St Patricks Day 2011

Vienna had to take a plate for a shared afternoon tea at daycare to celebrate St Patricks Day so I whipped up these yummy treats.

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, a few green sprinkles and either fruit sticks or green fondant shamrocks (i used a 'club' cutter from a set and pinched in each side with a toothpick).

Yummy and Cute!

Mini Easter Egg Butter Cookies

I made these tiny (1 inch) butter cookies for Vienna to take to daycare and share with her teachers and friends for Easter.

I didn't have a mini egg cutter so used an oval and pinched the top edges. I then used royal icing to do wet on wet icing for the first time. I loved the way the colours melted into each other - it was so sweet. They weren't all perfect but for a first time I was pretty happy. I think I will keep an eye out for a mini egg cutter though - less steps just makes things easier!



I packaged 5 each into plastic shot glasses and added a cellophane circle and rubber band (I use pre-cut circles sold at the supermarket for preserves/jam etc they are just a few dollars and I love that they are ready to go).



Then found an Easter clip art in similar colours, printed it out on linen paper, added the 'From Vienna' and used a glue dot to stick them to the top.


SUPER CUTE!

Thomas the Tank Engine Cute Food Part 2

I created this delicous masterpiece for Hugo's party day with his family. 24 mini brownies - approx 6cm square (baked in my flash pan that Aunty Lyn couriered back from England for me - Yay for fantastic family!) decorated to be the carriages in Thomas' train. Note the co-ordinated wheels matching the goods they are carrying, the gummy bear passengers and coal. There were 12 with chocolate frosting and 12 with vanilla decorated in a variety of ways to give visual interest and a range of choices to the lucky party goers.


A big thanks to Ashley's Mum Evelyn for the brownie recipe! It was delicious with yummy chewy edges and a dense chocolatey centre - I will definitely be making it again.

Thomas the Tank Engine Cute Food

I made these mini 'Thomas the Tank Engine' inspired train cookies for Hugo's 2nd Birthday. They were yummy butter cookies with blue royal icing. Then I wrote on them with my foodoodler food colouring pens. I made 48 of them for him to take to Montessori to share with his friends on his birthday.


To go with the cookies were 24 chocolate mini cupcakes and 24 vanilla mini cupcakes, again in the Thomas the Tank Engine theme they were in red and blue paper cases and decorated with red and blue sprinkles.

I recently discovered that egg cartons are the perfect free packaging for mini cupcakes! How convenient. They fit perfectly, have lots of height so don't damage the frosting and fit a dozen!

Happy Valentines Day 2011 Part 2

I made these Valentine's cookies for all of the children and staff at Top Kids for afternoon tea on my last day (last Friday). They were 3cm diameter butter cookies with vanilla frosting, pink cachous, pink hearts and a few pink sprinkles.

Pretty and delicous!

Happy Valentines Day 2011

Vienna started Valentine's Day early this year by taking these gorgeous 'cute as a button' cookies to share with her school friends on her last day on Friday.

I also took some to share at Friday night scrap.

I love how cute these turned out! They were they coming together of two different inspirations. Ages ago I saw someone on the internet make button cookies similar to these and then recently I found this awesome free printable at http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/ where she was using it to give a gift of covered button earings. I combined the two ideas, put my own twist on it and ...

The photos aren't showing off the gorgeous shades of pink but you get the idea.

Each button is a 2cm diameter yummy butter cookie covered in coloured fondant.

Cute Food - Rocky Road

Ages ago Kat suggested that I do a Miss Wendy's Cute Food version of rocky road and I have been thinking about it since then ... rocky road is one of Ashley's favourite sweets and I mentioned it to him recently and he was very keen for me to give it a go ... while I was creating all the goodies for Vienna's birthday (which I still haven't posted) I was thinking about it and last week I finally gave it a go. I just used ingredients that I already had at home, I figured that for a practise run it would be fine, that I needed to work on the chocolate to extras ratio as I am not really a rocky road eater - there always seem to be other things that tempt me instead.

So, I used mostly dark chocolate and a little milk chocolate, walnuts, raisins, marshmellows and soft mint leaves. I put them in my new baking pan that my fantastic Aunty Lyn and Uncle Tony bought back from England for me (because it cost a fortune to buy here in NZ). The baking pan has lift up bottoms that allowed me to pop the mini rocky roads out when they had set.


The finished product looked cuter than I have seen rocky road look before and tasted pretty good too! Ashley and I decided that it needed peanuts as well for more texture when eating as the walnuts are a softer nut and he thinks adding the tradional cherries would just finish them off perfectly. The small size (5cm square) meant that our sweet treats were a sensible portion size and helped them to last a little longer. I do feel a little guilty that Kat didn't get to try any as it was her idea originally but I guess I will have to make sure that she gets some of the next batch.

Bzzzzzzz

I made bees to compliment the flower themed birthday party, they looked very cuted randomly scattered on the food table.

They were however very fussy and fiddly to make, but with delicious ingredients of peanut M&Ms, chocolate and almond slices they tasted yummy.



I found this idea on the internet - I can't remember where but if it was from you let me know and I will put up a link for you.

Putting It Out There

Just putting it out there into the universe ...

I would love one of these! Just think of all the SUPER cute mini cakes I could make.

