DIY Clay Decodens

Recently I've been getting interested in Decoden, cute little items such as kitty faces and cupcakes or other food or kawaii related items. Since these items tend to be rather expensive and a little difficult to find, I decided to try making my own with some colored clay I had. I started by making cherries, then moved on to cookies and macaroons as well as frosting and whipped cream. The cherries turned out alright, but my favorite items are the frosted star cookie I made and the macaroons. For all of the cookies I mixed some pale yellow clay with a bit of brown clay to get a color similar to other decoden cookies I've seen. For the frosting I mixed small pieces of colored clay and some white liquid clay together until the solid clay was mostly broken up, then drizzled it on the cookie. I attempted the same thing to make frosting, just adding more solid clay, but it didn't turn out especially well. This could be because I was using a oven bake clay instead of a self hardening clay like most home made decoden are made out of. It's also possible I didn't add enough solid clay to make a good mixture since I was getting rather tired of breaking up and mixing the clay. Anyways, here's a picture of the decoden I made minus the whipped cream which was added afterwords.

The larger macaroon is in half still because I put whipped cream in the middle after the initial baking. Sorry for the low image quality; I'll try to get better pictures of the items up later. All images were taken by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.

Jelly Roll Time!

Recently I rediscovered my love for baking by committing myself to make a treat to share with my gaming group every week. At first I was just making cakes from box mixes, but then I decided to experiment with making a cake from scratch. It turned out wonderfully and everyone enjoyed it, so I decided to continue making cakes from scratch. One week though, my friend pulled out the cook book for me and just happened to leave it open with a pen pointing at the jelly roll recipe. Having never made a jelly roll before, I was a little worried. "Jelly rolls use a specific pan? where am I going to get one of those? Would a cookie sheet work, or would it be too shallow?" Fortunately, I was able to determine the size of a jelly roll pan and discovered that my baking stone from Pampered Chef would work perfectly. It was a big hit, and ever since then I've been trying out new fillings for my jelly rolls. Recently I decided to try a cherry filling and it turned out wonderfully. Here's some pictures:

And, since some of you are probably wanting to know how to make this, here's the recipe I used from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, Ninth printing, 1983:

Ingredients:
 3 eggs
 1 cup sugar
 1/3 cup water
 1 tsp. vanilla
 3/4 cup all purpose flour or 1 cup cake flour
 1 tsp baking powder
 1/4 tsp salt
 About 2/3 cup jelly or jam
 Powdered sugar

Heat oven to 375℉. Line jelly roll pan, 15.5x10.5x1 inch, with aluminum foil or waxed paper; grase generously. Beat eggs in small mixer bowl on high speed until very thick and lemon colored, about 5 minutes. Pour eggs into large mixer bowl. Beat in granulated sugar gradually. Beat in water and vanilla on low speed. Add flour, baking powder, and salt gradually, beating just until batter is smooth. Pour into pan.

Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 12 to 15 minutes. Immediately loosen cake from edges of pan; invert on towel sprinkled generously with powdered sugar. Carefully remove foil. Trim off stiff edges if necessary.

While hot, carefully roll cake and towel from narrow end. Cool on wire rack at least 30 minutes. Unroll cake; remove towel. beat jelly slightly with fork to soften; spread over cake. Roll up; sprinkle with powdered sugar.        10 servings.


Here's some tips on making this recipe that I've discovered while making it. First of all, don't use a terry cloth towel to wrap the cake in. It will stick and be very difficult to get off without damaging the cake. If you only own terry cloth towels, either try to use an old one that isn't very fluffy anymore or use a piece of cloth larger than the jelly roll you don't mind getting dirty. Also, I found that if I let the cake cool completely before unrolling it, it tended to crack making it hard to spread the filling on as well as to roll up. When mixing the ingredients for the cake, it's best to mix all the dry ingredients, minus the sugar, together before adding them into the batter.

For the filling, I find that using jelly or jam is a little odd since I prefer a sweeter filling. As an alternative, one can wither make a filling using the recipe below, also from Betty Crocker, or by slightly heating a can of pie filling, such as cherries, and a bit of cornstarch to thicken it up a bit. For the jelly roll pictured above, I cut all of the cherries in half and mixed about two heaping teaspoons of cornstarch in. I ended up with enough filling for two jelly rolls, which was fortunate since that's how many I was making.

Clear Lemon Filling
 3/4 cup sugar
 3 tablespoons cornstarch
 1/4 teaspoon salt
 3/4 cup water
 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
 1 tablespoon margarine or butter
 1/3 cup lemon juice
 4 drops yellow food color (optional)

Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in saucepan. Stir in water gradually. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 5 minutes. Remove from heat; add lemon peel and margarine. Stir in lemon juice and food color; cool. If filling is too soft, refrigerate until set.

I find this recipe makes a bit more filling than is needed for a jelly roll, unless you want filling all over the place, so I put the remainder aside and enjoyed it later with some vanilla ice cream. You can also experiment with different flavors by replacing the lemon peel and juice with other flavorings, such as cherry extract and by dying it the appropriate color if you so choose. Enjoy!

Recipes from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, Ninth printing, 1983. I do not own or claim to own any of them. All pictures are taken by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.

Mini Cherry Tophat

About a year ago I became the very happy owner of one of Miss Carlyfornia's miniature tophats. The design on this one is a bit of whipped cream topped by a cherry. I absolutely love how realistic the whipped cream on Miss Carlyfornia's hats look, and this one is no exception. Every time I wear this hat I have someone comment "Your hat looks delicious." or "I thought you were wearing a cupcake on your head." I really love this hat and enjoy wearing it with my dress from Miss Carlyfornia as well as any other Gothic Lolitaesque outfits I wear. Here's some pictures of my hat:

Front and side views

And on my Gothic Lolita Teddy

I love all of Miss Carlyfornia's work, but I have to say her cake hats are one of my favorites. I'd been wanting to buy one ever since I first saw them, but never had the chance to get one as they tend to sell very quickly. I was very lucky to get this one as it was the last one she had available at the con I got it from. One of my favorite cake hats that I've seen by Miss Carlyfornia was a larger top hat that was completely frosted like a cake with little swirls of whipped cream topped by cherries on the top. If cake hats are your thing, then I'd highly recommend getting one from Miss Carlyfornia if you can.

Miss Carlyfornia can be found both on Twitter and on Facebook. All pictures are by me unless otherwise noted. Check me out on Twitter.