Cheshire Cat Tails (copy cat)

 

Cheshire Cat Tails

Found at the Cheshire Café and the Lunching Pad and Cosmic Ray's Startlight Café

Written by: Christine | July 5, 2022

Have coffee, tea, or milk on hand!!! My 3-year-old LOVES the new Disney+ show Alice’s Wonderland Bakery so these were the ultimate treat to enjoy together over an episode. Little hands will love to help with this one, between the rolling and dying the icing. Make a day of it with a tea party and movie!

INGREDIENTS:

·  2 sheets of puffed pastry dough

·  1 cup of chocolate chips chopped

·  1/3 cup of pastry cream

·  1 1/4 cup of milk

·  1 ½ tsp of vanilla extract

·  1 egg

·  1 egg yolk

·  2/3 cup of granulated sugar

·  2 tbsp of corn starch

·  1 cup of powdered sugar

·  1/4 - 1/3 cup Milk

·  Food coloring (either pink and purple or red and blue to create the pinky purples)

·  Egg wash

In addition to baking pans, bowls, measuring spoons etc. some special equipment that will help is an offset spatula and a pastry brush.

INSTRUCTIONS:

For the Pastry Cream

·  Heat your milk without scalding.

·  While the milk is warming, whisk your sugar, egg and yolk in a medium bowl. Then add the cornstarch until the mixture is well combined and the color has lightened.

·  Slowly add a few tablespoons at a time of your hot milk slowly while whisking constantly until all the milk has been added.

·  Pour mixture back into the pot. Keep the heat medium/low. Stir, you do not want this to boil but thicken. It will go from very thin to thick quickly, keep your eye on it! Once it looks like pudding, turn off heat and add in the vanilla.

·  Pour into a heat safe bowl, store to cool with plastic wrap directly on the top to prevent a skin from forming.

Assembling the Cat tail

·      While the cream is chilling roll out the puffed pastry to roughly 10 x 12. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Line two sheet pans with parchment paper.

·       Mix your powdered sugar with a little milk at a time until the desire consistency is reached (runny but not translucent and watery).  Separate the icing into two bowls and use coloring to get the signature pinky purple colors.

·       Once your cream is cooled, use an offset spatula to spread a very thin layer on top half of your dough (set your dough to have the shorter sides on the top and bottom).  Sprinkle your chopped chocolate on the top half of the dough. Fold the bottom half of the dough up to the top half so the shorter sides are touching.

 Cut (a pizza cuter is best here) 5 strips from each dough rectangle.   Lifting from the top and bottom of the slice, pick up the tail and twist once or twice and place on the sheet pan. (Complete with the rest of the slices).  Brush the twists with egg wash (1 egg, 1 tsp. water mixed up with a fork).

      Bake for 18-20 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan, remove to a rack and cool for 5 more minutes. Use a fork or spatula to drizzle the colored icing in a back-and-forth motion.

Enjoy!