Edible Art - Zentangling on Handmade Mint Patties

A while back, I celebrated a milestone birthday. I was in total denial about my age, a feeling I'm sure  that many of you who are reading this can relate to. I mean, I still feel so young, so how can I possibly be that age. Celebrating was the last thing I wanted to do but I knew that if I didn't mark the occasion I would regret it later on. So as a way of coming to terms with it, I decided to throw myself into the decorating by adding my personality to as many of the details for the party as I could.

Of all the projects I undertook, this was by far the most ambitious and time consuming but it was also the most satisfying. I created edible art in the form of mint patties by putting my zentangling skills to use for the bonbonnieres.

I began with icing fondant which I flavoured with a few drops of concentrated mint essence. I rolled it out to about 5mm thick: thick enough that they would dry out a little but not so thin that the guests would crack their teeth when they bit into them.

Using a circle cutter, I cut out 2.5cm (1") rounds.

And then I left them to firm up.

On the front of each pattie, I traced around a filigree stamping to create a nice lacey edge across them using edible black ink.

I traced some of the detail too.

Then I drew in the pattern by hand.

Lastly, I monogrammed each one with edible purple and pink pens in keeping with the colour theme of the party.

On the reverse side, I went to town and Zendoodled to my heart's content. I was so immersed in creating all the different swirls and patterns that I could feel myself enjoying the process. And the wonderful thing was that the more I doodled, the more I began to think about the guests, my loving family and friends who would honour me by being present at the celebration. And a warm and fuzzy feeling began to wash over me. And the more I thought about them, the less important that milestone number became. It was quite liberating and very therapeutic! All up, I doodled 48 pieces with only a handful alike.

Here's a couple of close-ups so you can see the level of detail that went into these yummy little morsels of edible art.

I packaged them up in sweet little butterfly bonbonniere boxes along with some sugared almonds. See how to make the bonbonnieres in this post.

I was so happy with the way they turned out and by the end, that silly little number had stopped bothering me. But on a practical note, if I was ever to do something so ambitious again, I'd pick just two or three designs to zendoodle. But, hey, this was therapy and these yummy little morsels weren't supposed to be mass produced or made production-line fashion. Handmade, and with loving thoughts..... that's what this was all about.

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'Til next time.....

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