Sweets for the Sweet – Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sweets for the Sweet!

Favorite Baking Molds for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day Baking Molds from ZANDA PANDA!

 

You can find these molds on the ZANDA PANDA website:

Silicone Heart Cake/Cookie/Chocolate/Craft Mold

Handmade Stoneware Valentine Heart Cookie Molds

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Blueberry Lattice Butterfly Pie

Blueberry Lattice Butterfly Pie made with ZANDA PANDA's Kaleidoscope Butterfly Mold

Check out the recipe and more images on the Zanda Panda website.  Remember, summer’s not officially over until September 23rd – and you wouldn’t want to wear white when eating blueberry pie anyway 🙂

Here’s where we picked the berries for the pie:

Rose's Berry Farm

This is Rose’s Berry Farm, in Glastonbury, CT.  We also picked raspberries there for another delicious pie.

Blueberry Lattice Butterfly Pie

Jump over to zandapanda.com for the recipe and the how-to’s and also a photo of Rose’s beautiful pond.

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The Kaleidoscope Butterfly Cake Topper/Cookie/Chocolate/Craft Mold

Here are some other ways to use a Butterfly Mold

See larger image 

GIVEAWAY! Win a ZANDA PANDA Kaleidoscope Heart Mold

VALENTINE’S DAY GIVEAWAY!

Giveway has ended.  Thank you all for your wonderful comments!

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Congratulations to the winner of the Kaleidoscope Heart Mold, Russ Podgorsek!

Winner was chosen by RANDOM.ORG, a Third-Party Draw Service and is entrant-accessible.  Details of the drawing can be found at: http://www.random.org/draws/details/?draw=5039 Entrant identifier is your e-mail address.

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I’d like to thank everyone who entered for your wonderful comments.   Thank you for taking the time to enter, your feedback is very valuable and very much appreciated at any time!

If you’re considering purchasing a Kaleidoscope Heart Mold for Valentine’s Day (or any other ZANDA PANDA item), please join our ‘Favorite People List‘  (because you already are!),  you’ll automatically receive a promo code for 15% off your first purchase -and a bonus promo code for the Puppy Mold -(Expiration 2/28).

It’s a great way to keep in touch and not miss any news.  We send our members occasional announcements of new designs and contests and we will never your share your personal information.  All we need is an e-mail address (all other info is optional), and it’s free!

Thank you again so much for your participation!

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To enter,  just tell us which of our NEW DESIGNS are your favorites
(plus more ways to win – see below)

Win a Kaleidoscope Heart Mold for Baking/Crafts in our Valentine's Giveaway!

Our Kaleidoscope Heart Mold Valentines Giveaway is a Prizey.net Editor’s Pick!

Valentine’s Day Giveaway Prize:

One ZANDA PANDA Kaleidoscope Heart Mold

You can use the Kaleidoscope Heart Mold to bake cakes, cookies, pies and breads. You can mold chocolate, fudge, gelatin, fondant, marzipan, edible clay and No-Bake Backwards Cakes™. You can create arts & crafts like handmade soap, cast paper and polymer clay jewelry. Great to give as as a gift for the baker or crafter, or to make gifts for your friends and family. Elegant design, but also very kid-friendly!

All ZANDA PANDA bakeware is made of FDA approved, 100% food-grade, platinum cured silicone, with a temperature range of -40 to 446 °F (-40 to 230°C) and is oven, microwave, freezer and dishwasher safe.

 

ZANDA PANDA's Kaleidoscope Heart Mold

How to enter:

Required Entry:  Check out our NEW DESIGNS at the ZANDA PANDA website, then come back and tell us which are your favorites as a comment/response at the bottom of this blog post. You must leave a comment to enter!

Check out our new designs below at http://zandapanda.com/newdesigns.asp:

New Designs What's your favorite?

New Designs! Which one’s your favorite?

Carousel Animals:  Horse/Camel/Zebra/Hippocampus/Lion

Halloween Designs:  Bat/Witch/Cat

Princess/Unicorn/Castle

Knight/Dragon/Shield

 

You can choose one of the groups or any of the individual designs.  Just tell us which are your favorites.  These prototypes are destined to be stoneware cookie molds and decorative soap.

 

 

 

 

Want Extra Entries?

Addtional Entries: Each of these count as an additional entry –
but you must leave an individual comment for each entry to count!

•   Join the ZANDA PANDA Mailing List (and receive two discount promo codes!)

•   Like ZANDA PANDA on Facebook

•   Follow ZANDA PANDA on Twitter

•   Tweet this:

Win a #Valentine Heart Mold from @ZANDAPANDA! #Baking #Crafts #giveaway #contest #dessert #cooking http://tiny.cc/ZPKHGV PLS RT!

(You can tweet this daily to count as one additional entry per day)

•  If you already do any of the above, please leave an additional comment/entry!