I found it here ...

http://cuteeverything.com/cute/food-fun/mini-tiered-cakes/

Big Latch On

As part of the World Breastfeeding Week we went along to La Leche League on Friday and participated in The Big Latch On, joining in with breastfeeding mothers all over the country trying to break the record for most mothers breastfeeding simultaneously at 10.30am.

Simone from La Leche League Howick had the brilliant idea that Miss Wendy should do the catering for this cool event. It was a new challenge for me to make my cute food on this larger scale but I was keen to give it a go. I planned a simple but tasty and cute menu and got busy in the kitchen:

There were mini corn bread muffins ...

Baugette slice mini pizza with homemade tomato relish, kransky sausage, red capsicum, gerkin and cheese ...

Mini chocolate boobies ...

To go with more of the butter cookie boobs like I made last month ...

Butter cookie and chocolate cookie mini boys and girls ...

Vanilla mini cupcakes with vanilla frosting and fondant boy and girl handprints ...

I invented these YUMMY tangelo cupcakes using fresh tangelo from the tree at Maree's place where I am house sitting ...

There were 6 of these tables set up with lots of Miss Wendy's yummy cute food and another with some of Miss Wendy's lemonade for all the thirsty breastfeeding mothers

We had a great time and Vienna enjoyed playing with her friends after her breastfeed and yummy snacks.

Happy Birthday Cookies For Kat

Yummy butter cookies with sweet flower toppers for Kat's birthday earlier this month (which I managed to remember this year woohoo!!!). Vienna and I also took Renee out for a few hours and bought Kat a compost bin for her birthday.

Boobies for La Leche League

Twice a month we go to Howick to La Leche League ... we always take along something yummy for morning tea ... this month I made these boobies! They were yummy and funny! I may have to make some to take along to the Big Latch On on 6 August.

Tetris Cookies

I found this cute cube shaped lollies at the dairy by Kat's house and was inspired to make these tetris cookies. I had no real reason to make them so the lollies sat at home for a while until I decided to make them Gypsy and family.

After started I realised that I should have made baking paper patterns for the shapes as they were very tricky to cut free hand but I was pretty happy with the way they turned out.

I also should have tried the lollies before I started as they were YUK! and tasted like soap! I warned Gypsy to take the lollies off before eating.

Cute Food - Double Decker Caramel Chocolate Fudge

I made these double decker caramel chocolate fudge 1 inch circles sandwiched together with vanilla frosting and a mini swirl of vanilla frosting on top for Andrew a few weeks ago. I am sure that he enjoyed them - I certainly did!!!

Free Baking

One of the Mum's from La Leche League enlisted my help with the baking for her son's allergy free birthday party. The birthday boy and some of his friends have lots of allergies and can't eat the usual birthday party goodies. Anita came over armed with some acceptable packet mixes and I got busy adapting, baking and decorating goodies for the birthday party.

The goodies were gluten free, corn free, egg free and dairy free but came out tasting great. I decorated them using gluten free chocolate, lemon icing (using gluten free icing sugar), coconut and crushed corn syrup free lollipops.

Devun loved his goodies and his 3rd birthday was a success!

I enjoyed the experience but am grateful that I usually don't have to follow such strict guidelines.

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

In our recent box of goodies from Ashley's cousin in America there were also 3 bags of Reeses Miniature Peanut Butter Cups.

Melinda had recommended that I turn these into cupcakes ... I have seen a number of recipes on the interwebs that use these sweet chocolatey treats but in true Miss Wendy style I decided to freestyle it.

I pulled out that fantastic Edmonds Cookbook Cupcake Recipe and got to adapting it ... I added some peanut butter in when creaming the butter and sugar, added lots of dark cocoa and chopped peanut butter cups.

I frosted them with chocolate frosting and I had seen some cupcake toppers on the interwebs made using peanut butter cups and vanilla frosting so I finished the whole peanut butter and chocolatey goodness off with these.

They were YUMMY, the girls at scrap booking agreed with me and I think that Carrie's family even got to sample some.

Oreo Cookies

Recently we got a big package in the mail from Ashley's cousin Melinda in America, one of the goodies she sent was a big packet of Oreo cookies. Unfortunately they had had a rough trip and were a bit broken up but they still made for good eating and an idea came to me for using up the crumbs at the bottom of the packet.

I adapted the Edmonds cupcake recipe into a chocolate cupcake and added some crushed Oreos to the batter.

I iced the cupcakes with chocolate and vanilla frosting and added a few more crushed Oreo pieces.

YUMMO! The girls at First Steps Wiri where I was doing a week of relieving work really enjoyed their treat and were amazed that they really tasted like Oreos.

Cute Food - Ginger Crunch

Yesterday Sheta posted on facebook her recipe for ginger crunch, it reminded me how much I LOVE ginger crunch and yet I have NEVER made it before.

I thought that this had better be remedied and gave her recipe a try. Of course I couldn't just make it plain and simple - I had to Miss Wendy it and make it cute food.

These little babies are a tiny 5cm in diameter and have a tiny swirl of vanilla frosting with the tiniest hint of ground ginger dusting.

Yummy!

They even had cute leftovers - I'm sure I won't have any trouble cleaning these up though!

Cute Food - Chocolate Flower Cookies For La Leche League

Last Friday morning I whipped up these little cuties to take along for morning tea at our La Leche League meeting in Howick. Yummy chocolate cookies with fresh strawberry frosting and a tiny sprinkle of pink sugar crystals. Mmmmmm yummy!