[T&T] The Kraft Mac & Cheese Deathmatch

Seriously, does someone else remember Celebrity Deathmatch?

Ah, those were the days...

It aired on MTV a dozen years ago, and I was a huge fan of the show, despite being unfamiliar with most of the American celebrities it featured.

The claynimation was pretty spiffy, and the ridiculously gruesome maimings never failed to crack me up - and this is from one who can't bear watching even the trailers of splatter movies! Celebrity Deathmatch was cartoony enough that it didn't make me sick, but the sadistic, Itchy & Scratchy-esque humor fully got through.

I miss Johnny and Nick (as well as bloodthirsty referee Mills, and Stacey Cornbread) so much! Please MTV powers-that-be, would you consider realeasing the original episodes on DVD, so that dewy-eyed nostalgics like me can bask in the memories of those politically incorrect days of yore? Thanks!

Image belongs to Kevin A. @ http://weirdkev-27.deviantart.com

Now, while waiting for my plea to be heard so that I can show your average Pokémon-ogling kiddo how much fun we used to have in my days, I will proceed to review two products at once, and see which one's best.

Tonight's match will see the long-standing champion and crowd favourite, Kraft's original Macaroni & Cheese ("Ask for the blue box!"), challenged by the upstart new entry, Kraft "Just pop me in the microwave, baby!" Easy Mac.

LET'S GET IT ON!

I sampled the Easy Mac first, as it seemed to be the quicker to make.

On the cup it says I have the Extreme Cheese Explosion version. To rub in the concept even further, the plastic lid proclaims enthusiastically how CHEESY the product is.

Now, I'm no native speaker so it's entirely possible that some subtle nuance got lost on me, but... well, it made me giggle. A lot.

Under the unwittingly amusing seal I found: a cup or so of teeny tiny fusilli, the cheese mix packet, and a little plastic fork (not very handy, but I can totally see how it'd be invaluable in those "30 min. lunch break" situations.)

All I had to do was add water up to the indicated level...

...microwave on the highest setting for 3 1/2 minutes, and stir the cheese mix into the cooked, wet pasta. 

And this is where I had to go Ewww - because the mix was orange. As in, marker pen orange? In its powder form, it was scary. 

Once mixed up, though - it was scarier! 

Don't get me wrong: I know Cheddar is supposed to be orange. I know it's because of annatto, a traditional plant-derived food colouring that is actually much healthier than most of the stuff I eat daily. 

Still. Angry orange goo on my pasta? Sorry, but... Ewww. 

I found the pasta to be quite good: not really al dente, but not mushy at all. I got it right at first try just by following the given directions, which is a huge bonus when you are at work and really have no time to play around with the cooking time and settings. 

I don't even know whether Italian and American microwaves have the same settings, which goes a long way in showing how foolproof this product is!

The infamous sauce, on the other hand, I found a tad overwhelming. 

It didn't taste chemical at all, but it was very tangy, bordering on acridity. It is the kind of sharpness I associate with cheeses like ricotta scanta, a ricotta that is deliberately left to go sour - I love it when tempered by a sweeter element (usually tomato sauce), but on its own it's a bit too much. I didn't hate it, but I can't say I was a fan either. 

All in all, I'd say I would buy this product occasionally, were it available in Italy, but I'd be sure to pick a different flavour choice. 

Now for the "blue box"...

(...and no, I don't mean the Tardis!)

According to its Wikipedia entry, the classic version has been around for ages and is considered a staple in Canada. It comes as no suprise, then, that the blurb on the back of the package harps on the "old reliable" motif:

IMPORTED FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD

Congratulations. You just picked up a box of deliciously gooey macaroni & cheese dinner. Chances are you'll be serving it to your kids but at the same time helping yourself to a spoonful or two. Don't worry, we understand. It's the same classic cheesy taste you know and love from your own childhood. So go ahead, dig in. Your kids may be the perfect age to enjoy the gooey, cheesy goodness - but remember: you were there first.

Yep it's true! It's all printed on it, down to the meaningful italics!

I suppose this goes a long way to show how different commercial communication can be from a country to another, as here in Italy, this kind of nudge nudge, wink wink intimacy would be unthinkable. Closest we ever could go would be the ads Barilla aired back in the Eighties, which were heavy on the "family tradition" motif - like, sledgehammer-heavy - and so cloyingly sweet and soppy, that their edulcorated little happy family became a sitting duck for every stand-up comedian ever since.

