Sugar Swings! Serve Some: June 2013

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University Pretzel Snacks!


So I know I know -  I'm totally mixing up the movie characters (not to mention probably really annoying Universal Studios and Disney!).  But both Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University are out (or coming out) and my kiddos loved the first ones so much.  They are seeing Monsters U this weekend so I decided to make them some treats for the movies.  They also happen to love sweet and salty pretzel snacks (at least for now - I tend to overdue it once I find something they like (think cupcakes) and they'll probably be sick of them soon enough).

These came out pretty cute though.  I mean who doesn't love the Minions from Despicable Me?!!


And of course Mike Wazowski too!


And his partner in crime James P. Sullivan aka "Sulley" (he looks a little more blue bull then monster -apparently I can only do so much to make candy melt look like fur!)


All made with square pretzels and candy melt in different colors.  Relatively simple, but melting the candy in zip lock bags and then adding the details does take some time.  These probably took me about 3 hours total (including the time waiting for candy melt to harden).


Totally worth the time spent!


Put 'em all together and you get some Despicable Monsters!  (if that movie comes out I want royalties!)


I am in no way getting compensated by anyone for this post.  All for the love of the movies (and to see the smiles on my kiddo's faces).  Have an awesome weekend!!!

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Ice Cream Topped Angel Food Cupcakes - Cupcake Couture Blog Party "Sprinkles Will Fly"



So another Cupcake Couture Blog Party! I can't get enough of them.  Betsy from Java Cupcake and Carrie from Bella Cupcake Couture are hosting again BUT this one is a patriotic cupcake theme! That means a whole lotta Red, White, and Blue.  You just cannot not smile when you see those colors together! And I can't wait to see what everyone whips up for the upcoming 4th of July holiday.


It really is a must to have red, white, and blue for the 4th and I love coming up with these colors without using any food gels/dyes.  This red (ok pink!) and blue (yeah ok purpley-blue) are from fresh berries only.


And my cupcake wrappers were these fun stars and stripes in red, white and blue!


I wanted something a little different cupcake wise, so went with angel food cake cupcakes (from a boxed mix to speed up the process). They baked up great!  It's basically like you are eating air, so you can eat like 1 or 2 or 12 without the guilt (ok pretend that is true).


And yay for berry season!  I made some blueberry and strawberry sauce by cooking about 2-3 cups of berries with about 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2-3 teaspoons of water.  Cook until the berries breakdown and make a nice thick sauce.

blueberry sauce - yum
strawberry sauce - double yum
Nothing goes better with angel food cake then ice cream.  So in place of frosting, these cupcakes have a scoop of red, white, or blue ice cream on top!


The white is plain vanilla ice cream, the "red" is vanilla mixed with a little of the strawberry sauce, and the "blue" is vanilla mixed with the blueberry sauce.  I added about 1 tablespoon of the sauce to about 2 cups of vanilla ice cream.  Definitely let chill, preferably overnite (you can see my strawberry ice cream was not as firm and that was about only 2 hours after I mixed it up.


You can top with a jelly bean "cherry" or sprinkles or whatever other toppers you like! And you can make these ahead of time and freeze the entire cupcake.  That seemed to work well since I needed these for a birthday party.

And the flavors of fresh berries, ice cream and angel food cake together--to quote a famous facebooker, Oh. My. (10 points if you get that reference).   You can also just dump some of the sauce over the entire cupcake to really kick it up several hundred notches.  Heat the sauce up a little before pouring it over.  I seriously could have eaten all of these on my own they were that good!  


I had a lot of fun with these "cupcakes" for the par-tay AND if you want to see some other cool patriotic themed cuppies, please stop by and say hello to these other fun bloggers playing along!


AND there is a GIVEAWAY!!

              

Thanks to our amazing Prize Pack sponsors for their generous donations!  Please, visit their websites to see more of their fabulous products! 


To enter to WIN this Prize Pack, simply fill out the entry form below.  

Contest opens 25June13 at 0700 PST and closes 1Jul13 at 2359 PST.  One winner will be chosen and announced within 48 hours of the contest ending. Winner will be contacted via email by betsy@javacupcake.com and will have 48 hours to claim their prize.  If they do not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen.

This contest is open to residents worldwide. (WOOHOO! and GOOD LUCK!!)


And again, thanks so much to Carrie and Betsy for hosting and pulling all of this together (again!).  I really had had a blast with this one! 

Friday, June 21, 2013

Game of Thrones Cupcakes (Cupcakes are Coming!)


So if you are like me, you're all bummed out that Season 3 of Game of Thrones is over! If you are not familiar with it, GoT is the HBO series about kings and knights with blood and gore, an ongoing fight for the Iron Throne, a gagillion characters, a boobie thrown in here and there, and some sci fi tossed in to mix it up. But it's over until next season.  Seven Hells.

The hubby started listening to the books on tape last year, and got me hooked on it too - and then we started watching the series - and we're both totally invested now!  These cupcakes were actually made to celebrate Father's Day.  Over the past couple years I've done movie themed cupcakes for him for the big day.  One year it was The Big Lebowski cupcakes and another it was Fast Times at Ridgemont High cupcakes. This year he got GoT!  


Hopefully if you read the books or follow the show you'll recognize some of these!

