How to make candied flowers

You will need some fresh organic edible flowers and petals, clean them well with kitchen paper and a little water, if necessary, but make sure that they are not wet before starting.

Mix an egg white lightly with a fork (do not whip). Coat the petals with the egg white.

Next step: coat with sugar. I find caster sugar a bit to rough, and icing sugar too fine, so I just put some normal white sugar in a mixer and grind it a little until it is finer but not as fine as icing sugar.

I keep the egg white, sugar bowl and a tray all in a line so I can work more easily.

Let the flowers and petal dry completely and then store away in a dry place until needed.

And now some flowers for Pinterest! 

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Sugarcraft: how to make a tin rose bud in under 30 seconds

I found this 'old' video (almost 3 years ago) of Arantxa making more sugar roses, this time tiny rose buds! They are so simple yet they look great!

Sugar Christmas decorations

On Sunday we had the Dante Alighieri Society Xmas Market (Mercatino di Natale), and I made lots of sugar decorations for sale.

Ideal for 'baby's first Christmas' trees, sweet pastel colours, they can be used for Christmas cards too!

White and hand painted with a thin brush

Chocolate fondant, they smell great!

Green and silver for the trees

Plain white and red, with some meringues too

I used fondant (white, chocolate, red and green), corn flour, cookie cutters, food coloring (not cochineal!) and a thin brush to paint. We sold the lot!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Christmas tree, cookie house and sweet Christmas display (mostly homemade)

For me Christmas is a chance to express creativity, make things by hand, bake, ice, decorate and fill the house with a festive display. 

This is my little coffee table tree, all the decorations are made with paper and rolling icing (fondant).
You can find the step by step instructions here.

And this is the big tree, the main colour is white with a touch of red (with South Tyrol/Scandinavian motifs).
I change the design of my tree every year, and this is possible when you make your own decorations to complements what you may already have at home. 

A few decorations have been collected over the years, they are made of wood, felt, porcelain and cotton - no plastic,
but most are paper (just use paper doilies, they fill up the tree nicely and are so pretty and inexpensive) and
white sugar decorations, once again made with rolling icing (fondant).
Click here and here for instructions to make your own.

Lots of reindeers, hearts and stars.

Click here for more homemade Xmas ideas from past years.

This is the sweet table, all white and gold. Christmas decorations which have not been used on the tree are piled in crystal bowl and glasses around the house.  The doilies are real (not paper) come from Italy, some where made by my Mum.

There are cookies made by the kids

Carrot Christmas pastries (so yummy, I'll try to post the recipe for these tomorrow)

Homemade Panforte (recipe here)

And the sweet things that didn't fit in the other plates!

But of course the cutest display of all is the cookie house!

The pattern is my own and comes from my book Party Food for Girls. I call it cookie house because it is not a gingerbread house, but much easier, made with frozen sweet crust pastry. 

Of course I made it with Arantxa (more fun!) and with a few variations: we cut holes for the door
 and windows, and in each window we put a little mint (Golia active plus - blue Italian mints)
 to make the glass. The mints melt while the biscuits bake, and then harden again.
Arantxa also wanted to sprinkle some cinnamon on the biscuit for a sweet smell and rustic look.

The house was assembled and decorated with royal icing made with egg white, hot sugar syrup,
vanilla icing sugar and cornstarch. Max made the snowman with white fondant.

The back of the house

Merry Christmas to all!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Royal icing Christmas decorations

I made some royal icing (or fondant) decorations last year and they still look good. This is a good and inexpensive way to make your own beautiful decorations, and very little skill is required (just a few cookie cutters!). Last year my decorations were all white (I had a all-white Xmas tree). But this year my main tree is white with a touch of red and a South Tyrol/Scandinavian look (lots of reindeers and Alpine motifs), so I also made a few red decorations, and painted some of the white ones with red reinders (you can use a craft stamp for the outlines and a little red jam diluted with water and a fine paintbrush). I also made a little tree with royal icing white and green decorations, I will post some photos in the next few days. In the meantime if you like you can find out how to make royal icing decorations by clicking here, or here.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Fondant Xmas tree decorations, step by step

And the twinkle gif version, courtesy of Google (thank you!!)

These cute Xmas trees are made out of green fondant, I had a pack but I don't really use it (i.e. eat it) so I thought of making little Xmas tree decorations.

Roll the fondant, use corn flour so it doesn't stick to the table and rolling pin.

Cut using cookie cutters.

Make a hole for the ribbon/string (so that you can attach it to your tree). I made the holes using a small pastry nozzle. 

Decorate as you like. Tomorrow I will show you some more fondant decorations (white and red), my tree is looking very sweet this year!

Although this is not a recipe but an idea, it is sweet, so I am entering it in Sweet New Zealand, the monthly blogging event for Kiwi bloggers. Our December 2013 host is Alice in Bakingland, click here to enter. 

Flowers from my garden

Photos and recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©