Sugar Swings! Serve Some: November 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

peppermint rice krispie treats....!

peppermint krispie treats

...so i think i'm on a rice krispie treat kick....i didn't realize how simple they are to make....!...i made cinnamon ones here for the kids thanksgiving day feast at school....and also made them for thanksgiving day but didn't even bother with a post for them...

.....and i found these at the food store the other day....


....jumbo peppermint mallows!.....so of course picked them up to figure out something to make with them...since my kiddos love mint stuff....

...if you've never made rice krispie treats...they are so so so simple....you need a 10 ounce package of marshmallows (that's the normal size--since this bag is bigger i just guestimated)...3 tablespoons of butter....melt butter and marshmallows....then add 6 cups of rice krispies to the mixture...and mix well.....add to a pan (press it down firmly---spray wax paper or parchment to press down---or just spray your hands with non-stick spray and that works great too!).....


....when cool....slice them up into squares....or whatever  shape you like.....


...added a little snowflake to fancy them up....made with some royal icing i made for another project....and a shiny pearl non-pareil....

peppermint rice krispie treats

...and you get some really super quick and simple rice krispie treats to start off the holiday season....!

peppermint rice krispie treats

...i really like the pinky red color they came out....and since i did start a little holiday shopping already....it's starting to feel like that time of year....well kinda anyway...!...thanks for stopping by and have a great week...(the kids finally have a full week of school...!)

...also sharing at these fun blog hops! stop by too!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

cinnamon rice krispie treats.....!

cinnamon rice krispie treats

.....so how about some layered ones for thanksgiving.....?...and on a side note....wow thanksgiving is this week...wasn't it just summer a couple of weeks ago?...time definitely moves at warp speed all the time now....

thanksgiving rice krispie treats

....and yeah yeah yeah.....i know i tried turkeys again after saying no more....but these are "abstract" turkeys and if you don't think it looks like a turkey....'cause i can see how you might not get that....just pretend they are decorated with fall colors or something....!


....start with a recipe for rice krispie treats....and make 2 batches (but make one batch at a time)....add about 1 tablespoon of cinnamon sugar to the butter/marshmallow mixture in each batch...also tint one of the butter/marshmallow mixtures orange (or whatever color you like).....then layer one in the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan (coat with non-stick spray)....press firmly down with wax paper (which btw sticks more than i thought it should...so you may want to spray with cooking spray too or maybe parchment would be better?).....

rct

.....then add the other tinted batch of treats and press firmly down....and let set for awhile (or put in fridge).....and cut into squares....i found using a metal spatula worked the best for this.....

rice krispie treats

....attach "turkey" accents with some melted candy wafers/melts....tail feathers are candy coated sunflower seeds (love these things...used them here and here too!).....body is a milk chocolate morsel...and the gobbler is just some red candy melt...

thanksgiving rice krispie treats


.....and you get some layered rice krispie treats dressed up fancy for turkey day....and just in time for the kiddo's thanksgiving day feast party today....!....i hope they went over well....you never know with kids....but i love it because they are just brutally honest....."yuck they are the worst thing i've ever eaten in my whole life" kinda honest....!...but i like that...much better than the "honest" that some grown ups dish out like...."wow great outfit...by the way have you ever thought about wearing some earrings that match or a belt that coordinates..."...or "your son is so adorable...you could totally be his nanny..."....what the what is that about?....not that any of these conversations have happened....all theoretical but i'll take the straight up honesty of a 5 year old any day....!

thanksgiving rice krispie treats

....thanks so much for stopping by...and if you celebrate....have a GREAT thanksgiving this thursday....! ...i am thankful for a lot of things....my kiddos and family....the hubby who doesn't get crazy when old college guy friends reach out to say what's up....my greta's donor family....the list could go on.....but i'm also thankful for everyone here that stops by to read about my next adventure in sugar and oddball ramblings here and there....!..so thank you to you too!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

turkey day marshmallow pops.....!

thanksgiving day turkey pops


....so i told myself i would not do turkeys this season.....well...because i have a thing about turkeys....i don't think they're cute at all....maybe tasty but definitely not cute.....i tried last year here.....but i've found it's a very fine line between cute and very creepy turkey.....and the scale tends to tip much more on creepy end to me....but maybe that's just me....!

....anyhoo....i caved and tried again.....i like these better than last years attempt.....but mainly because they were simple and i was able to use some stuff i already had at home.....like these ghost marshmallows that were on sale after halloween for like 30 cents..!....these days you can't beat a bargain.....



