Minnie Mouse Dessert Table & Party for Miss 3!

My little girl just turned 3, and her wish was for a Minnie Mouse Birthday Party, she absolutely adores Minnie Mouse (and Mickey of course). And of course it had to be PINK!  So off I went in the planning stages to plan it with all the bells and whistles.

I run a Cookie Business from home, and I am really hoping to get into doing more Dessert Tables as part of my baking business.  I love doing dessert tables!! They are huge, alot of planing, very imaginative and even more baking but the result is awesome and very rewarding. Children and adults alike love a Dessert Table.

The choices and options are endless, the menu I had was a centrepiece as the Minnie Mouse two layer cake, then we had themed Cupcakes with Italian Meringue in spotted collars, Minnie Cookies with the edible images on them, Ice Cream Cake Pops, Fairy Floss (Cotton Candy) in the jars, Push Pops with Double Chocolate cake/Raspberry Mouse/Meringue/Fresh Raspberry, Minnie Silhouette Bubblegum Macarons and Pink Mini Toffee Apples.

I simply decorated with two big Minnie Mouse helium foil balloons (one each end of the table) and a wall decal I order through ebay that I reused in her bedroom (or could be used on the door).

The kiddies table was all fitted out with the themed table cloth, plates and napkins.  I filled glass mini milk bottles with Raspberry alternative to Ribena with the hot pink & white paper straws. Each place setting had a mini pink toffee apple for each child to take home and to the apple stick I tied a lollipop themed pink & white balloon to it that each child got to take home as an extra surprise.

I hired the child size trestle table and kiddies coloured chairs from Little Ones Party Hire, they were perfect and added a great element to the room, the colour range is wide and you can get all one colour or mixed.

Pin the Bow on Minnie Mouse was played, along with Pass the Parcel, Musical Chairs and Statues with the latest tunes that turned into a kiddies dance off to Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO.



I ordered something a little extra special for the Party Favours, miniture Picnic Baskets, filling them with tiny fizzy and gummi lolles and a Minnie Mouse Funfetti coloured cookie with the black silhouette face and hot fuschia bow. All done up in ribbons and thank you cards. I bought the Picnic Baskets and Lollipop coloured Balloons through Bon Bon Boutique, the girls were gorgeous to deal with here, as I had a week's delay through a Melbourne based site and had to cancel the order and found Bon Bon Boutique to be beyond fabulous in there Customer Service, a hard find these days.

My Minnie Mouse themed Birthday Cake was a bottom layer of Double Lemon and Raspberry with raspberry Buttercream and the top layer was a 70% Cocao Double Chocolate Cake by Miette Bakery San Francisco with Ganache then both covered and decorated in Satin Ice fondant.

The Cupcakes were a Vanilla and Raspberry cake and topped with Italian Meringue Buttercream and alot of sparkle. Then placed into Hot Pink with tiny pin spot Collars, bought from Baking Pleasures.

The gorgeous and most delicious Macarons were made as a custom order in black silhouettes with a Bubblegum filling, by Leah at Half Baked Tart.  These were Marley's deemed most favourite party food item, she absolutely loved them and was the first item she grabbed as she finished blowing out her cake candles! Dont worry about my hours of baking :-( but I understand in the mind of a 3 year old, she dove into the one thing her mother doesn't make on a regular basis.

The Ice Cream Cake Pops looked very effective, I made them with funfetti cake, and white chocolate and topped with with coloured jimmies (American sprinkles) and a Shimmer Sixlet (also American that I order from the USA regularly). I bought a special stand which in my pending USA trip I will purchase a 2nd one for the pair (maybe more but Shhhhhh dont tell anyone)!

Cookies were simple but effective.... a large Mickey silhouette in cookie dough filled with hot pink, black & white jimmies, then topped with a Hot Pink fondant cut out, then I place on with sugar syrup a Minnie Mouse edible image.  All cookies were served in cellophance bags tied with matching satin ribbons.

