{Bunny Feet Cookies}

Easter is a crazy busy time of year around here. I'm sure it is at your house too. 

The Bean's birthday is always close to Easter (April 9), so since the whole fam damily is already here for Easter dinner, we just have his family party the same day. His huge, massive, 20+ teenager blowout comes in May when it's warmer and drier in Ohio, cause, yeah, they aren't all partying in my house.

No.

Anyway, I have much to do today (treats for 15 Easter bags, sculpt more fondant items for the Bean's birthday cake, make Hot Cross Buns), but I had to take a second and post these for you.

Cause I love you.

These are made with a basic rolled sugar cookie dough, buttercream, plain sugar, and pink chocolate (or white chocolate tinted pink).

To get the foot shape, I used a cheap Easter egg cutter that I squished it a little. For the toes, I used the medium flower cutter in this set by Wilton. 

I think that the little toes the flower makes are super cute, but I'm fully convinced that these would be cute just with the egg shape if you cannot locate the flowers.

After that, I melted up some pink chocolate, and piped toe pads and paw pads onto parchment paper.

As those dried, I iced the cookies in a buttercream, and topped with tons of sugar!

Cause sugar.

Once the chocolate was dry, I peeled them from the paper and placed 3 toes and 1 pad onto the cookie. I used the back, flat side of the chocolate. 

And that's it! Bunny feets!

Delicious, delicious bunny feets!

Hoppy Easter!

(Yeah, I just went there.)

Hope you have a fantastic Easter filled with sugar and joy!

Tina

Bunny Feet Cookies

Needed:

Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe

Buttercream Recipe

Cookie Cutters

More Sugar for Topping

Pink Tinted Chocolate

{Mickey Mouse Easter Egg Cookies}

It's time I came clean about something. I'm a Disney addict.

See, the fact is, I've always loved Disney movies, who doesn't? However, I was never "into" Disney. The collectables, the jewelry, the clothes.

Things change, man, things change.

As I mentioned in this post, the Magic Kingdom is the place I never knew I wanted to visit.

In September, at 39, I made my first trip there. Ever since then, I've become infected. My brain has been addled. My mind is not right. Disney. Disney. Disney.

Send help? No. Wait. I don't want no stinkin' help!

I LOVE DISNEY. I'm not the least bit ashamed.

Here we are at the Magic Kingdom. So excited, we could barely breathe!

What you see there, is my first pair of mouse ears. I now own 9 pair. I can't help it, it's the Year of the Ear. What's a girl to do!?? Now, 6 pair are mini ears. Not Minnie Ears. Mini, as in tiny.

Cause yes.

I have pics of me wearing my other ears, but I won't bore you here, you can see them on instagram. haha.

Anyway. I've been missing Disney so much, and we won't be back there for over a year. I just felt like I needed to bring a little Disney into Easter. And I decided to drag Darla along too. Really, it didn't take much convincing (read, no convincing), because she, too, is a Disnerd.

Trolling the internets looking for Disney goodness, I came upon Mickey Easter Egg cookies that they sell at the parks in the spring and decided to put my own spin on them. You can see the originals here, on A Cup of Disney (scroll down a little).

I used an egg shaped cutter & a shot glass sized glass to cut out the cookies. Then I just squished the ears to the egg a little (they'll bake into each other), and baked.

I covered these in fondant. Thought fondant is not my favorite thing to eat, it does make for a great presentation. The Marshmallow Fondant that I used is pretty good actually. I'm still more of a buttercream girl though!

I cut the fondant to fit, added a little icing (make some buttercream or a little canned frosting will work) to 'glue' the fondant on. I added dots and tiny Mickeys to one (dab on a little water to the back of the accents and the fondant will stick to itself), a larger Mickey to one, and stripes with a Mickey to another. There are lots of ideas for decorating these guys though. Go wild!

I painted on a bit of luster dust to give a little shimmer.

The cookies are rolled to a 1/2" and baked about 8 minutes, so they are still soft and chewy,

and amazing.

I can't keep the Bean's hands off of them.

