Mini Toasts

First off, not sure Im liking this new blogger update. Ill see how it goes though. Change is hard and I know Ill have to relearn everything multiple times before it sticks.

Alright, we are weeks into this pandemic lockdown and Ive finally spent some time making minis. I'm lucky that Im in California. The weather has been great and Alex and I have been able to spend a lot of time outside. BUT, it is getting a little boring. So I figured, whats not boring is sitting silently for about 10 hours alone squinting at a scalpel and clay. 

This is my first go at mini toasts and Im pretty happy with them. Of course there is always room for improvement. But also who cares, these just make it onto my fridge and my friends get them as gifts whether they want them or not. Making toast is very similar to making pizza.  I even used some left over "salmon", "lemon" and "orange" from other mini projects. So all in all, I have no idea why these took so long. 

Making mini toppings, including avocado. 

I did make avocado for the first time. I found a tutorial online that I followed. I made this without a pasta roller (Im not accumulating more crap for this weird hobby!) and it worked out okay. It took a few tries to get the right avocado shape. I ended up trashing the ones in the above pic. They were not quite pear shaped enough or thin enough. 

I also made a banana cane for the first time. After watching a few tutorials online, all by baby voiced women with inexplicably long fake nails, I decided just to make my own cane design up (see below). I mixed in a bit of translucent clay with some banana colors and huzzah a cane! Looks crappy big, but when you roll it super thin, it looks great. 

Mini toast components

I think Ill give toasts another go. Im still trying to figure out the texture of the toast. I textured them like cake, it took forever, I ended up covering up most of the texturing, and Im not super happy with the results...sigh. And like usual I made the toasty bits and crust with colored chalk (see previous post about bread). 

mini toasts

 I really like the nutella toasts, and they were the easiest to make. So I will make more of those in the near future. Also I want to make a few toasts with eggs on them. 

Miniature polymer clay toasts

Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and orange curd (mini)

Miniature vanilla cake with orange curd and chocolate frosting

This weekend I made two mini cakes. Its been a few years since I made a mini cake. I think these turned out okay though.  Here are my step by step photos.

Brushing chalk on the cake layers to give them a cooked look. Yeah, Im not sure this is a necessary step, unless you do a naked cake. 

1. miz translucent, white and a cream colour together. Then texture with a toothbrush and dust with brown chalk (to give the look of being cooked)

2. Cut out some thinner brown rounds of the same size and some even thinner orange+translucent rounds.

3. Stack them up, and put the cake in the fridge to firm it up. When you cut into it you want it to be cold and firm so that it does not mush together when you cut it.

4. Cut out a slice and be sure to cut directly down (not on a slant).

5. Texture the cake layers (not the chocolate or orange layers). This is the worst part of the whole process. I use the tip of my scalpel to do the fluffing, others use a pin.

6. Frost the cake. The frosting is made by combining brown clay with liquid translucent clay. It will take about 10min of stirring/mushing to blend the two together.

Making a cake board. Chocolate frosting (bottom left) and chocolate bars (bottom right)

7. Finish decorating the cake. I made some orange slices from an old cane (tutorial). Make sure to texture each orange slice. I use a pin and make small indents in each segments. This way it catches the light much better after its been glazed and it looks more real. I also made a few chocolate bars for the cake "board".

Miniature food fridge magnets on my fridge right now. 

Making Mini Sushi (octopus and avocado/salmon rolls)

Miniature polymer clay sushi

Okay so I am done with mini pizzas (for now) and I have moved onto a past favorite, mini sushi. I did not do anything too complicated. I made octopus and avocado/salmon rolls. This is the first time I have put "salmon" on top of a sushi roll cane, and I'm really liking how it turned out. Again, these took forever! I worked on them for three nights after work. Hopefully next time its a bit faster, otherwise its going to take me five years to make enough junk for the craft fair.

Okay, so, maying its a bit weird putting orange and lime on a sushi platter, but I ran out of ideas and has some laying around. What is sushi served with anyway?

To make the mini octopus I made a 'suckers' cane with white+translucent in the middle, translucent+ maroon+red middle + maroon+red outer. Then I rolled the cane really really thin. I cut off tiny pieces and stuck two rows on top of a white+translucent log that has a thin layer of maroon+red on top. Then, finally, I use a pin and I push in all of the "suckers" and cut off some sushi sized slices.

Making mini octopus

The sushi rolls were done the usual way (First Sushi Blog), but this time I really fluffed up the rice after I cut thee cane.

salmon roll canes in the making. 

mini sushi

The only think left to do is stick on a few magnets.

Next up is mini cakes. I think Ill make some citrus cake platters and maybe a confetti cake.

Mini Pizza Take Two (Slices)

Miniature polymer clay slices 

Okay, I think I'm back in the mini groove...whoot whoot. Some local hero suggested I make mini slices, and I LOVE the results. Again I was shocked by how long they took. I distributed labour by making a bunch of toppings first (night one), then on the second night I made the dough and sauce and topped the buggers.

Clay toppings and "sauce". On the bottom left we have the tomato sauce, bottom right the cheese. Above we have the peppers, olives, pepperonis and red onion.  