Finally were the Push Pops, a dessert table item becoming very popular in deed, they are a plastic cylinder with a stick handle and you can push the food up as you devour it.  I always serve mine with spoons so you can tuck into them with gusto! The idea is to layer the contents with cake, crumble, meringue, buttercream, cream, curd, mouse etc the options are endless and they are clear so you usually consider the colour or appearance.  Mine consisted of Double Chocolate Cake, Raspberry Mousse each layered up twice, then topped with italian meringue and a fresh raspberry on top (and a pink of hologram edible glitter). I love the wooden spoons, you can stamp the handles as an additional touch. There are stands you can buy or get made but i usually use these adorable boxes and they fit 6-8 in them perfectly.

So for your Party, Cookie, Cake or Dessert Table needs to make your next event a hit, contact me (Traci) at :

Cookie Queen Kitsch'n

Email - cookiequeen@y7mail.com
Ph - 0404 741 790 (or 61 2 404 741 790)
I am based in Sydney. Minimum order of Cookies are 12, Cupcakes are 24, other items on application.

I look forward to making your next Party extra special!!

Masterchef Mojito Time!!! A Twist on Ben's Raspberry Lime Mojito Cake!

It was the Sunday before my Mum's 65th birthday, Little Miss Two seems to not believe that Nanny has birthdays as everytime its mentioned in the last month she breaks down into fits of laughter and just says "thats too funny"!  So it got to the Sunday and I was dropping her over a day early and she insisted with an hour's notice that "She NEEDS to make Nanny a cake"! Dont worry that I am about to stay up half the night baking 5 layers of cake but "She NEEDS a cake"!

Along with the order that she needs a cake..... with an hour's notice.... but she NEEDS to have raspberries!

So thank you Ben from Masterchef making his elimination winner of a Raspberry Mojito Cake, and unfortunately the recipe didn't make it to the website, I had to "pressure test" my own!

So here we go...... Also an easy peesy recipe for the little ones to help with!
(oh and by the way it was lucious so two ticks to me)!

Raspberry Mojito Cake

2/3 cup Castor Sugar
Zest of 1 Lime
Juice 1/2 Lime
4 Tbsp Butter - room temp
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp Coconut Emulsion
Juice 1 whole Lime (additional)
1/2 cup Milk
1 Cup Plain Flour
1 Tbsp Cornflour
1/2 tsp Bi-carb Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch Salt
1/3 cup Dessicated Coconut
1 cup Raspberries - fresh or frozen

Syrup

1 Lime - juice & rind
1/2 cup Castor Sugar
1/2 cup Water

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees and grease and flour your tin, suits round or loaf.

First mix the sugar, zest, butter and first half of lime juice, cream them together in mixer.  Next add the egg, vanilla and coconut emulsion and mix well.  Then add the milk and whole lime juice.

In a seperate bowl sift together the flours, bi carb soda, baking powder and salt, whisk lightly, then add in 3 parts to the mix.  Add the coconut and raspberries and stir through lightly with a spatula.

Pour the cake batter into the pan (ideally a 9 inch springform), tap the tin on the bench to remove the airbubbles (highly recommended as I had a huge air bubble in the centre of my cake. You can also sprinkle sugar over the top for a caramelised top.

Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes. Allow to cool for half an hour before removing the cake from its tin.  To make a syrup, squeeze the juice and rind of one lime with the castor sugar and water into a small saucepan on medium heat., reduce by at least half til it changes from a watery mixture to a thick syrup consistancy. I always take a skewer and make several holes through the top of the cake for the syrup to run through. Then pour the syrup over the cake, I only used 2 thirds of the syrup mixture.

Serving recommendation is 12 slices served with freshly whipped cream.

Tastes decedant when you eat it when its still warm.

Chicken Scallopini with a twist!

(This is The Pioneer Woman's luscious pic that totally enticed me to cook this meal, over & over again)

In case you hadn't heard I am a HUGE fan of The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. I love her down to earth country ranch style cooking, and her easy step by step photos are mouth wateringly gorgeous. Last year a friend an I were cooking our way through her website The Pioneer Woman - Chicken Scallopine which was alot of fun, I was out at my parents so it was easy as the recipes are usually quite generous in servings, so it feed 3 with leftovers usually or if my brother and his partner came over it fed us all to a T.