How cute would these be packaged up in Easter baskets? Sure to delight little ones, and big nerdy ones like me!

Even if you don't go the fondant route and top with a sweet, tasty buttercream instead, they would be totally adorable.

Clearly Easter. Clearly Mickey.

Now, you have to see what Darla made! She's starting with the exact same dough, so you could make both cookie types from the same batch!

Mickey Mouse Easter Basket Cookies

It's gonna be a Disney Easter up in here!

Tina, Disnerd Extraordinaire

*

Mickey Mouse Easter Egg Cookies

1 recipe Rolled Sugar Cookies

1 recipe Marshmallow Fondant

OR

1 Recipe Buttercream Icing

Food Coloring

Luster Dust for Fondant (optional)

Sprinkles for Buttercream (optional)

{Chocolate Calzones}

 Two days ago my keyboard just decided that it had had enough. It was going on strike. It worked the night before, but when I woke up...The jig is up, Mufasa, I'm outtie.

Weird thing is, it was a new keyboard. Like, a month old. *I'm looking at you HP*. I had had it over a year, it came with my computer, but I just kept using my old one, until I got a new desk. Don't ask why, but for some reason, new computer doesn't = new keyboard. New desk, however, totally = new keyboard. Don't ask.

I just plugged the new guy in. Look, I'm not even correcting my mistakes if I make them, because sometimes keyboards are , like, way different for some unknown, companies are tryinta drive us crazy, reason. So, yeah, mistakes... they stay. We'll call this an organic post. Unaltered, man, unaltered.

So, my old new keyboard decided that it would only capitalize the letters it wanted to. And just the punctuation it felt like. There was no rhyme or reason. At first I thought it was just the bottom row of keys, but no, my T wouldn't work either. (Oh! lookit! A capital T! I haven't seen one of those in 2 days!). The biggest problem though? (HELLO QUESTION MARK! I'VE MISSED YOU, MY FRIEND). The lack of a question mark. I started sending emails and Facebook posts where I would say something like "Do you know what time that starts question mark", "Have you see that yet question mark", "Do you know what I mean question mark".

In case you've ever doubted this fact, question marks are important and ? is much easier than typing 'question mark' every time you ask something.

True. Fact.

Last week, I made Pie Pops for the Bean to take in to Math Class for Pi Day. Last year I made apple. This year I decided to make cherry, but at the last second, I also decided to make chocolate. Those were such a hit that it inspired this SUPER EASY recipe.

It's also one that the Bean declared "Stupid good".

And. Easy. Did I say easy? Cause. Easy.

Oh, and these aren't really calzones at all, they are made of pie crust, not pizza crust, I just called them that because of the shape :)

Pie Crust. Chocolate chips. Egg Whites. Sugar.

That's it.

And if you want a glaze, you'll only need a few more ingredients!

Butter. Powdered Sugar. Water. Vanilla. Cocoa Powder.

Cut out crust, add chips, fold, bake.

Yuh-hummmy.

The dip puts these lil guys OVER THE TOP!!!!!

These have become a new quick treat for the Bean. 

And you know what? I'm not even fond of pie crust, but... I like these!!

I wouldn't eat them without the dip though, they are a bit too dry for my liking.

Stupid good.

Tina

Did I make it through this post typo free??

* * *

Chocolate Calzones

by Tina @ Sugar Bean Bakers

For the Calzones:

Pie Crust

Chocolate Chips

Sugar

For the dip:

1 cup powdered sugar

4 Tablespoons butter, melted

1 Tablespoon hot water

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For chocolate dip:

add 1-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 375F

Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicon mat or grease cookie sheet

Roll out your pie crust (refrigerated is fine!). Using a standard sized biscuit cutter, cut out circles of dough. Add a scant teaspoon of chocolate chips (or white chocolate chips, or add some caramel bits, or nuts, etc!), moisten the rim of the crust, and fold over. Press to seal. Brush with egg whites and dust with granulated sugar.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.

Serve warm!

As they are baking, whip up your dip.

In a medium sized bowl, mix together the butter and powdered sugar. Add in your water. Whisk until glossy. Stir in vanilla.