So much food for thought! (Hee hee, see what I'm doing here? Ah, I just kill myself at times...)

But, back to the match!

The box serves three, in theory, but I found half of its content to be barely enough for a decent serving. To be fair, though,  people in America are probably not used to have pasta as a stand-alone main course, the way we Italians do.

Despite how tiny the pasta was, I found the recommended cooking time to be not nearly sufficient.
This was a bit of a bummer, honestly. I mean, it's not that figuring out on my own how long pasta needs to boil is rocket science, but... 4 minutes off? For real?

The dehydrated cheese was not as creepy as the Easy Mac's, but still proudly orange.
I omitted the additional butter because this "experiment" already packs a lot of calories from just the carbs...

...yet the sauce still turned out deliciously creamy.  

It still had tang, but itwas much more tolerable than in the "cheesy cheesy cheesy" microwave version.

All in all, the pasta was nice, but far from memorable - and the worst part is, after scarfing down what is supposed to be almost two portions, I was still pretty hungry.

Now, I know it would be unfair to compare this with homemade pasta, as the latter packs a filling power that is just on another level. But a portion of, say, Chinese noodles or ramen soup usually leaves me fairly sated - this stuff costs thrice as much, takes more time to prepare, and the calories are more or less the same. Sorry Kraft, but it's basic economics at work here.

THE CHALLENGER WINS! 

Why?

Simply because, nasty orange alien cheese aside, the microwave-able bowl made a lot more sense to me.

- First of all: I know it's called "Mac & Cheese", but I think using fusilli in the microwave version was smarter, as they're much better for scooping up sauce than actual maccheroni.

- The instructions given for the Easy Mac were clear and the suggested cooking time was spot on. Not so with the "Blue Box."

- Weird as it may sound, the pre-portioned bowl felt more like a meal than half a box of classic M&C. I wasn't exactly full (as in, I could have eaten more), but I wasn't left really hungry either. 

- The Easy Mac is really quick to make, and what it yelds - while obviously not comparable with a dish of homemade pasta - is a fair deal when you consider it only took four minutes. The classic version took about 10 minutes, and in that time I could easily have grated and melted some fresh cheese... so I didn't really save time (or money) by buying a "kit", which kind of makes it pointless. 


So now that we have our winner, I guess all's left to say is:

GOOD FIGHT, GOOD NIGHT!

I make no excuses...

...I am a lazy, useless slob.

Then again, I told you as much from the very start.

What I mean is, at this point you'd expect me to put on my best drama queen face and go screamin' "OH MY GOSH IS IT MAY ALREADY?"

Only, weeeell... to be totally honest I've been very aware, all this time, that I was neglecting my blog.

And I wish I could tell you it was because of some deep personal reason, good or bad.

But, no.

What really really happened is, I was feeling sluggish and exhausted and just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to write a post.

I didn't even bake all that much over the last 3 months. Shock and horror, I know.

Has the Efreet burned out, then?

Hell, NO!

I still love baking. I love it more than I could tell.

And I've spent most of my almost non-existant free time browsing my fellow foodies' blogs and daydreaming about all the good things I'd bake, as soon as my lethargy spell would go away.

Also I have given this whole blogging business some consideration, since this virtual soapbox of mine is nearly one year old already, so I suppose a healthy measure of self-criticism is compulsory.

Did I meet the goals I set up for myself?

...Well, for one, my photography still sucks. And it goes without saying that I'm never going to be a regular poster, duh.
But, I am letting by crazy true self shine through whatever I write on here. And, as far as building my online presence goes... I still won't go anywhere near Facebook, no matter what - and yes I know full well the sheer amount of traffic it could get me; I just happen to hate the bloody place so much, I am perfectly fine giving up a crapload o' potential clicks - but I am reasonably proud of my Pinterest boards, and I am opening up to the vibrant, art-loving community that is DeviantArt.
Basically what I'm saying is: I may disappear for a while - for as long as I need to get back my steam, as it is - but I'm not giving up on the blog.
Not ever.

This much I can promise.

Thanks for the wait, peeps! Hope to make it worth your while!

Shit happens!

Did you know that this by-now proverbial piece of wisdom originated from the Forrest Gump movie?

I certainly didn't - and I've watched it a few times, too!

...Well, anyway.

My friends and roleplaying buddies have started a new campaign, set in the Marvel universe. 

