RECIPE: Halloween Cookies

Easy Rolled Sugar Cookies

This recipe is for cookies you can make with cookie-cutters. It's quite simple, and you get absolutely loads (the orginal recipe yields about 60) of nice plain cookies perfect for decorating. Might be fun to save some to decorate with friends!
I got this recipe from allrecipes.com. They've also got a really fun Halloween page with loads of recipes, decorating tricks and party tips, which you can find here (http://allrecipes.com/Features/Holidays/Halloween/default.aspx)



Here's what you'll need for the cookies:

340 g butter, softened
400 g white sugar
4 eggs
5 ml vanilla extract
625 g all-purpose flour
9 g baking powder
6 g salt

Here's what you need to do:

-Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

-Beat in the eggs and vanilla.

-Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt.

-Then cover the dough and let it chill for at least an hour, or overnight. Make sure that after it's chilled you don't handle the dough too much or it will go soft again and make it hard to cut out the shapes you want.

-Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C, or 400 degrees F.

-Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 1/4 or 1/2 inch thick. (about 1 cm) And then cut out whatever shapes you've picked.

-Bake your cookies for about 6 to 8 minutes and let them cool completely before decorating.

I used store bought chocolate icing and little decorating tubes with different icing colours to draw on the details. Have fun being creative!

RECIPE: Capuccino Cupcakes

Cappucino Cupcakes An easy recipe for breakfast or afternoon cupcakes that even non-coffee drinkers should enjoy. These cupcakes can be kept if refrigerated for around 4 days, and take around an hour to make.


These cappucino cupcakes are so good! They’re pretty easy to make and look and taste very professional. The coffee flavoured sponge is very nice, but with the white chocolate icing they’re absolutely delicious, definitely one of my favourite recipes I’ve tried. I got this recipe from Nigella Lawson's excellent iPhone recipe app, but changed it quite a bit. When I made it I found that there was too much icing - a shame to waste all that chocolate! Anyway, pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Celcius and here’s what you need (makes about 12 cupcakes):

Ingredients:

125 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
125 g soft butter
125 g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp instant espresso
2-3 tbspns milk

You can do this in a foodprocessor or by hand, like I did, mix everything together but the milk. When it’s all done, add the milk. (That’s it! Much easier than doing it in stages and it’s perfectly fine.)

For the icing:

80 g white chocolate
30 g butter
60 g sour cream
130 g icing sugar
½ tsp cocoa powder or cinnamon

Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave or in a pan above hot water.

Stir in the cream when it’s cooled and gradually beat in the icing sugar.

You can add more water if it’s too thick, or more sugar if it’s too runny.

Apply the icing all over your cupcakes and sprinkle over the cocoa powder or cinnamon.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Welcome to The Powder Room!

Hi there, and welcome to the Powder Room!

If you've been looking for something girly and a bit different, you've come to the right place. Here you will find a fun collection of 'How-To's on make-up looks from way back when, now and everything in between; homemade beauty treatments; tasty recipes and movie reviews for a girly night in.

It doesn't matter if you're a 50's pin-up, a cool rock chick or something else entirely. If you like being feminine and experimenting with food, make-up and styles you'll find something here to interest you.

I'd like to hear from you so if you've got any ideas, comments or questions, please post a comment.

- Miss Daiquiris.