If making a chocolate glaze, add 1-2 Tablespoons of cocoa to taste. Whisk well.

Yields: 9*

This is what I got from 1 refrigerated pie crust, I cut 18 circles to make 9 calzones.

I didn't reroll the crust after cutting, if you did that you could certainly get a few more.

{Andes Chocolate Pudding & Oreo Trifle}

Can I just tell you how much I hate grocery shopping?

I know that is a random way to start a conversation, but it's true.

I hate everything about it. I hate pushing carts, to start. I hate going through the aisles, I hate that it takes forever, I hate unloading the cart onto the belt, I HATE PAYING FOR THEM, I hate loading them into the car, I hate hauling them into the house, I hate putting them away.

Yesterday I had to clean my fridge before I could fit the new stuff in, so that was super fun.

The only good thing in the stupid stupidness that is grocery shopping is that I go with my friend Lori and we have lunch out.

This is usually the bright spot in my otherwise stay at home week.

Yesterday we traveled to Walgreens, Frisch's (Big Boy) for lunch, and Kroger (grocery store).

I know, we live on the edge. Be jealous.

Next week we will go a local farm to get our fresh beef.

Oh, la, la.

However, having Lori there (who I've mentioned several times on this blog, I've used some of her recipes), and I always manage to make the best of it. We grab things the other forgot, we see things on the shelf that the other didn't, we remember things off the other's list. Honestly folks, we are like a Grocery Shopping Super Duo. ;)

And yesterday, I remembered we both needed cornstarch.

You know what you can make with cornstarch?

Pudding.

Darla mentioned she was making a Mint Cream for St. Patrick's Day and my mind went immediately to Chocolate Pudding. (It's SUPER great having a food blogger for a friend too, let me tell  ya. We bounce ideas off each other all the time).

I finally came up with this.

Andes. Pudding. Oreos. Whipped Cream. Cause yum.

If you've  never made homemade pudding, don't be scared, it's easy.

This can also be accomplished by using packaged cook pudding, not instant.

Homemade is better though ;)

You can layer these into little cups, like I have (aren't they cool? They are from my Dad), or little jars

 or you can just arrange it all into one big bowl. Doesn't matter. Still tastes good!

Dress them up for St. Paddy's with a little bit of green sprinkles!

In the words of the Irish:

Wishing you a rainbow
For sunlight after showers—
Miles and miles of Irish smiles
For golden happy hours—
Shamrocks at your doorway
For luck and laughter too,
And a host of friends that never ends
Each day your whole life through!

I hope you are blessed with friends as good as mine!

Ones to remind you to buy cheese & ones to tell you, 'No, I don't think that will make a very good recipe'.  Ones you talk to daily and ones you can iMessage random thoughts to, ones you've known since you were a kid, and ones you are yet to meet in real life, ones you see all the time, and ones that are Facebook friends from across the world.

I'm blessed. Hope you are too.

Check out Darla's gorgeous and yummy Mint Creams here. 


Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Tina

 

 Andes Chocolate Pudding & Oreo Trifle

recipe by Tina @ Sugar Bean Bakers

For the Pudding:
1 cup white sugar
2 cups milk
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
12 Andes Chocolate Mint Candies

You will also need:

12 Cool Mint Oreos, finely crushed
(food processor works great)
Whipped Cream

Add all ingredients into a medium sauce pan, except the vanilla & Andes.

Bring to boil over medium heat. Add in the Andes. Allow pudding to thicken.

Remove from heat & stir in vanilla.

Once the pudding is fully cooled, assemble your trifles.

Cookies, Pudding, Cookies, Pudding, Whipped Cream.

 

  

 

{Butterbeer Shake}

(See all my Potter recipes & parties here)

So, today is yet another of my favorite character's birthdays. For years, Remus Lupin was my favorite character outside of the Harry Potter Trio. Then, I met the wonder that was Luna Lovegood, and it was over. She was, is, and will forever be my favorite character. When I grow up, I wanna be Luna Freaking Lovegood.

