't feel like I had to go back in time to remake it, I think it turned out quite well...though if I did have a time machine I'd go back in time to eat it again. It was delish!

Secret Letter Rice Krispie Squares

I made this for my friend's b-day, she isn't a writer, I just thought she might find it pretty, and she seemed to. I also wanted to try out my new method of painting with natural food colouring on fondant. So first I obviously made gluten-free, brown rice Rice Krispie Squares the way you normally make them with marshmallows (we went to a bonfire to see her, with more marshmallows for toasting and we were on marshmallow over-load by the time we were done). Next I made little fondant envelopes of different sizes by cutting little triangles and fitting them together by trial n' error. I then made little "wax" seals for the envelope by pressing a metal (pre-washed) brand new, out of the package seal presser into a piece of Starbursts (which are Gluten-free b.t.w.) that I molded into a ball with the heat of my hands. It took some pressure to make the Starburst look like a wax seal but I had a lot of questions about how they were made. Next for the letters I just cut out rectangle pieces of fondant by hand and pressed a Cuttlebug embossing sheet that looked like handscribed letters that didn't really say anything, in the fondant to make it look like a letter. Any frayed pieces of left-over fondant I made into the feather part of the feather pens and I rolled out the pen part into a snake-like shape and attatched it. I added extra texture to the feather part with my knife to make it look a little more realistic. To paint the feathers, I used natural food colouring called "India Tree" I found at a store near me called "Degrees Kitchen Store". I researched and found a technique where you can use food colouring mixed with lemon extract (or Everclear vodka, but I chose to use the extract, not lemon juice) and brushed it on the fondant with a food-specific paintbrush as if it were watercolour. It worked out quite well and was really fun to do. Here are the results:

Ghostbusters Cupcakes

While visiting the Silver Snail comic shop in Toronto I picked up two delightfully nerdy ice cube trays. One with a whole set of Ghostbuster symbols and another with big and small versions of The Back to the Future logo and license plate. I thought I could do something really cool with the B.T.T.F. ones however, the Ghostbuster ones I couldn't wait for Halloween to use them. I filled the tray with melted white chocolate chips, which I melted for about 15 second intervals in the microwave so it didn't burn, until it was nicely melted, and then I tempered it by moving it to another class container that was cool so it didn't get all waxy. I made a whole bunch of cupcakes and popped the chocolates on top for a finishing touch. I brought some for my co-workers to try out my new baking. I got a lot of compliments and even shook hands with a "retired" chef and she told me they were, "the best gluten-free cupcakes" she'd ever had. That made me feel good. I wanted to use my new natural food colouring on the chocolate but failed at the first attempt. I need to research how it's done before I continue on. But anyway, this is how they turned out:

Birthdays

So, I'm lucky that some members of my family have been doing gluten-free healthier alternatives for a while. My bro Chris and his family have a very healthy way of life and they have two girls that like chocolate, but I try to make my chocolate at least dark, organic stuff and the cakes/cupcakes I make are normally gluten-free/egg-free/dairy free, not nut-free, however, as I use almond milk in the place of dairy. I may start using rice milk to hopefully change that, but even then you never know what's completely nut free.

I do often use gluten-free cake mixes from a package but to replace the egg to make it more vegan-friendly when the recipe asks for 2 room temp eggs I often get 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed, 6 tablespoons of hot water, mix it in a small bowl and let it gel until the recipe calls for it. There are lots of other ways to substitute eggs but that's my fave so far. You can really smell and taste the flaxseed when the batter is raw but when you bake it it's as if the stuff doesn't even exist.

I love the decorating part, it's why I chose this really cool fondant called Artsy Baker that I got at the Metro:

http://www.artsybaker.ca/ARTSYBAKER.COM/FONDANT.html

Anyway, the stuff is apparently nut-free, egg-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, no cholesterol and no trans fat, AND works just like a regular fondant, moldable, dyeable and everything! This stuff is a dream! Oh and if you don't use it all at once it has a wonderful zip-lock bag that it comes in to keep it fresh! I think it's safe to say that I loved working with it.

So, because I didn't have time to research let alone even make natural food dyes I left the fondant white and got an embossing imprint tool meant for a Cuttlebug Printer at my work to make the imprinted design in the fondant so it didn't look so boring.

