Tag: #PARTYDIY

Easy Pac Man Biscuit Favours
Alliyah Dawud
August 9, 2019

These biscuits were easy to make and ice. I used a short cut and iced these biscuits with ready made fondant. But of course you could ice them with Royal Icing if you felt inclined to do so.

We placed these yummy biscuits into cellophane bags and used gold twisty ties to finish them off.

These guys were so yummy we have no leftovers.

We used a Pac Man cookie cutter which makes these so easy to do. We used the cutter on the icing too! Result.

I made a huge batch as I gave them to the adults too. Feel free to halve the recipe if you need to.

To make 48 Pac Mans you will need:

410 grams Butter (softened)
410 grams Castor Sugar
1 TBSP Vanilla or Salted Caramel flavouring
2 egg yolks
820 grams Plain Flour-sifted plus extra to roll out

To decorate:

2 x bags of yellow fondant
Black writing icing OR a pack of black fondant (you will have loads left over)
Water-to help fondant stick
Icing sugar-to help rolling

1) Cream together the butter and sugar. This can be done in a Mixer or by hand.
2) And the egg and vanilla/caramel and beat the mixture. Do this slowly.
3) Now add scoops of flour and keep mixing to encorporate all ingredients.
4) Scoop the mixture into a ball and cling film it. Place in the fridge for 2 hours (or overnight really. I prefer overnight).

NOTE: To bake the cookies you will need flat baking sheets that have been lined with greaseproof paper.

Pre-heat the oven to 160 (oven), 325F, Gas Mark 3 or 170C (non fan).

5) Remove the dough from the Fridge. Place any dough you are not using back in the Fridge. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to a £1.00 coin thickness.
6) Using the cookie cutter punch out your Pac Mans. Carefully place the Pac Mans onto the baking sheets and give the biscuits space to expand. Mine didn’t expand too much so yours should either.

6) Place the biscuits in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly golden colour. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Cool completely before icing.

To ice the Pac Mans:

1) Sprinkle a bit of icing sugar on a clean surface (I used my glass pastry board) and roll out the yellow fondant to the thickness of a £1.00 coin. Using your Pac Man cutter cut out Pac Mans and place onto the cooled cookies. I used my finger as a paintbrush and applied a bit of water to the fondant before applying it to the biscuit and it worked. The fondant stuck to the biscuit like magic.
2) Now either draw on the eye with the icing or take a small piece of black icing roll it up and apply that to the biscuit. Hey presto! You have a Pac Man iced Biscuit favour.
3) We allowed the biscuits to set and then placed them in the cellophane bags and then secured them with twisty foil fasteners.

Job done.

Notes: you can make up the biscuits up to 72 hours in advance and keep them in an airtight container.
You can also bake the biscuits in advance and keep them in an airtight container prior to icing them if you wish too.

Cheap and Easy Pac Man Pinata
Alliyah Dawud
July 23, 2019

When the youngest wanted an 80s party I nearly fall off my chair. Child you are really an old soul. But let’s be honest the 80s were amazing.

Pinatas are big business. You see them all over the place and if you look on Etsy you can get some pretty amazing ones.

I tried to make on with a giant balloon and paper mache-EPIC fail! So I moved onto plan B.

A paper lantern Pac Man Pinata.

This really is an easy as pie type of crafting project. I actually had some leftover paper lanterns in the loft as well as yellow plastic table cloths we used last year for Hiffys Rapunzel party which I ‘fringed’ and used to decorate the Pac Man. I then made two eyes….and Pac Man was born.

To replicate our Pinata you will need:

One paper lantern (I used a medium sized one-20 cm). You can pick one up at a Pound store (cost: £1.00)
1 rectangualr plastic table cloth in yellow-£1.65 off eBay
Cellotape
Scissors
Fringing scissors-I bought a pair of ‘security scissors’ which are used to shred addresses etc on paperwork before throwing them in the recycling. You can pick up a pair for £2.99 including postage on eBay.
Piece of stern card (mine was A5 and I trimmed it down a bit)
Duct tape (if you have it; which I did).
Some strong string/rope to hang the Pinata
Stuff to place inside the Pinata.
A stick and mask to smack it with (we got ours from Tesco for £2.00)
Fillers: we used a large bag of party fillers from Wilkos and a large bag of sweets that cost £4.99 from Home Bargains. We actually had leftover sweets which I re-use for another Pinata.

The how to:

1) Set up your lantern. Cut HALF the table cloth into 8 cm strips. The length doesn’t matter as much as the width.
2) using the fringing scissors cut into the strips and create your lovely fringe.
3) Place the card carefully into the lantern. Using the duct tape secure into the bottom of the lantern. Ensure it’s completely secure. You can also stick some tape to the outside too to give it extra protection.
4) Now starting at the bottom and cellotape strips of the fringe to the lantern. I cellotaped them in ‘rows’ to ensure all the lantern was covered. This method worked for me.
5) Repeat until you cover the lantern.
6) Glue on the eyes.
7) Now add your goodies to the Pinata. I used a bag of party favours and a large bag of sweets that cost £4.99. This still made my Pinata cheaper than the ones on Etsy.
8) Attach the string or rope to the Pinata and tie it to something secure.
9) Your Pinata is ready to go.