Lupin was a great father figure character to Harry though, and I really loved that about him. He treated Harry with respect and kindness all while being stern with him when needed.

As you all know by now, I'm a little bit of a Harry Potter uber fan. You can see my prior Harry Potter posts here.

So, Happy Birthday Lupin! I kinda heart you, Moony.

Last night, I posted a photo of my puppy, Luna on Instagram. My friend Darla sent me the cuuuutest lil Butterbeer cork necklace. I jokingly said that Luna needed one for her collar. A few days later, guess what was in my mail?

So, here is Luna (who wouldn't stand still, thus the blurry photo) wearing her Butterbeer Cork.

 (by the way, you can follow me on instagram, SugarBeanBakers, original, I know!)

I hashtagged the photo #Butterbeer, and clicked to see the other photos. I saw one of a Starbucks Butterbeer Frap. WHAT WHAT? It's totally real, on their secret menu (did you know Starbucks has a secret menu? Cause they DO! I love to order off it!).

Today, after church, I scurried to the closest one (sadly 15 mins away) and ordered.

TA DA!

Now. It's OK. Sorry, Starbucks. It'll do in a pinch, but they use a toffee nut flavoring it in that is just too nutty for Butterbeer.

I had talked about trying to make a Butterbeer Shake with Darla last night. After the Frap that was 'only ok', I thought it was so time to do it.

It's a really simple recipe. 

Vanilla ice cream, butter flavoring, vanilla cream soda, butterscotch & caramel ice cream topping.

Zoom it all up in a blender, and shazam!

Butterbeer Shake.

I asked the Bean to come in and taste it for me. Before I knew what happened, he'd drank it ALL, and I had none for a photo. I had to make another. I had to beg and plead, but he finally agreed to drink the second.

Yeah, right.

Since this is mixed with cream soda and not milk, it will try to separate if you don't drink it right down, but just give 'er a stir and you are back in business.

When I was at Wizarding World, I exclaimed that the Butterbeer tasted like liquid cake batter. As he was drinking this, the Bean said, this tastes like cookie dough. I asked what I  had said Butterbeer tasted like, and he said "Cake batter! That's what this tastes like!". I think it's pretty dang close- shake wise.

That said, like most shakes, and most definitely Butterbeer, it's very sweet... but yummy.

Happy Birthday, Remus, the shakes are on me!


Tina


If you haven’t already,  you can ‘like’ my Facebook page here, and follow me on twitter here, and you can follow me on instagram here.

Butterbeer Shake

Recipe by Tina @ Sugar Bean Bakers

(serves 1, easily doubled/tripled/etc)

1 cup softened vanilla bean ice cream

1/2 cup vanilla cream soda

1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring

1 Tablespoon butterscotch caramel ice cream topping* 

(or 1 1/2 teaspoons butterscotch ice cream topping & 1 1/2 teaspoons caramel ice cream topping if you can't find the combo)

*more to drizzle

Add in a blender and blend until smooth. Be wary of the soda, it will fizz up a bit when you start to blend. Top with whipped cream if you wish & drizzle with extra ice cream topping.

{Doctor Who Party}

So, the Bean and I like Doctor Who.

We are late to this game though. You know, like 50 years late.

Ok, so neither of us are 50, but, still, you know what I mean.

The Bean, as I mentioned here, has claimed it as favorite show now.

I have little parties several times a year. Usually they are a themed game night, but sometimes we do something different. For the first one of 2013, we decided to have a Doctor Who party.

We didn't do a whole lot 'gamey' since half of our party goers had never seen a single episode of Doctor Who. We fixed that though. The Bean and I planned out our favorite episodes to watch. Well, our favorite one shot episodes. We didn't do any 2 parters.

So, here is what we did:

WHO are you?

 I just labeled photos of each of the Doctors, put them into a hat, and WHO-ever you drew out, you were.

I was TEN, yes. Yes, I was. 

They cried that I cheated, but I so DID NOT.

WHERE & WHEN are you?

  I printed out places & times from Who. Drew 'em out, and that's where you visited.

WHAT are you up against?