Jon Snow's dire wolf, Ghost, and the 3-Eyed Crow:

You know nothin Jon Snow
The Game of Thrones crown with Valar Morghulis (All Men Must Die) and Daenerys' dragon eggs in a golden box:

Dracarys!
My tribute to the Red Wedding, a heart for the bride and groom (Roslin Frey and Edmure Tully) shot with a bloody arrow! I don't want to give you any spoilers in case you haven't seen it, but The Rains of Castamere aka the Red Wedding was a CRAZY episode.  Watch real time reactions to it here!  

Also some Golden Dragon coins and an ode to the Lannisters

The Lannisters send their regards
Oh and you can see my attempt at a White Walker with it's blue eyes below too.  Blue eyes are blue rock candy.


The coins are chocolate coins with a 3 headed dragon design added with extra melted chocolate then sprayed with gold color mist (kinda like edible spray paint!).  The color mist works great!


The crown is made with yellow candy melt, then also spray painted gold with the color mist.  The wolf is made using this tutorial from Annie's Eats (original in the Hello, Cupcake! book).  They are much easier to make than they look and the kids totally loved this one! The eggs are candy rocks that I picked up at a candy shop awhile back with some detail added with an edible writer.  The box they are sitting on is made from a Hershey's candy bar "glued" together with more melted chocolate, then sprayed gold too.  Everything else is made with candy melt or frosting.

And of course you need some Milk of the Poppy to ease the pain of no more Game of Thrones 'til next season! Sunday nights just won't be the same.  (Ok this just some milk with some black sesame seeds thrown in - didn't have any poppy seeds- but i'm going with it!)


And what better way to break your fast this weekend then with some GoT cupcakes and some milk of the poppy to wash it down? The cupcakes are actually made with wine (think Arbor Red).  I totally didn't get any pics of them, but in general I used a boxed white cake and substituted red wine for the liquid in the ingredients.  It's a perfect flavor for these since everyone is always drinkin' a flagon of mead, ale, or sweet wine on the show.  


So Valar Dohaeris until Season 4 (probably not until next Spring!).  Next season will have more surprises as well *curse you George RR Martin!!* If there's anything this series has taught me is not to get too attached to any one character.  Will let the meme say the rest!


Anyways, hope you like them and if you don't watch GoT, go start! You have plenty of time to catch up! Now off to drown my sorrows of no more episodes in some lemon cakes and lots of Arbor Gold.

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Watermelon Pudding Cups


So since it's officially summertime I figured a watermelon flavored sweet was definitely needed! I've been on a search for watermelon flavored jell-o for ages and can never ever find it in stores.  When I saw both watermelon and melon flavored jell-o recently in my local food store I knew it was a sign.


Although I would have rather tried making the pudding from real watermelon, my past experience with cooking this fruit made me realize that its flavor is usually best fresh so all the watermelony flavor comes though.  (Here is a recipe for watermelon pudding from real watermelon in case you are interested!)  But since this pudding is essentially from a box, it's also really simple to put together.


To make this you need:
  • 1 Box of vanilla pudding
  • 1 Box of watermelon jell-o
  • 1 Box of melon jell-o
  • Cool Whip
  • Black sesame seeds
  1. Make 1 box of instant vanilla pudding as per the directions on the box
  2. Separate vanilla pudding into 2 small bowls
  3. Add 2 tablespoons of the melon flavored jell-o powder to one bowl and 2 tablespoons watermelon jell-o powder to the other.  Mix up well.  I also added a tiny bit of pink and green food gel, just to add a little more color.
  4. Mix in some black sesame seeds into the watermelon pudding (to look like watermelon seeds - totally optional!)
  5. Add the melon pudding to the bottom of a dish/cup
  6. Add a layer of cool whip (if you like cool whip!)
  7. Add a a layer of the watermelon pudding
  8. Chill


Then eat! 


It was really tasty! But not a subtle melon flavor.  I actually liked the watermelon (pink) pudding better than the green melon pudding, but all together and with the Cool Whip the whole thing was nice and refreshing.


Alternatively you could just use vanilla pudding and tint with food colorings/gels if you don't want the melon flavor but still want the watermelon look.


I must have a thing for watermelon as it seems this is a recurring theme for me.  See the other treats below!


Watermelon Pudding (this post)
Watermelon Cupcakes (wow what an old post!)

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you enjoy the pudding and have a great weekend!!  Working on a special father's day treat!



Thursday, June 6, 2013

Mini faux ice cream cones


So it's June!! I figured it needed some ice cream cones to celebrate the summertime season.  (It may not be officially summer yet, but we're close enough!)


OK, it's not real ice cream but marshmallows--fruity marshmallows in lime, strawberry, orange and lemon flavors (I kinda have a thing for all the variety of marshmallows out there these days).


I've actually done these before but with homemade swirled marshmallow here, but this version really takes no time to throw together.

I found the mini cones in my regular supermarket!
All you need is mini ice cream cones and store bought marshmallows.  Just squeeze the bottom of the marshmallow into the cone--it's a pretty good fit but I did add a little melted chocolate to the bottom of the marshmallow to make sure it didn't come out).



Then dip in some melted chocolate and top with your favorite sprinkles or candies.


And let chocolate harden, that's it!


And although I love the taste of homemade marshmallows (which actually are pretty quick to whip up), I also definitely like the store bought ones too.  These literally took me less than 1/2 hour to put together.


The kiddos liked these too, I mean who doesn't like ice cream cone stuff? It just makes you smile.


Have a great rest of the week and enjoy the June summertime weather!

Sharing here, pop over and check out all the fun stuff!

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It