Friday, November 4, 2011

Chocolate Cameos

A while ago I made some molds from some of my cameos.

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These molds are food safe, so once they are cured and washed, they are ready to be used. I made these so I could make some cameo chocolates. I got the idea from this Country Living article I found from pinterest.


I'm not sure where you can purchase cameo shaped mold sheets from, which is why I made my own. The ones I made were just a test. I used this product, Amazing Mold Putty. I get it from the craft store with a 40% off coupon. It's not much in the containers but you actually do get a lot out of it.

What you do is you mix the 2 compounds together (just enough for whatever it is you want to make a mold of), and once they are combined, you press the object in the compound. Once it sets, you can remove the item, and then you have a mold. Once it cures you can wash it and then use it to make things like chocolates and such. Which is exactly what we do with it.


These are my two cameo chocolates made from my molds:

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They are not perfect but with a little more practice I can figure it out. I plan on making multiple cameo molds from the molding putty so I can make more than 2 of these at a time.

What I did was painted the cameo image first with white chocolate, and then I added the milk chocolate to the molds. Once they were set, I removed the chocolates from the molds. Cute!

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Next time I will make sure the mold isn't filled so much, so the chocolates have flat backs. I can also trim the chocolates around the edges in case there is too much on them..imagine how pretty these would be in multiple colors, like the Country Living article shows. Would be great to make a box of them as a gift for someone, or for favors at a bridal shower.

I wanted to blog this so I could share it in the YHL pinterest challenge this month. Lots of great ideas over there!

Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

A favorite blog of mine shared a recipe for chicken pot pie (from scratch) a couple years ago. Since then I have made it a few times and it is delish.

Last night I made 2 pies for dinner, and one small one for lunches. I actually doubled the batch, but my instructions below only mention ingredients for one batch.

For the shell crust, take 1-2/3 cups of flour, 2 tsp of celery seed, 1 8oz. package of cream cheese, 1/3 cup of butter, and 1/4 tsp of salt and mix together to form dough. (I doubled all of this)

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I lightly floured a surface and rolled mine out with a rolling pin. Then, I placed the doughs in the dishes I was baking with.

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I cubed some boneless skinless chicken breasts (about three large ones) and cooked those through, then I put them in my food processor and shredded it up really nice.


While the chicken was cooking, I minced some garlic (about 2 tsp) in the processor first. I melted 1/3 cups of butter in a pot on the stove, and added the garlic, 1/2 tsp of salt, some pepper, and 1/3 cup of flour. After that was blended, I slowly added 1-1/2 cups of warm water, 2/3 cups of milk, and 3 chicken bouillon cubes. Once this came to a boil and thickened up, I turned off the heat and stirred in the shredded chicken, and 1 cup of frozen mixed vegetables and 1 cup of frozen hash browns (small cubed up white potatoes). (I doubled all of this)


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Once that was all mixed together, I filled all the dishes with it. I think next time I will add more mixed veggies.

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And then I rolled out the rest of the dough and topped the pies, using a fork to secure the edges. I also cut slits in the tops of the pies.

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I baked these for about 20 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. They came out perfectly!

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The larger one is being frozen for future meals and the round one was dinner last night and it will be dinner the rest of the weekend most likely. The small one is perfect for lunches (actually makes 2 lunches because it's so much).

Fall is the time of year to make cozy warm meals like this. Chicken pot pie from scratch is one of my husband's favorite meals. He doesn't even like cream cheese, but he loves the dough this recipe makes (you can't taste the cream cheese at all). These would be great made as individual pot pies and frozen. Thanks to Sunday Baker for a great recipe!