Sunday 17 March 2013

Top o' de mornin' to ya.

Well... Happy St Patrick's Day!

I think I've probably only said it once to a friend this morning, as it isn't really a day that our family makes a big deal out of... We don't dress up in fancy green dress, go out to festivities, drink Irish beer or whisky, or try and find 4 leaf clovers for 'luck'...

But, heck - why not make the most of having a 'green' day, and get creative in the kitchen (my usual way to celebrate occasions)!

I have a green 'shamrock' cookie cutter, that really is the kind of cookie cutter that you can only use for this occasion, so I made some shortbread biscuits, in the shape of shamrocks. With green royal icing, and using (for the first time with royal icing) a piping bag with a nozzle, I piped around the outline of the biscuits.

And then, why not grab a green platter and put some green grapes on it, too :) ... Presentation is an important part of being creative as well!

Now, this next creation, I wasn't going to make... I wanted to, but wasn't going to. I had all the ingredients (minus one), but was trying to be realistic with the time that I had available this weekend, and decided (wisely), that I probably didn't have enough time to do these justice... I may have even promised my husband that I wouldn't make them!

But... Some things were shuffled around, and it turned out that did have time... Just enough time! And the missing ingredient -M 'n' M's- just happened to be on special, so it was clearly meant to be:

RAINBOW CUPCAKES!

I made my butter cake mixture, and just like I did with the rainbow waffles I made yesterday, I divided the mixture into 6 containers, coloured them, and then put them all into piping bags:


Originally, I wanted the whole 6 colours to go into the one cupcake, but (perhaps because I made the same mistake of cutting the hole too big), by the time 3 colours were in, the cupcake was at capacity before I knew it would overflow while baking - so I made the 'cool' version using purple, blue & green; and then I made the 'warm' version using red, orange & yellow :)

With a simple buttercream icing (made with solite to make the icing whiter), 3 green M 'n' Ms, and some leftover green royal icing from the shortbread shamrocks, I made these rainbow, Irish, St Patrick's day cupcakes!



And a close up of the (unlucky) shamrock:


Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Irish.
Irish, who?
Irish you a Happy St Patrick's Day! :)

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