Now much as I love everything comics, superheroes have never been my cuppa - there's just something about the genre's whole concept that irks me beyond measure. 

There has been a time when I was so desperate for my weekly RPG fix that I'd have ended up playing nevertheless, and hating every single minute spent at the gaming table. It happened before, that's how I know. 

Yet luckily, we're having another game going on at the same time, and I love that one so much, I don't mind skipping the superz game.  

So, since I'm getting free Friday evenings for a while, I thought I could put them to good use and test a few interesting-looking recipes I found on Pinterest. 

Why, I told myself, I'll bake some outrageously good cupcakes and see if I can come up with a superheroes theme for them, because sooner or later I will be requested to decorate a cake for some nerdery I don't really care for, and I can use the challenge. And, should it turn up I can't, I'll still have my perfect cupcakes!

I knew right from the start I'd have to make chocolate cupcakes because Flavio, my uber-picky BFF, won't eat baked anything unless it's truly chocolate-heavy. 

No problem there, as I was itching to try Kevin & Amanda's Brownie Batter Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes anyway!

It is actually a doctored-up cake mix recipe, which should have rung a bell in the first place as one of my hugest baking débâcles, dating back to a time before this blog, featured cake mix as one of the ingredients. 

I don't know, I just find mixes to be unpleasantly unpredictable... plus, it makes little sense for me to use them, because the American products most recipes call for aren't readily available in Italy and when I can find them at all, they cost me an arm and a leg - so making my batter from scratch is both easier and less expensive as far as I'm concerned. 

But, this recipe sounded SO GOOD! I mean... Brownie Batter Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes, right? So I hunted down Betty Crocker's Devil's Food mix and set out to baking, only halving my measures as I managed to get hold of just one box. 

The brownie balls had to be prepared in advance and frozen, which was a bummer - still, the dough tasted incredible. Things were definitely going as planned.

But when I baked the cupcakes proper... well, THIS is what happened. 

Fail! Fail! OMG EPIC FAIL!

My cupcakes imploded; there's no nicer way to put it - unless I claim they were hit by meteor fragments, which would be bordering on bad taste seeing what happened in Russia earlier today.

Of course I could camouflage the wreckage by slathering them with frosting - whopsie, make that Outrageously Rich Chocolate Indulgence Frosting, s'il vous plaît - but this is just not The Way I Do Things. 

I guess I'll simply take it like a brave soldier and keep them all to myself! 

Now these cupcakes, they may not display a cute, gentle dome and soft brownie heart, but they're good as hell!

Even the "outer shells" I'm left with are definitely more brownie than cupcake, and I suspect they'll get even more brownie-like as they age (meaning: they're going to crust, not dry out.) 

I think I'll crumble one into my granola and try it with milk, or yogurt maybe - also, I want to see what happens if I pour hot coffee into the crater. Oooh, and I could play around with ice cream, too!
WOOT! SCIENCE!

So, here's the moral of the story for you: shit happens, and that's a given. Then again: when life throws a cupcake fiasco at you, YOU GET TO EAT THE REMAINS! MWAHAHAHAHA!

...Right?

PS - Yes, I did have my superz decorations all done, but I'm not going to show them now - I'm saving them for another occasion, when I'll bake a new batch sticking to a tested, well-trusted recipe. I still have no idea what went wrong with this one - I made no weird substitutions for once! - but there are times when safe's better than sorry!

Happy Year of the Snake!

Best wishes to all of you Snakes out there... and to my Asian readers, have a joyful New Year celebration!

...See? I remembered! 

(Seeing how I, like, totally forgot about Setsubun one week ago... Sigh! And it's one of my favourite international holidays too...)

Susan Sto Helit gingerbread cookies, or: Death by Royal Icing!

Learn to walk before you run.

Wise words indeed. Yet I'm afraid I am a bit like Alice - who "generally gave herself very good advice, though she very seldom followed it."

Case in point: for my very first attempt at Royal Icing EVAH, I couldn't pick a regular cookie cutter shape, to be decorated easily with, I dunno, polka dots or something.

Nossir!

It had to be a complex shape - a character cookie, no less! - requiring icing in 6 different colours and/or consistencies. Six.

There are times when I wonder if I am a closet masochist.

Then again, these cookies are supposed to be the favors for my sweetie's Discworld-themed party, so I really wanted them to be nice!