  Then everyone drew out the baddies to see who they were battling!

Weeping Angels? Yeah, no one wanted those.

Granted a lot of this made little sense to several of our guests, but by the end of the evening, they knew most.

The Watching:

These are the shows we decided to watch
 
(links contain, in my best River Song voice, spoilahs, so, if you don't wanna know, don't click!)

The Girl in the Fireplace

Blink
 The Eleventh Hour

 

The Food:

Here's the whole spread. Less the "Planetary Pizza" & Crisps.

Fish Fingers & Custard

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Jello

and TARDIS Blue Velvet Cupcakes

  TARDIS Blue Velvet Cupcakes

Seriously, how perfect were these wrappers? They were cheap ones too! Sorry, I don't remember the brand, but they were right there in the baking aisle at the grocery. I did double up the wrappers, 2 per cupcake, so they wouldn't lose the design.

Take the TARDIS to my visit my friend Heather at Sprinkle Bakes for the recipe.

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Jello

Take the TARDIS to visit my friend Darla at Bakingdom for this recipe.

Note, I used grapes in mine for the 'planets' instead of candy.

 Fish Fingers

Well, "Fish Fingers".

When the Doctor regenerates he can't figure out what he likes to eat. "New mouth, new rules". He has young Amelia Pond make him a gamut of foods, before he decides he'd love some Fish Fingers dipped in custard. Um. Ew. That Doctor, he's unique if nothing else.

No fear though, these are actually cookies, NOT fish in custard, cause gross.

Fish Fingers in Custard

While the TARDIS is already at Bakingdom, just zoom over and click the Fish Custard recipe, it's here!

I didn't make my own custard however, this is just vanilla pudding from a box.

These were the definite hit of the night, and YES, they were confused at first as to why we would dip fish in pudding.

Then, they were confused as to what that had to do with Doctor Who... until we made them watch The Eleventh Hour.

*

So, that was it. A quick, easy, but fun party!

We had a little fun drawing characters, times, places, and baddies, ate some Who food, watched some shows, and made some new Whovians.

All in a night's work!

This quick, easy party would be great for the Who Premiere coming up March 30!

Any Whovians out there?

Sound off below!

Oh yeah, this guy was here.

The Bean dressed up as Eleven. Yes, his Fez is a mini and his Sonic Screwdriver is Ten's.

That didn't bother anyone.

Well, besides him.

Happy Who to you!

Tina

Check out my other party ideas:

Disney Party

Zombie Party

Harry Potter Party

Halloween Party

Star Wars Party

{ Weasley is Our King Cakes}

(See all my Potter recipes & parties here)

*

Guess who's birthday it isssssssssss??

One of my very favorite (fictional) people's birthday!

Ron. Weasley.

I love Ron. He's the long suffering youngest son in a family of seven, six of them sons. He's hilarious, he's sweet, he can be a jerk. He can be a brat.

I love that about him. I love that J.K. Rowling wrote such flawed characters. It made them so much more three dimensional than most book, or heck, tv/movie characters. 

In other words, it feels like Ron is my for real friend.

I love to make items for my 'friends'.

I've made things for Hermione, Snape, Fred & George, and I made something for Ron last year.

Then of course, there's Harry. I didn't really MAKE him anything. Instead, I threw him an EPIC birthday party.

Oh, and I like to make Harry Potter things for my flesh and blood friends too. Like this Hogwarts Letter Cookie I made for my friend Darla.

I'm not sure why Ron is one of my favorite characters. Like I said, he's just so real. Maybe that is the whole reason. Of course, he's an adorable ginger too. That doesn't hurt.

When Deathly Hallows came out (the book), a town about an hour away threw this amazing festival. Actually, they did it for Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince too. We didn't know about it when OotP came out, but we were there for the HBP party as well. It was amazing. They shut down an entire city block, there were skits, scavenger/Death Eater hunts, owls, lizards, wizard food, and the wizard rock band The Whomping Willows. Not to mention thousands of Potter geeks. It's truly one of those memories that we will treasure forever. Amazing.