This giveaway is open to USA residents only (with shipping address within the continental US) and will run until Monday, 2/7/11 at 11:59 pm EST.

Winner will be chosen by a random number generator and will be contacted using the email address provided on the comment contact info.

Disclosure:  These are my designs so I am totally biased, however I received no monetary compensation from myself  🙂

Please leave a comment on our new designs below, your opinions are important to us !

Thanks for participating in our giveaway!    Good luck!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

New Video, New Chocolate Technique!

Kaleidoscope Heart and Kaleidoscope Butterfly Molds

Make two-tone chocolate cake toppers or No-Bake Backwards Cakes™

I’m very excited about this new chocolate technique!  I had been making multi-colored chocolate cake toppers by filling just the hearts or butterflies with a separate color.  I realized, quite by accident, that the scrollwork and flowers could also be made in another color from the background.  I think the two-tone look is very elegant.

Don’t be afraid to try this technique, even if you’re a novice baker/chocolatier.  It’s very easy and will give you amazing results.

No-Bake Backwards Cakes™

If you want to make a complete Kaleidoscope Heart cake with a chocolate shell – a No-Bake Backwards Cake™ – rather than just a cake topper,  just brush chocolate onto the sides of the mold after the second (background) color has been chilled.

Then fill the shell with layers your favorite ingredients, such as cookie crumbs, lady fingers, sliced, store-bought pound cake, jam, fruit, Nutella, drizzles of syrups or liqueurs, ice cream – anything you like!

You can optionally add a final layer of chocolate to seal the cake (which will become the bottom of the cake after demolding).

If you use candy making and dipping chocolate, you won’t need to temper it.  If using regular chocolate, here are some tips on melting and quick-tempering:

Quick-Tempered Chocolate

Finely chop chocolate or use chocolate chips. Melt two thirds of the chocolate in the microwave for thiry second intervals, stirring in between with a silicone or rubber spatula (don’t use a wooden utensil, it can introduce moisture which will cause your chocolate to ‘seize’). Keep the temperature below 120F. When chocolate has melted, add the remaining one third in three batches, stirring until smooth after each addition.

Using a pastry brush, paint the melted chocolate into your mold. Be sure to brush into the crevices, brushing out any trapped air bubbles.

Try this cake topper for Valentine’s Day!

New Technique! Marbled Cameo for the Kaleidoscope Butterfly Cake Topper

I’m so proud of myself!

I’ve just thought up a ridiculously quick and simple way to make absolutely gorgeous cake toppers using two colors of chocolate.

Two-Tone 'Cameo' Kaleidoscope Butterfly Cake Topper

So all I did was take melted Ghirardelli molding chocolate, put it on the surface of a Kaleidoscope Butterfly Mold, pull a flexible silicone spatula across it, let it cool, then add white chocolate on top of it!  That’s IT!!!

Ghirardelli Dark Dipping Chocolate

Ghirardelli White Dipping Chocolate

I wasn’t even very careful about it, and where I ‘missed’, it created a very pretty marbled effect!

If it started to solidify,  I’d just pop it into the microwave for a few seconds.

I am going to have so much fun with this technique!

I can’t wait to try to using tinted white chocolate in pink and red for Valentine’s Day – A Kaleidoscope Heart, No-Bake Backwards Cake with all the elements in a contrasting color, not just the hearts!

You could probably get a very pretty ‘stained glass’ look rather easily by using several colors.

You can also use regular chocolate, but be sure to temper it, so that it will solidify properly without graininess:

Quick-Tempered Chocolate

Finely chop chocolate or use chocolate chips. Melt two thirds of the chocolate in the microwave for thiry second intervals, stirring in between with a silicone spatula (don’t use wood, it can introduce moisture and cause your chocolate to ‘seize’).  Keep the temperature below 120F.   When chocolate has melted, add the remaining one third in three batches, stirring until smooth after each addition.

Using a pastry brush, paint the melted chocolate into your mold.  Be sure to brush into the crevices, brushing out any trapped air bubbles.

Tea Time Magazine features Zanda Panda Heart mold!

Tea Time magazine featured the Zanda Panda Kaleidoscope Heart mold in their ‘Lindsay’s List’ section (Jan/Feb 2009 issue).

They did a great job and I have to say, their subscriber’s are the nicest people!

Zanda Panda Kaleidoscope Heart mold in Tea Time magazine

The Kaleidoscope Heart and Butterfly designs will be available in mid-January.  We are taking reservations now with a special discount.  Check out the website if you’re interested.

Kaleidoscope Heart:  http://www.zandapanda.com/ZP-KH-VRinfo.asp

Kaleidoscope butterfly:  http://www.zandapanda.com/ZP-KB-LFinfoP.asp

I’ll add more info soon, with different ways to use the molds for traditional baking, cold-molded desserts and arts and crafts!

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