Eat Me!

I have an obsession with Alice in Wonderland: all those kooky characters, the fanciful Wonderland, the ridiculous situations, the memorable quotes, the interesting symbolism, and all that crazy nonsense just appeal to me.

What makes Lewis Carroll's novel even more wonderful is the surplus of food references, from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party to the talk of pepper in soup with the Duchess to the bottle marked "DRINK ME," filled with a concoction tasting "of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast."

[Photo Credit: Top left and bottom right images from Disney's Alice in Wonderland]

I loved both the book and the original Disney animated version, so when the new Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland came out, I definitely wanted to make something Alice-themed. I remembered the scene in the original Disney cartoon where Alice finds the tempting "Eat Me" cookies (in the novel, it was actually an "Eat Me" cake), and decided that I'd recreate those cookies in real life.

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I'll be entering these cookies in the Eating Your Words Challenge 2010 hosted by Tangled Noodle and Savor the Thyme. The objective? "'Write, spell, or draw' using food or drink."

End of the Rainbow = Pot of Gold

As a kid, I never really believed in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. But, for some reason I was convinced that all those fantastical St. Patrick's Day tales were true: that tricky little leprechauns made mischief right under our noses, rare four leaf clovers brought good luck, and there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

After I first heard about the pot of gold in kindergarten, every time after a rainstorm, if there was a rainbow, I would crane my neck every which way, searching for this elusive rainbow end and the pot of gold. Of course, no matter how I twisted my head, I could never find the end of the rainbow. Eventually, in science class I learned about the principles of refraction and how a rainbow is created by the interaction of light and raindrops.

Despite the fact that I now know otherwise, every St. Patrick's Day I'm still reminded of these tales, and throughout the month of March, I often find myself scanning for four leaf clovers growing along the sidewalk. This year, I made Pot of Gold cupcakes: chocolate cupcakes (pot) filled with lemon frosting (gold) and topped with "play dough" cookies (rainbow).

St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Are you wearing any green today? Sorry for being MIA these past few weeks; I've been bogged down with schoolwork and midterms. Luckily, next week is spring break, which means I'll finally have time to try out all of my new baking project plans. From Alice in Wonderland to bread baking, Super Smash Bros to Easter goodies, I'm ready to start baking and blogging.

*Edited 3/12/2011

Leprechaun Cookies

sugar cookie dough

Make the dough as indicated in the recipe. Roll the dough out the 1/4" thick. Take a knife and cut out 4x6 cm rectangles. Then, cut out little squares (about 1x1 cm) and use a straw to cut out small circles from the dough scraps. Take the small circles and split them in half with a knife. For each rectangle, about 1/3 the way down from the top, place one dough square on either side, and right underneath, place one semicircle ear on each side. Round the two bottom corners of each cut-out. Bake as indicated in the recipe directions and let cool.

Decorating Leprechauns
sugar cookie icing
green food coloring
orange food coloring
brown food coloring
pink food coloring
yellow food coloring
black food coloring
blue nonpareils

Split up the icing into four bowls, but also save a little on the side. Take that little bit and color it black. Cover and set aside the black icing for now. Tint one of the four bowls green, another orange, another yellow, and the last one peach. To tint peach, add a tiny bit of orange and pink food coloring to the icing. Be sure to cover the icings that you aren't using to make sure they don't dry out.

First, take the green icing and color in the top of green hat of all the cookies. Let them dry. Use the yellow icing the draw buckles. Let dry. Add brown food coloring to the rest of the yellow food coloring and use the now brown icing to draw a brown stripe on the hat and fill in the buckle hole. Wait to dry.

Use the green for the bottom of the hats. Let dry. Use the orange icing to trace out beards with square holes in middle for faces. Wait to dry. Take the peach icing to fill in the faces and shade the ears. Lastly, add two blue sprinkles for eyes and pipe on mouths with the black icing.