Earlier this week, Roy was very intrigued to learn with the children about old fashioned Australian sweets. He was fascinated to learn that minties are such an old sweet and curious to find out about what sorts of sweets children enjoyed in the 'olden days'. One type of sweet which I told him about was the home-made variety. All my old cook books have sections on sweets, and the recipes range from the complex to the incredibly simple. Roy was desperate to try out the recipes and chose a couple he would like to have a go at. This week he is going to make old fashioned sugar mice.
You Will Need:
- 1 cup of pure icing sugar
- 2 tablespoons of melted butter
- 2 tablespoons cocoa (for brown mice) or 1 teaspoon of essence - vanilla, peppermint, lemon or whatever is your favourite(for white mice). You could also add a little essence to the brown mice - Roy and I made some which were choc mint!
- Boiling water and a teaspoon
- Decorations. Roy used Slivered almonds, small lengths of licorice and shiny cachous, but you could use currants as eyes and red glace cherries as noses if you wanted to be healthier! Any of your other favourites would work such as little pieces of jelly bean.
- Optional
- coconut, chocolate sprinkles, 100's and 1000's or chocolate biscuit crumbs to roll your mice in. Roy and I recommend this because it makes them less sticky and easier to handle, but it is not absolutely necessary.
- Food colouring. If you want to have coloured mice (pink are often popular) you can add a little food colouring to your mix. Make sure you add it with a toothpick though or the mix might become too sloppy or too vivid. You might also want to consider adding some to ordinary sugar or coconut, mixing it in and letting it dry before you make your mice. Then you can roll white mice in it to make them colourful.
Method:
- Decide whether you want brown or white mice. You can make a combination if you like, just divide the icing sugar and butter between 2 bowls and divide the flavourings in half. The proportions then are:
- 1/2 cup of icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon of melted butter
- 1 tablespoon of cocoa
- 1/2 teaspoon of essence
- Sift your icing sugar into your bowl(s). If you are making brown mice, sift the cocoa with the sugar so that it is well mixed.
- Add the melted butter and essence. We used vanilla essence for our white mice and peppermint to make choc mint brown mice! Mix the butter and essence in.
- If necessary, add boiling water, a few drops at a time and mix. You want to make a stiff paste so don't add too much or your mix will be too sloppy. We only needed 1 teaspoon for our brown mice and none at all for our white ones. If your mixture accidentally becomes too sloppy, add more pure icing sugar and mix.
- When you have a stiff paste, take a good teaspoon of the mixture and roll into a ball. Then slightly squish one end to a point, to make a teardrop, mouse shape.
- If you want to make your mice 'furry', gently roll your mouse in coconut (for white mice) or chocolate sprinkles/chocolate biscuit crumbs (for brown mice). This is not necessary, but does make the mice easier to handle.
- Give your mouse a tail by pushing a piece of licorice into its backside.
- Poke almonds into the top of your mouse, as shown below, to make ears. Use the pointy ends of the slivered almonds to poke them in without squishing the mice.
- Gently press 2 coloured cachous into the mouse as eyes, and a silver or pink cachou on the tip of its nose as shown in the photo below.
- Continue rolling and shaping your mix until there is none left.
- Enjoy!
Notes:
- This recipe made 14 small sugar mice.
- If you like you can make your mice larger, just use a tablespoon of mix instead of a teaspoon.