Now there are many baking blogs out there specializing in cut-out cookies, and all of them are choke-filled with useful tips for the budding decorator. I browsed a dozen or so while trying to work up the courage to try dabbling in Royal Icing myself, and from each and every one I learned something useful - but in all honesty, I couldn't have done it witout Bridget and her wonderful blog, Bake at 350. 
I've been reading her feeds through Google Reader for ages and even tried a few recipes in the past, but as far as cookie art goes, I had always admired her mad skillz from a safe distance.
Well, I told myself, No more. Time to take the plunge!

Since we're planning to watch Hogfather, my subject of choice had to be either Death or Susan. Now, much as I love the Discworld's Reaper, giving around Death cookies for our guests to take home seemed a tad dodgy... so I decided I'd go for his luvverly niece instead!
Luckily I own a full set of Paul Kidby's cutesy coasters, so I simply had to do an enlarged copy of the Susan design to use as my template!

Mixing up the dough was the easy part. I made gingerbread instead of regular sugar cookies, because I love winter spices so much! (I make no excuses here...)
I took care to chill the dough as recommended, but even so I had trouble getting more than a couple shapes from each batch I rolled. 
I obediently kneaded the scraps back into my dough reserve, every single time - then chilled, rolled out to the correct thickness, carefully traced my template with an X-Acto knife... and by that time the dough had gone soft already, so back into the freezer it went. 
It took forever, but in the end I can say I'm super happy with my cookies - such a jummy, crunchy, spicey blank canvas they are!

Onwards to the decorating part!

Bridget has a favourite Royal Icing recipe involving meringue powder, but since this ingredient is a bit hard to come by where I live, I resorted for advice to my other decorating guru: Joshua John Russell. He teaches a Modern Piping course on Craftsy, a platform I'm hopelessly addicted to - you need to pay for it unfortunately, but they often do discounts, and if you're the type of person who learns best by watching (like I am), it's well worth splurging a few bucks on it. 
In short: JJ does Royal Icing the old-fashioned way, with real egg whites (I used pasteurized ones to be on the safe side). I whipped up a batch and was ready to go!

Much as I had learned from my wonderful online teachers, I was not going to splash Royal Icing on my cookies directly, period. 
So I grabbed my trusty baking paper and set out making transfers. 

As you can see, they didn't turn out too shabby, considering my lack of experience. 

This is where Bridget's blog proved immensely precious - not so much technique-wise (although I got invaluable information on that regard as well, and I still have tons of stuff to learn from her), but in demystifying the process as a whole, so that I could build enough confidence to try it for real. 

I won't lie here: making and tinting Royal Icing is tedious, time-consuming and, above all, messy business, but you can get it right, or right enough anyway, at your first go. If you're like me in that the mere idea of wasting perfectly fine ingredients makes you cringe, you don't need to worry - IT... COULD... WORK!

My transfers are far from perfect - there are bubbles in the royal icing, and I didn't have a damp brush at hand to flatten out those unsightly peaks I got while piping the outlines - but I'm happy with them. 

They were surprisingly sturdy, too, so that I managed to get them off the baking paper and onto the actual cookies without breaking a single one. Hooray! 

I "painted" a little corn syrup on the cookies, then simply placed my Susans on them. Turns out that, despite all the chilling and such, the cookies did spread a little while baking - drat!

The thickness, too, was not as even as I was hoping; this actually gave me some trouble, because the Royal Icing shatters just by blinking at it wherever it isn't resting squarely on the cookie (in the pic below you can see the cracks in the scythe's blade and in her cloak)... but hey, it wasn't a particularly forgiving shape to begin with, with all the sharp edges and protruding bits. I suppose I should have expected cracks to happen. Which is not to say they don't irk me like you wouldn't imagine. 

The final touches included painting on the edible metallic dust, and attaching a tiny silver dragee in the middle of the splotches that were supposed to be her necklace... 

...and finally, here's how my party favors look like, all packaged and ready to go! 

They are biding their time in my freezer now - my sweetie's birthday was on January 19th, dammit! - waiting for a day when the stars will be right and neither the two of us nor our guests will be otherwise busy. 

Of course you can count on me to tell you how his unbirthday party turns out in the end! 

...Gee, what's up with all the Alice in Wonderland references anyway? 

[Cupcake Portraits] Discworld Personalities: Rincewind

Rincewind had eaten in many countries on the Disc, and sometimes he’d been able to complete an entire meal before having to run away. And they’d always lacked something. Oh, people did great things with spices and olives and yams and rice and whatnot, but what he’d come to crave was the humble potato.