....then add a beak with some candy coated sunflower seeds (used them on last year's turkeys as well) attached with some melted chocolate...eyes and legs are made with colored food writers....and then use some melted chocolate or candy melt to attach more candy coated sunflower seeds as "feathers"....

marshmallow turkey


.....attach a red sprinkle as a "gobbler" or whatever that thing is called....add a stick....and tada.....you've got some semi cute thanksgiving turkey day pops....or maybe not cute---i think it's the beady eyes.....

turkey day marshmallow pops

....or you can use them as cupcake toppers too...!

turkey cupcake

....still not totally sure if i've found the cutest turkey treat yet....pinterest has a couple like these cookies or maybe these....but i'm even on the edge with those!...leave me a link if you've created or found THE cutest turkey treaty treat ever!

Linking up to these fun parties...stop by and share the love....!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

kid art sugar cookies....!

kid art cookies

....so i don't do a ton of decorated cookies...well because i'm not really all that good at them.....but i love love love these....

....because they're not really done by me....it's my kiddos' recent artwork....!....you know all those pics that you keep because it's really cool and you don't have the heart to toss it.....so you keep piles and piles of drawings and other artwork that they do...and the stacks then seem take up your entire spare room after awhile.....

kid artwork

....well as an alternative.....decided to create some edible pieces of their recent drawings....and since i'm blogging about it....it keeps it forever (the internet is forever, right?).....these are made from candy melt....just add whatever colors you need to a zip lock baggie....snip a small part of one of the ends and trace the art over a some parchment paper (wax paper works as well)......if you need to layer colors....just wait til the first layer dries before adding color on top.....you can find more detailed directions here....(i do this all the time!)

kid artwork in candy

....and let dry.....

kid artwork in candy

....then add on top of some iced sugar cookies (i did this the easy way and used a boxed sugar cookie mix --use the rolled cookie directions.....roll out dough and cut cookies large enough to fit the artwork.....)....frost with your fav sugar cookie icing....then add the candy melt image on top before totally dry.....

...these are my 7 year old's ninjas.....!

ninja cookies

.....and because he thinks his big bro is the bomb.....these are my 4 year old's ninjas.....!

kid art cookies

....and my other 4 year old's impressionist art....!

kid artwork cookies

....AND we recently had our 16th....yes 16th anniversary....AND this is the card we got....!....so very cool...


...so i had to make it as a topper for our anniversary cake.....(a tiramisu layer cake which was pretty awesome....!)

kid art cake

....yum.....!

tiramisu layer cake

....and you get some really really really...really cool sugar cookies topped with your kiddos favorite artwork....

kid art sugar cookies

.....btw---these were definitely a huge hit with the kids.....!...and so fun...!....as always, thanks for stopping by and have a great rest of the week....!


Sharing at these fun blog hops! Please go stop by!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

a star wars party......!

star wars cupcake tower

....so my oldest turned 7 this summer and i'm finally gettin' around to posting all the fun we had at his star wars party....all the details on the star wars character cupcake tower and death star cake are here......

...but we also had a bunch of other star wars treats for the kiddos.....(thanks to justjenn for some great ideas!).....



....gatorade aka jabba juice....and bantha blue milk (milk with a couple drops of blue food coloring....unfortunately i think only a few select adults got this obscure reference but it's one of my favs!).....


....rice crackers made into vader's death stars with some edible food writers....store bought chocolate chip wookie cookies....and cheddar cheese rice crackers aka ewok munch.....


....store bought mint meringues aka cloud city meringues....



 ....and han solo in orange "jello-nite".....which is just a pic of han solo printed and cut out, covered in scotch tape then inserted into the jello before it was totally jelled....(big hit with the kids!)


....oh and also i did a little comparison for ya....i have 3 kinds of edible food writers.....americolor, wilton foodwriter, magic colors....in the pic above you can see how they did on the rice crackers....although i the wilton candy melts....i have to say their foodwriter is the worst and they don't do well when writing on candy melt when i've tried them for other projects....the magic colours gives a finer detail and point but it's not as dark as i'd like it to be....americolor is my fav....it gives a thicker line....and it's much darker than the others and lasts longer before having to give the writer a "rest"....and they work really well on candy melt too....i used them here for all the detail on the peep trooper pops.....

....can't resist sharing some pics of the kiddos in their star wars garb....we even made light sabers made from pool noodles...fun!


.....and a death star piñata (btw making a piñata sounds much easier than it actually is!...)


....and we were able to re-use the costumes for this halloween....!


....happy thursday to all....hope everyone in the nj/ny/ct area are doing ok post october storm....this was a pretty bad one..much worse than hurricane irene...lots of downed power lines, massive tree damage and huge limbs down (there were way too many leaves still on the trees and the weight of the wet heavy snow was too much and lots of limbs came down all over the area causing lots of damage and power outages)...the kiddos have been out of school all week and used up all their snow days already.....i guess it could be worse and luckily we have power and no damage to the house....some are not as lucky around here....anyhoo...be thankful for what you have as we enter november...!