Making a Shawn the Sheep coaster set

Dianna and I made this for a good friend this past Christmas.  It was simple and the result was quite good!  We were inspired by this great coaster set designed by Aleksandra Michałowska.  We made this one out of wire and super sculpey to give the appearance of it being a clay animated stop motion puppet.

The wire mesh is very flexible and can bend into almost any shape.  I decided to use it to cut down on the amount of super sculpey being used.

The legs are attached to the body with straightened paper clips which also has the added benefit of adding some rigidity to the legs.

Here he is ready for baking.  Shawn is baked in a low oven which hardens the super sculpey.

He then gets a little sanding and a few coats of primer and paint.  Painting was pretty straight forward.  Only needed 2 colors... black and white.

The coasters are cut out of felt with an exacto. The felt was pretty thin so we glued layers of felt together until we got to a thickness we liked. Notice the slot that was cut from the hole in the middle to the edge.  This is how the coasters can go on and off the sheep's body.

Once the coasters were completed they went on.  Here is a side profile.

Et voilà!

Pistachio Gelato

I made the pistachio gelato by Modernist Cuisine.

Here are the ingredients:

There's no milk or eggs in this recipe! Nothing to get in the way of full-on pistachio flavor.

I start by adding the lambda carrageenan and  the locust bean gum to water. Locust bean gum and lambda carrageenan are what's know as hydrocolloids.  They will thicken the gelato without having to add eggs, and no, locust bean gum is not made from locusts.

Once the water is thickened, I added it to a bowl. and then everything else went in.

And then it was time to blend.

The whole mixture is cooled over ice.

Starting to look good already!  Once the mixture has cooled down, it needs to fully chill in the fridge.

And then when it's gelato o' clock... we churn!

Just might be the best pistachio gelato ever.

Related links and posts:

• The original Modernist Cuisine recipe can be found here
• ChefSteps has a snazzy looking video here
• David Lebovitz has a great looking version of pistachio Gelato, made using a more traditional method here
• Go get some of the Fiddyment Farms Pistachio Paste here
• You can read more about the "Trio of Oils" from Trader Joe's here
• Wondering where you can find the thickeners from this recipe? Get 'em here and here

Twins Slacklining 8/16/15

Here's a timelapse video of Heather teaching Dianna how to walk the slackline. She's still a ways away from crossing the Grand Canyon this way.