Time was when a plate of mash or chips would have been his for the asking. All he’d needed to do was wander down to the kitchens and ask. Food was always available for the asking at Unseen University, you could say that for the place, even if you said it with your mouth full. And, ridiculous though it sounded now, he’d hardly ever done that. The dish of potatoes’d come past at mealtimes and he’d probably have a spoonful but, sometimes, he wouldn’t! He’d… let… the… dish… go… by. He’d have rice instead. Rice! All very nutritious in its way, but basically only grown where potatoes would’ve floated to the surface.

He’d remember those times, sometimes, usually in his sleep, and wake up shouting, "Will you pass the potatoes, please!"

Sometimes he remembered the melted butter. Those were the bad days.

— The Last Continent

If you've been wondering why it took me so long to post a second installment in my Discworld Personalities series, well... look no further than the quote above.

Rincewind and potatoes, this much was a no-brainer; but finding a recipe I could actually use was a nightmare. The easy way out would have been to pick any old cake with a pinch of potato starch in it and tweak the measurements to cupcake-ify it, but that would have felt like cheating - I was going for the real thing here. Because Rincewind deserves no less!

Now, Heather from Sprinkle Bakes has a recipe for Chocolate/Mashed Potatoes Cupcakes, and I was kinda hoping I could simply swipe it and call it a day.
So I boiled some potatoes, made a wonderful mash (it had salt and pepper in it, plus sour cream and yes, melted butter), ate more of it than I care to admit, and forced myself to spare a small quantity for baking...

...and, sure enough, I got some cutesy cupcakes. 

Only, you know... as soon as I tried one, I realized I couldn't use them. 

It's not that they weren't good - Heather is one of those bakers who couldn't bake a bad cupcake if they tried - but they'd hardly risen at all, and once cool they even appeared to have shrunk a little. They were heavy and dense and filling, just as Heather had said they would be, but while I was quite excited about the batter itself (as it would make a wonderful base for a decorated cake IMHO), they just didn't feel right for what I wanted to do here. 

I crumbled the remaining cupcakes, mixed pineapple marmalade into them, and got myself some gorgeous pops - that cheered me up quite a lot. Still, I had to keep repeating to myself in a slightly dazed way: These AREN'T the cupcakes I am looking for. 

I had to come up with a recipe of my own, and in order to do that I asked myself: Who is this Rincewind character anyway?

Image belongs to GilJimbo @ http://giljimbo.deviantart.com
(In my head, Rincewind looks a bit like Shaggy from the Scooby Doo cartoon actually...)

...He is the protagonist of the first two Discworld novels, so that if you read the books in chronological order, you can't help having a soft spot for him - well, I can't, if nothing else.  Hadn't I liked him so much, I doubt I'd have wanted to delve further in the series. 

-> I must bake something that would ideally convert a cupcake novice to these wonderful treats, and have him/her asking for more!

...He is (usually described as) a coward, and an all-around boring individual. Now, unless we are talking Faust Eric (you don't want me to get started on that one), I have to disagree - while it is true that he has little or no curiosity and despises adventure for adventure's sake, he is the sort of reliable fellow who will always help a friend out of trouble, no matter what. As one who enjoys her daily routine, to the point that I even dislike travelling, his is an attitude I can totally get behind - still, I'll admit that Rincewind is more fun when he teams up with bubblier, more active characters.

-> His cupcakes must be yummy in a homely, reassuring way. Potatoes are thrown in because Rincewind loves them so much, but they're not supposed to be detectable by taste; they're only meant to create a crumbly texture. Surprising new flavours are really not called for here; what I'm aiming for is something (delicious on its own but, so to speak, nothing to write home about) to be paired up with a nice classical frosting and to actually exalt it. 

...He is a bit of a cynic (although not nearly as much as other characters), his snarky retorts providing hilarious balance to the more idealistic individuals he always ends up stuck with. He'd never head into danger on some matter of principle like heroes do on a day-to-day basis, but there are things he'll stand up for - I won't spoil Sourcery for those who haven't read it, but if you don't feel like giving him a hug by the end of that book, you must be dead. 

-> I want his cupcakes to be slightly crusty on the outside, but with a tender, crumbly heart. 