I changed a few things since my last post. I used an old pepperoni cane (its more red) I also changed up how I made the sauce. Now Im mixing red+brown clay in with the translucent liquid clay AND adding some red chalk dust. I left the sauce chunky, but blended the "cheese" well.

Green pepper cane. The cane is made up of a translucent+white inner, translucent + a tiny bit of green middle, and a green outer. After cutting a slice I cut out three holes in the middle, then shapes it into a pepper (cur out the middle and shaped the outside). 

Before and after toppings (pre baked)

After I bake the minis I glaze them. This time I used the Sculpey brand clay glaze and for the toasty cheese bits I used glaze + lots of light brown chalk dust.

Mini clay pepperoni pizza with slice 

Mini clay pizza slices

Making Minis!

I have not made any minis in AGES! But, Elo and I are going to enter a craft fair in November, so I gotsta get back into it.

I decided to make a few pizzas. Wow minis take a long time. I worked on these for three evenings. Im... not super happy with how they turned out. Im loving the crust, but thats about it. I want to change the colour of the pepperonis, the cheese consistency and I need to blend the toasty cheese glaze more.

Mini pizza progress. 

I decided to make a few different sauces (tomato, cream, pesto) and... I dont think Ill make sauces to fill the bottom (see bottom left figure) in the future. Ill just dot sauce on top after I apply the "cheese". The "pesto" in particular changes the colour of the cheese. I even bake the dough+sauce before applying the toppings, but it still seemed to bleed color. 

Artichoke, mushroom, olive, pepperoni, onion 

Hawaiian mini pizza 

Pizza Recipe (mini style)

Miniature pepperoni pizza

Mini Pepperoni Pizza Recipe (New) 
 You will need:

The supplies you need to make a pepperoni pizza

Step 1:  Mix the crust colors together (equal parts white, beige and translucent). Roll out a ball of clay, then flatten it (either with your hands or a roller. Texture the flat patty with a toothbrush and then brush it with chalk.

Step 2: Flip the patty over and roll up the edges. I like when the edges crack a little and expose the lighter colored inside. Fill the bottom of the pizza with "sauce" (liquid translucent clay mixed with red chalk dust). Once the crusts are filled, bake for 5-10 minutes. 

Step 3: Remove the crusts from the oven and let cool. This should only take a moment. Slather some "cheese" onto the pizza. The cheese is liquid translucent clay mixed with white/yellow clay.

Step 4: Decorate your pizza. This is the best part. The easiest toppings are olives and pepperonis. Making a pepperoni cane is easy and you can see how to do it HERE. 

After you have the toppings in place, dollop on some more "cheese" and "sauce" so that it does not look like the toppings are floating on top. Bake the pizzas for about 10 more minutes.

Step 5: glaze the pizzas. First a coat of clear glaze. Once that dries dollop on some colored glaze to create a toasty cheese look. The brown glaze is made by mixing clear glaze with light brown chalk dust.  Make sure you do not glaze the crust.

finally super glue on some magnets if you would like your pizzas to take up residence on your fridge.

miniature pizza

miniature pizzas

I am very happy with my pizza progress. I think my sauce needs a little work though.

Miniature Pizza (Attempt #3)

Miniature pepper, olive and mushroom pizza

This is my third attempt at mini pizzas. I think next batch I'll do another tutorial. I have changed my methods quite a bit since my first tutorial and I have a lot of ideas on how to improve too.

Miniature pepperoni pizza

I still need to work on making it look toasty. I also need to think about how veggies look once they have been baked. Ill make some new cakes for this .

Miniature Pizza out of Polymer Clay

 Below is my first attempt at pizza and my latest attempt.

Hawaiian pizza progress

Some Second Attempts

Recently I have remade some projects for a second time. This includes the pizza, brisket and sushi.


Brisket
The meat color is tricky. See my previous attempt for more details. What I changed was:

• I added a little bit of translucent to the meat dough. I just chopped it in, not blended. 
• With red chalk I added more to the smoke ring.
• I added some brown chalk caramelized areas to the flesh. 
• Darker crust (black chalk) and tried to make the edges of the slices sloppier. (with a tooth pick)

Brisket Magnet

Miniature Brisket

Miniature meat board with cornbread

 Pizza
 Here is my first attempt at pizza.  What I have changed is the sauce and cheese.

• Now I make the crust then fill the entire base with tomato sauce. Making sure to spill some on the crust. Bake for 5-10min.
• Then slop on some liquid cheese (liquid translucent, white and a little yellow). Also drape some cheese strings over the crust. You can brush chalk on these pieces to make them look toasted.  Finally add the toppings and any chalk detailing. 

Bad crust but good cheese and sauce details

I forgot to texture the crust with a toothbrush. It made a HUGE difference. It looks a lot less real.

Good crust (textured with a toothbrush), not great cheese

Sushi
I have blogged about sushi a few times. The newest thing I have changed was the:

• little seaweed wraps on the pieces of sushi.
• More garnish. A slide of lime or orange and some wasabi (I used wasabi colored clay with a little translucent mixed in. 

Some miniature polymer clay sushi