This is a very simple recipe to cook, and really really yummy, but I confess I am a mushy (mushroom) lover so that had a big influence on my votes to this one up.

By all means halve this recipe if only feeding 3-4 people.

Chicken Scallopini with a Twist

500g Packet of Linguini
4-6 Chicken Breasts
Salt & Pepper to season
1 Cup Flour
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
4 Tbsp Butter
300g (approx 2-3 cups) Mushrooms - sliced
1 cup Dry White Wine
Chicken Stock (optional)
1 whole Lemon
1/2 cup Thickened Cream (can use light or cooking cream)
2 Tbsp Parsley - chopped
Parmesan Cheese - to serve

Put a large pot of salted water on the stove top with the heat on high to get to the boil for the pasta.

Next slice and de-giblet your chicken breasts into thinner pieces and using a mallet or rolling pin to tenderise the breast between 2 plastic sheets or freezer bags, another option is to place them into ziplock bags.

Once you have your thin tenderised chicken breasts, place flour, salt and pepper into a freezer (plastic) bag, place one piece of chicken at a time into the bag and shake well, coating the chicken well. When all the chicken is coated, place them onto a dinner plate and into the fridge for half an hour for best results.

Heat a large frypan on stove top with the olive oil and butter in the plan, once melted/heated place the chicken into the fry pan and brown the chicken well on each side, this will only take approx 3-4 minutes each side as the chicken is very thin.  Remove from the pan and place the cooked chicken breasts onto a seperate plate preferably with a couple of pieces of paper towel, to assist in draining the oil off the chicken.

The butter and oil will be brown, toss in the sliced mushrooms, stir them around coating them in butter. Once all coated nicely in the butter and oil, pour in the cup of white wine (this can be substituted with chicken stock).  Next squeeze half a lemon into the pan over the mushrooms. Make sure its a juicy one, if not then squeeze in the other half, I find microwaving a lemon for 10 seconds always helps to make it pliable.

Stir the mushrooms gently so that you dont break them up.

Reduce the heat and stir through the thickened (or heavy) cream.  Crack some pepper and add a pinch of salt. Then chop a generous amount of fresh parsley and stir into the mushroom sauce. Your kitchen should smell totally delish right about now!

To plate up, place your linguine on the plate, the chicken on top to the side and then cover the dish with the mushrooms and lucious sauce, make sure you cover the pasta in plenty of sauce. Sprinkle the top of chicken with Parmesan cheese to make it extra special. Serve to your eager beavers!

Charlie & Lola.... Lola & Charlie!!

Charlie & Lola.... Lola & Charlie!!

This week I had a great cookie order, my favourite thing really! I absolutely love doing orders of cookies for people, especially when the cookie design is extra special or creative.  The instruction I had been given for it was that little Izzy was have a Charlie & Lola party, there isn’t much around in the way of party stuff, so could I come up with a suitable design for cookie favours?

Are you kidding me? Of course I can!

I decided to go with some artistic flair and do them on fondant and hand draw each one in exact duplicate. I got a good clear image and given I don’t have a projector I had to wing it free-hand!  I did a basic vanilla sugar cookie, but rolled slightly thicker than usual so I was able to push them onto lollipop sticks.  Next step with the fondant I went with an illusion of skin-tone as drawing onto the white background felt it could be too stark in contrast. A good choice I think.   Last of all, I painted on the yellow hair and blue hair ribbons.

I then went and drew each stage across all cookies in a step by step process so the duplicate of each inked line (in black edible texta) was replicated simply to minimise any error.  I drew all the Lolas first and then followed with all the Charlies.  But I went in stages of head outline, mouth, nose, hair then last of all I did the eyes as this was the defining feature I felt that made these charcters and then had to all be the same and precise!  A friend asked where Soren Lorenson was (I have to confess here that I had no idea who this person was and wondered if I wanted to at the stage of the end of completed cookies) but I soon found out thanks to google that it is Lola’s imaginary friend... a far easier image to capture in hindsight!

Price for Personalised Cookie Pops = $4.00 each

Great idea for a special party favour!