The Bean, being a little ginger himself, decided he wanted to go as Ron. Easy enough, right?

No.

It's never that easy. He wanted to be Quidditch Ron. Well, out there in costume land, there is ONLY Quidditch Harry. Enter my super talented mother-in-law. At the time, Quidditch Ron had never been in a movie, so we didn't know what number to make him. I decided to go with 6, since he was the 6th Weasley. When the movie came out, he was actually number 2, but ironically, Ginny was 6. So, I at least I picked a Weasley, eh?

So, here's my little cutie, then 10 years old. I totally made him wear it for Trick or Treat too, it wasn't cheap or easy to make!

 Strangers stopped him at the festival and asked to take photos. It was so much fun and he felt like a rock star.

So, if you haven't figured it out yet. I love Ron Weasley.

Since it's his birthday, I decided to make him a cake. Well, cupcakes. I totally wanted to do a play on a King Cake for Weasley is Our King.

(If you want to know the  history behind Weasely is Our King, read here. )

And so, I did.

This is not a pastry, like the regular King Cake, this just has some of the flavors of a King Cake. It just pays homage to it, it's not meant to duplicate it.

These start out with a yellow cake mix. I only made 12 with the little Duncan Hines "cupcake mix" boxes. If you want to do a full 24, just double the recipe.

This has a brown sugar/butter bit that you will swirl in.

What you'll end up with is this

Here's how you do that.

Fill your cups. Now, here I did 2 swirls, one in the middle and one at the top.

I recommend only doing the top.

The middle swirl sank and made the cake pull apart at the bottom.

(if you want dual swirls, I recommend using this cake as your base. As you can see, the batter is much thicker. Use just the cake recipe, and follow my swirl/icing directions.)

At any rate, spoon a bit on.

Then swirl with a toothpick. 

I topped these cupcakes with a Cinnamon Buttercream, King Cake style sprinkles (in Gryffindor colors, of course)  and tiny fondant crowns.

To make the crowns, you need a bit of yellow fondant.

Roll it out to about 1/8" thick. Then cut it so the edges are squared off.

 

I used this Pampered Chef ruffle cutter to make the points on the crown.

I added a little edible glitter to this, but Disco Dust or Luster Dust would have been much better.

Sadly, I had neither.

Then I added silver dragees & rolled them around to make the crown. I sealed the edges together with a bit of water, then allowed them to sit out a dry a bit so they were firmer.

I sat them on the side of the cupcakes to look a little jaunty.

Cute, right?

So, there ya go. Cute little Weasley is Our King Cupcakes.

Happy Birthday, Won Won!

I hope you have a wonderful 33rd birthday!

This graphic was not made by me. I'm not sure who the author is, but I found it on the Facebook Fan Page:
We Owe JKR Our Childhood.

Ever your fan,

Tina

O.S.,

(That's Owl Script. You know, like Post Script for Owl Post.)

Guess who else is making Ron a special treat today??? You'll never guess!

Darla!

Wait, you guessed? How'd ya know?

Check out what she's made for him here!


If you haven’t already,  you can ‘like’ my Facebook page here, and follow me on twitter here, and you can follow me on instagram here.

*

*

Weasley is Our King Cupcakes

Recipe by Tina @ Sugar Bean Bakers

Preheat oven to 350.

Cake

Yellow Cupcake Mix 

(makes 12- double the following ingredients if you are making 24)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

dash nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

Prepare cake mix according to package.

Beat in the cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and lemon zest.

 Scoop batter into a prepared pan, lined with cupcake papers.

Filling

2 Tablespoons melted butter

3 Tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla into the butter. Whisk until fully combined.

 Place a teaspoon of the mix onto the  top of the cupcake batter. Swirl with a toothpick.

Icing

1 stick butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

milk or heavy cream

Beat the butter for a few minutes, until fluffy. Add the sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Mix until well combined. If too thick, add milk/cream 1 Tablespoon at a time until you come to a good consistency.

Swirl on to the top of cupcakes.

Sprinkle with red, yellow, and white sugar.

Top with fondant crowns.

Marshmallow Fondant Recipe