Tiramatzah is a tasty and seasonal variation on a classic dessert: tiramisu made with many layers of matzah bread. Because it’s made with many thin layers of matzah instead of just a couple of layers of ladyfingers, it develops a very interesting flaky and layered texture, much like the alternating custard and pastry layers of a Napoleon. Even so, it retains the distinctive flavor of tiramisu and is a darned sight easier to make than traditional pastries.
Marshmallow Peeps have an amazing cult following, and it’s no wonder why: they are cute, abstract, colorful, ubiquitous, and sugary. While it sometimes seems that the entire human race is firmly in favor of performing cruel experiments on them, there is a little less consensus on whether or not one should actually eat them. Both sides of the aisle have their merits, of course, and more often than not the debate is merely over whether fresh or stale peeps are tastier. All debating aside, here’s a gourmet option for fans of Peeps that prefer to stuff their gizzards with something other than mass-produced marshmallows: Saffron Meringue Chicks!
Continue reading Saffron Meringue Chicks
Kits for Japanese boxes like these are often given in Japan as gifts to foreign vistors. Here in the states, you can sometimes find the kits in stationery stores starting at about $6, for example here and here.
Alternately, you can make one yourself– no kit required. You can use paper, paperboard and tissue you probably already have on hand to make a box that will be the shape you want, not one of the three or four readily available designs. These instructions will take you through the steps of making a business card display box, but the techniques are general and can be used for any shape that you like.
Continue reading How to Make Japanese Papercraft Boxes
Take a shapeless t-shirt, sew four seams and end up with a fitted top.
Free t-shirts are almost never girl shaped. Here is one technique for making your freebie wearable. Darts in the front and back contour the shirt to fit your curves.
Continue reading Mod your shirt: a fitted t-shirt in four seams
Did you enjoy making sugar cube sculptures as a kid? Boy have we got a project for you.
Besides the projects that we post here each week, we’ve been working on some larger scale projects in the past year. One of these is almost done, and we’re ready to give you a sneak preview: It’s a home-built, DIY, CNC, 3D printer, that uses granulated sugar as the printing medium. This is still a work in progress, but we’re making rapid progress and we hope to show off the completed printer at the Bay Area Maker Faire in May.
(Update added 5/9/2007: we’ve got it working now.)
The printable volume is 24 x 13.5 x 9 inches, with programmed resolution of 1000 steps per axis. We expect effective pixel size to be in the range of 2-5 mm. In other words, it makes fairly large, but fairly low resolution, models out of sugar. Think of it as a way to make giant and amazing sugar cube sculptures!
Continue reading Sneak preview: The Evil Mad Scientist 3D Printer Project
We’re infiltrating Chicago! More accurately, we’re sending a few of our projects there for a little while. In the box are: the RC Sweeper, Shuffle Headphones, a holiday LED ornament and menorah, and ornament and menorah kits.
They are heading to an exhibit on DIY called “Pass It On! Connecting Contemporary Do-It-Yourself Culture” at the A+D gallery, which is affiliated with the Department of Art and Design at Columbia College Chicago.
This exhibit is unique in that all of the items on display will have accompanying instructions for viewers to take home. There will be some incredibly creative folks participating in the exhibit, so if you’re going to be in Chicago this spring (March 1 to April 14) be sure to check it out.
Thanks to the A+D folks for inviting us!
Make a trebuchet (mostly) out of lego, capable of launching small objects like acorns or minature marshmallows over thirty feet. It’s a geeky ABS cousin to the PVC Marshmallow shooter, and you can build one yourself.
Continue reading Build a Lego Trebuchet
What’s fun, cheap, good looking, and cleans a hardwood floor with an advanced search and navigation algorithm?
An electrostatic dust mop attached to a radio-controlled car. Vroom!
This combination has some things in common with a Roomba, but is arguably less expensive. It’s quick and fun to build, and quick and fun to operate.
Continue reading Turn an RC car into a floor sweeper!
Every year we make cranberry orange star biscuits for Thanksgiving. We occasionally make them when it’s not Thanksgiving. But we always make them star-shaped. It is truly the best shape for a biscuit, providing six perfect bites.
Continue reading Play with your food: Spangled Star Biscuits
Turn off that television in classic style!
Here we show you how to hack a TV-B-Gone into the case of a vintage television remote control, such that the original on/off button instead activates the TV-B-Gone. We also modify the power supply so that it runs off of a regular 9 V battery, instead of a set of lithium coin cells.
Continue reading Vintage Remote TV-B-Gone Case Mod