For the toppings I used "Starbursts" as presents (I found out those as well as "Skittles" candies are gluten-free, however not the greatest for you nutritionally, it's why I only used a few (my one niece thought the orange one was cheese, which was funny)) for a little burst of colour. I also used these gluten-free teddy-graham clones called "Cinnabears" (found in the Metro's gluten-free aisle as well) topped them off to make them look cute, plus used some alphabet cookie cutters to make the happy birthday part, and there you have it. I was up for a while making them but I love how they turned out, they tasted good, just like regular cupcakes and I think my family wants me to make deserts for birthdays from now on. Here's a pic of the outcome:

My Logo-Spotlight on Dapper Dan McLaren

No I did not make my logo, I know I have the ability to draw and do things digitally as well, but I unfortunately can't take credit for this. My logo I chose of me as the 5 of hearts was part of a wonderful art project by my friend Dapper Dan McLaren who's other wonderful work can be seen here:

http://society6.com/Dapperdan

He had a very cool idea to make his friends into a deck of cards. I chose the 5 of hearts mainly because 5 is my fave number and I'm kinda a girl about romance sometimes (even though my comic makes people think otherwise) so I chose hearts. Seeing as I worked with Dan at my art store he saw the colourful 80's style clothes I wear and referred to me as "Strawberry Shortcake" or sometimes people called me "Rainbow Brite" which I don't mind, seeing as I loved those shows when I was a kid, so he made my outfit very Strawberry Shortcake inspired which I love! I want the hat, heck, I want the whole outfit! I didn't know when I picked the number that 5's in the decks all had to be chefs which was funny at the time 'cuz all I did then was get take-out, and toast and microwave everything, I never made time to cook or bake. I never knew even then that I'd develop a fondness for this stuff to the point where I was told to start a blog about it. Maybe I have Dan to thank for this, I dunno, but either way, his stuff is awesome and you definitely need to check out his art and other card deck projects like the ones he did of cool musicians! Just go to his link already! :) More on Dan here:

http://flavors.me/dapperdan

The Beginning and Kermit the Pizza

This is the beginning of a whole new part of my life. A year ago if someone told me I was going to start baking and enjoy it as thoroughly as this I would've laughed in their face. This year I've left the toaster and microwave behind to begin an exhausting, yet somehow fun quest to make things gluten-free, mostly vegan and hopefully free of most common allergies all while making things taste delicious while looking adorably dweeby.

This all began when I started getting horrible stomach pains practically all the time. At first I thought it was dairy, as my boyfriend had similar side effects with his lactose intolerance. I bought a cute recycled notebook from the art store I work at and began changing my diet around and writing down what I ate that day and if I still got the same side effects. I cut out dairy for a while but still felt the same effects, so I didn't get it. One day at a restaurant I noticed a gluten-free menu. I had heard about it but didn't exactly know what it was, and found out it was in a lot of flour which meant I should try giving up my addiction to bread. This, as an Italian, is completely unheard of and it made me feel even more sick just thinking I had to live in a world without bread. Well, I researched this, received the extremely popular book "Wheat Belly" for my birthday, which told me extremely shocking facts on bread I never thought about before and tried to convert myself to eating highly expensive and sometimes even dry, tasteless and let's face it, pretty gross, gluten-free substitutes on the market.

Friends and family members have been extremely supportive in my research in discovering the joys of making healthier meals from scratch. I have yet to master everything and become a pro, but the thing that makes me really excited is baking. If I can decorate it I'm extremely happy, mainly because I'm an artist/cartoonist and enjoy being creatively nerdy. My first attempt at making something super nerdy yet healthier than the normal, everyday meal was my Kermit the Frog gluten-free pizza. I love Jim Henson, he's my idol, such an imagination that man had, he could do anything it seemed. As a tribute to my hero I made an "It's not easy being green" pizza, using veggies on a gluten-free, vegan friendly crust I made from scratch. The recipe can be found here:

http://www.food.com/recipe/vegan-pizza-dough-10579

Anyway, Kermit's green colour was naturally perfect for an all veggie pizza and I joked for some of my meat-lover friends to make a Miss Piggy pizza out of, well, obviously meat. I used baby spinach for most of his face, black olives for his pupils, tomato sauce and cheese for his mouth and background. The only problem I had was that I stupidly picked up baby cucumber instead of zucchini for his eyes and neck so that part didn't taste incredibly great but I'm sure next time if I decide to do the same pizza properly the zucchini would be a much more delicious choice. I also think next time I'll just peel off the green part of the zucchini to create a flatter, and easier to eat edible decoration on the pizza. Here is the pic people went crazy for over facebook, I even had a few shares:

Anyway, more pix to come and more tales of my adventures turning every baked good I make into a geeky treat!