...He is an utter failure as a wizard, unable as he is to cast even the simplest spell, yet a wizard he is - he sticks to this belief, and to his battered pointy hat, with a dogged determination that actually resonates with me on a very personal level. Sourcery may be one of my least favourite novels plot-wise, but I'll be damned if Rincewind doesn't leave me all misty-eyed every time I read that particular scene - and, dammit, I'm a linguist too, even though I earn my living by slaving away in a call center!

-> Rincewind's hat will be my preeeminent inspiration for decorating. 

Keeping all of this in mind, I set out to bake. Here's what I came up with! 

Potato Cupcakes

Ingredients:

* 1 cup potatoes, boiled the day before

* 2 cups all-purpose flour

* 1/2 + 1/3 cup granulated sugar

* 3 Tbsp butter (cold from the fridge)

* 2 eggs

* 1/2 tsp salt

* 3 tsp baking powder

1.  Pre-heat oven to 400° F.

2.  Sift the flour in a large bowl. 

3.  Peel the potatoes you boiled the day before (you did, didn't you?) Mash them with a fork, then measure by packing into a cup. 
Transfer the mush into a sieve, and sift them on top of the flour. (The easiest way would be pressing the potatoes with a spoon to force them through the sieve.)

4.  Add the other ingredients on top of them, in no particular order. The only important thing is, the butter must be cold. 

5.  Work the ingredients with your fingers, as quickly as possible so the butter doesn't melt. The dough will be slushy at first, but as you work it, it will turn thicker and stickier.

6.  Line a cupcake mold with (red) paper wrappers. The dough will want to form clumps as you fill them. This is great! And if it's thick enough for you to actually crumble it, even better!

My doses yeld 12 cupcakes, by the way!

7.  Remember to place a water-filled silicon cup on the oven's bottom before baking. It is the secret to get soft, moist cuppies!

8.  Bake for 12-15 minutes. The cupcakes will have gone all golden and puffy!

9.  If you don't want to bother with decorations, this is the best moment to enjoy them! While they're hot from the oven, put a little piece of butter on top of each and let it melt - Rincewind would so approve of this, you know... - then dust them slightly with powdered sugar and...

10. ...RUN!

I deliberately skipped vanilla extract or any other flavouring, but you can use them if you really want to. I wanted texture to be the real star!

These babies are meant to unobtrusively enhance the flavour of any frosting you may choose to couple them with; me, I thought a classical, comforting frosting would be better suited to both the cupcakes themselves and the concept, so I picked Stef's Chocolate/Cream Cheese Frosting recipe from Cupcake Project. 

I really loved the combo, although I am very tempted to use a clear frosting next time (white chocolate maybe?), just so I can tint it a nice red!

Now for the decorating part, using a cutter like I did for Granny Weatherwax would work great, as would modelling the hat itself out of red fondant. 

I chose a different, more symbolic approach, as Rincewind's wizzard hat is not only the character's strongest visual pointer - what with the misspelling, the "symbols of occult significance", and the glittery star on top that is really cardboard and shedding sequins all over the place - but also a vital part of what he is. 

If you like my solution, just melt some chocolate (in the microwave, in a double boiler or in a small saucepan directly - just take care not to burn it!) Tempering it is not necessary, unless you really want to; untempered chocolate is prone to melting and not nearly as shiny and crunchy, but we'll be painting it anyway, so it won't matter. 

Now you need to make yourself a paper cone. If you don't know how it's done, here's a handy tutorial!

Write WIZZARD on a piece of paper; it will be your guide while piping. Mind that the letters all touch, so that the word will be a single piece - it will save you lots of hassle!

Take a scrap of baking paper, rub a little butter or shortening on it and wipe off the excess with a paper towel (you want it to be just a little slippery, not super-greasy!)

Place the written paper under it, so you can see the guidelines through the baking paper; trace the letters with chocolate, then move the baking paper slightly and repeat. Make more WIZZARDs than you think you'll need, because a few are bound to break/smear/get ruined somehow. It's just how it goes!

You could pipe the stars and symbols too, or cut them out of fondant. Remember to make some larger stars for the tip of the hat; if they turn out a little wonky, it's actually good because it will look old and battered, as it should!

Once the chocolate has dried, paint the decorations with edible golden powder. A single coating will do; you don't want them to look like solid gold, as they are supposed to be paltry anyway...

If you can find some star- and moon-shaped sprinkles, by any means use them! (I think my "moons" were supposed to be bananas but what the heck...) 

You can scatter a few on the serving plate as well, to suggest the loose sequins. 

You're done!