Here’s a great idea for cake or cupcake decorating, using tootsie rolls! They come in all kinds of wonderful colors now… My friend Grieg made these (apparently he’s not just a great photographer, but a great cook as well), and was generous enough to show us how!  You can see some of his other creations at Foodwhirl, too!   (Like the Cheesecake Cookie Cupcakes, and Chocolate Hearts)

How to Make Tootsie-Roses

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Trust me.. you want to try this. Homemade Guinness Icecream topped with Bailey’s and Irish Whiskey. Trust me on the Guinness ice-cream too, if you’re going “eww, beer!??”.
Perfect for St. Patty’s! As promised yesterday, I wrote up the whole thing. Read the whole story on the making of, over at Foodwhirl.

Twitter It!

Dabbled LOVES Hello Naomi (aka Naomi Henderson), a favorite cupcake maker from Down Under! (Read the Dabbled Interview with her)

We’ve features her fabulous work here before (here, and here), and she has graciously given us a tutorial on how to make some lovely V-day cupcakes.

See below for

• The Vanilla Cupcake recipe
• How to Decorate them

(a few translations from us Yanks, to the best of my ability: Icing Sugar = Powdered Sugar.  Castor Sugar = a superfine sugar, which you can purchase in speciality stores here in the states, or make by pulsing regular sugar in a food processor or coffee grinder)

I’ve included…

My latest party recipe: Sweet Potato Mini-Tarts.

I got rave reviews on my sweet potato casserole with cranberry-macadamia topping at Christmas, so I decided to adapt the recipe for use as a mini party dessert / appetizer. Last week I gave you the run down on making the tartlet shells… they were very easy and inexpensive to make, but if you’re pressed for time, you can use any type of pre-made appetizer shells for this recipe.
The same ideas can of course be adapted for other types of mini-pies, but I’ll tell you these were certainly a hit at this weekend’s gathering!

So,…

The Dragon Cake I made for my 4 year old’s birthday was so popular, that I decided I’d better do a tutorial. Note, I am not a professional baker, and i’m sure there are things I’ve gotten ‘wrong’.. but that’s one reason i did this tutorial to show that you don’t have to be a professional to attempt something cool!

PS: You guys better appreciate this! I actually didn’t do the best job of documenting my process while making the Dragon Cake, so I took some of the leftovers and made a mini version just so I could get some good…

But it’s not soup weather you say!? Well, this is a vichyssoise, and it’s perfectly delightful served cold!

Sorry for the re-run here, but I’m so behind in the real world right now. The Boy’s 4th Birthday is this weekend, and I’d better get started! The rest of this week should be filled with Dragon Party related posts. Oh, and don’t forget — just a few more days to enter the latest Giveaway! And it’s a good one!

But, here’s a cool soup recipe for you — check out the pics below, and go here for the full recipe! How to Make Carrot…

(Hey! MSCEApril people Read this please!)

For the festival this past weekend (yes, I still owe you guys my write up, I’ve been busy! more on that later) I made a batch of cuban sandwiches for our cooler. And lucky you, I documented the process, including my most interesting way of pressing them without a sandwich press. So here they are.

Cubans are a great sandwich, especially for picnicking. They have no mayo, and are good either hot or cool. They don’t require alot of ingredients, and since they are pressed, they stay together well for transport.

Dot’s Cubans (recipe follows)

Ingredients -
-Cuban Bread (available at my local…

I wasn’t going to post this yet, as it’s part of a swap package I’m doing for this round of Sweet Goodness Swaps, but since I accidentally leaked it to my swap partner already, I figured I’d share it with all you guys as well. I wrote this up as an instructable – go vote for it in the Sweet Treats Contest! Pretty Please?

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Hearts – and ways to fix and avoid chocolate problems. – More DIY How To Projects

It’s got some good hints for working with chocolate, and ideas for rescuing chocolate projects, too!

Don’t forget, voting ends today…

See All Halloween Posts

Row 1: Mozzarella Eyeballs. Instead of last year’s idea of just using sliced olives with pimentos, I used the technique by the Evil Mad Scientists to create more rounded eyes. The mozzarella balls were marinated ones from Trader Joes.
Row 2: Flayed Skin Cheeseball makes a reappearance. An art store face mold, covered in shreds of proscuito. Cheese ball mixture was 4 or so cups of shredded cheese, 16 oz cream cheese, cajun spices, and some extra finely chopped proscuitto.

Row 3:
1) Final Cheeseball
2) Ingredients for Salmon Brain. 8 oz cream cheese, 1 small piece of fresh salmon, broiled or…