Candy Dipped Marshmallow Bunnies for Easter

Although we just got about 2 feet of snow dumped on us from all the Nor'easters the past couple of weeks it actually feels like Spring is around the corner as we have had some bright and sunny days lately.  

Plus with daylight savings back in effect, it's staying light longer which is always nice.  I hate leaving for work when it's still dark outside and getting home when it's already dark!  

Making some cute bunnies have been on the "to do" list and since we were snowed in one of the weekends it seemed like a good time to do some marshmallow dipping!

Anything in many or rainbow colors gets me every time, like these fruit flavored marshmallows I found in my local food store.

I have melting candy wafers in almost every color so I melted up a bunch and got to dipping!

Bunny ears where made ahead of time by adding some of the melted candy to a zip lock bag, snipping an end and pipping "ears" onto parchment.  Once they are hardened (only takes about 5-10 minutes) you can pick them up and add to the top of each dipped marshmallow.  Do this while the candy is still wet.  After a minute or so the ears should stand up on their own.

Use white vanilla melted candy (or white chocolate) to add to the top of each bunny around the ears.  Before it hardens add your favorite sprinkles - I used rainbow sugar sprinkles.

And because I love those popular unicorn cakes - I did similar faces for these bunnies! I just dipped a paint brush (I only use for food) into some black food gel and paint the closed eyes with lashes.  You could use an edible food writer but I find they don't work as well on candy melt coated stuff.

I was going to use cute mini heart sprinkles as bunny noses but alas did not have any so went with pastel colored non-pareil sprinkles for a button nose.  These are cuter than the heart sprinkles!

Paint on some more melted candy for the ear detail.

And don't forget the cotton tail! (more melted white candy)

Oh and check it out if you add them to cupcakes they look like little bunny ballerinas!

Cutie McCuterson!

I love when you bite inside you see the pastel color marshmallow too! 

These little bunnies are perfect Easter baskets or to welcome Spring back! 

What's on your Spring to do list??

Edible Moss Covered Cake Bites with Mini Bunnies

Spring is finally here! In the Northeast we finally have temperatures in the 70s (today 80!) with nothing but sun in the 7 day forecast.  Yay!! The warm weather feels awesome.

I needed another spring treat and I've had this idea for cake bites rolled in edible moss on my to do list since last year.  

These came together pretty quickly because I started with some whoopie pies as the cake bite mixture.  They have the perfect amount of cake to icing ratio for cake bites too.  Crush them up, roll them into balls, dip them in melted chocolate, sprinkle with "moss" and make them more woodsy with a little bunny on top. 

I love these tiny chocolate bunnies!

The edible moss is only crushed graham crackers with a little green food gel added.

Add the miniature bunny after you sprinkle with moss but before the chocolate hardens.

Not only are they super cute for Spring or Easter (if you celebrate) but they are pretty yummy too.

I keep trying to talk my kiddos into a woodland themed birthday party - unfortunately they are not really into it.  Such a bummer because I totally am and these would be perfect little additions to a woodland themed party table.  My twins do turn 10 this month (10!!!) so I do have a couple of cakes to make.  Follow along with the birthday prep on my Instagram #maxandgretaturn10 - I'll be sharing the cakes and other prep this month!

Spring Cake Bites with Edible Moss and Mini Bunnies

by Michelle Clausen April 11 - 2017

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/2 cups of edible moss (crushed graham crackers tinted with 2-3 drops of green food gel)
• 4 large chocolate whoopie pies (or 6 cupcakes plus 1/2 cup of vanilla frosting)
• 1 and 1/2 cups of chocolate chips
• Bag of Russell Stover Chocolate Mini Bunnies (see link below)

Instructions

1. Crush whoopie pies until crumbly and frosting is mixed in well.  Roll into balls and refrigerate 10 minutes.
2. Melt chips in microwave safe bowl in 20 second intervals until melted.
3. Dip cake bites in chocolate tapping off excess.
4. Sprinkle with edible moss until there is a coating all over bite.
5. Top immediately with a mini bunny.
6. Let harden 15 minutes.

Prep time: 35 minutes Yield: about 18-20 cake bites

You may also like these treats with edible moss!

Terrarium Pudding Cups

Woodland Gnome Cupcakes

Mermaid Cupcakes & PEEPS Cookbook Giveaway

Do you guys love mermaids as much as I do? They rate very high up there like unicorns and rainbows for me. There's just something about those pretty and colorful tails.  

And since it's PEEPS season, how about making some mermaid bunny PEEPS??

PEEPS come in so many flavors these days so when I saw these orange creme flavored bunnies this year I didn't know what I would make with them BUT I knew they would come in handy. 

Green apple fruit strips worked out great for the tails.

Add some cute flowers detail and a little heart shaped sprinkle for the mouth.  The scales are made with light green candy wafers.

Or just make a bunch of mermaid tails and use them as cupcake toppers.  

OR make both!

My love of Marshmallow PEEPS is pretty obvious right? Well I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute to a new Peeps-a-licious Cookbook! 3 of my recipes are featured in the new cookbook for PEEPS lovers.  I'm so excited to be included in this fun recipe book!  The mermaids are not in the book (how to listed below) but there are some other really fun PEEPS treats.   Here's a sneak peak of the Harry Potter PEEPS Pops that are in the book!

And the super fun PEEPS AND COMPANY and Quarto Books are letting me give a couple of the cookbook out to some of my readers.  YAY!  

Enter to win below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How to PEEPS Bunny Mermaids

Makes 10 mermaids

Total time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 package of PEEPS bunnies (this used orange creme flavored)
• Green apple fruit strips
• 1/2 cup light green, blue melting, and dark green candy wafers
• 1/8 cup of green and pink melting candy wafers
• 10 mini pretzels (as base)
• Assorted sprinkles (mini red hearts for mouth, round for center of flowers)

Directions:

1. Cut out piece of fruit strip to wrap around bunny body and long enough to make tail.  Wrap strip to get the right mermaid tail look.
2. If making the tails (without bunny), 
3. Melt dark green candy in quart size freezer bag in 10 second intervals until just melted.  Snip an end of the corner and pipe tail shape onto parchment paper.  Let harden 15 minutes (or in refrigerator for 5 minutes).
4. Melt light green candy in quart size freezer bag in 10 second intervals until just melted.  Snip an end of the corner and pipe scales onto body and tails.
5. Melt yellow and pink candy in separate quart size freezer bag in 10 second intervals until just melted.  Snip an end of the corner and pipe flower shape.  While still wet add a sprinkle to center.  Let harden 15 minutes.  
6. Use some of the melted candy and attach flower to bunny as hair decoration and attach sprinkle heart as the mouth.
7. Melt blue candy in quart size freezer bag in 10 second intervals until just melted.  Snip an end of the corner and pipe small mound onto pretzel.  Attach a bunny to each (allows bunny to stand up). Let harden 15 minutes.
8. Add as cupcake toppers and/or insert tails into cupcakes.

Coconut Covered Cake Bite Bunnies

Well it's finally Spring! I love Winter and all but since it seemed like one long snowstorm on the East Coast, it's nice to finally say goodbye to it - I mean hopefully we're done with snow, but you can never say never, especially after the season we just had.  Actually we still have small mounds of snow in the yard!

And although I've yet to notice any spring flowers pushing up, I have seen one or 2 rabbits and some robins hopping around which I'm taking as a sign of warmer weather coming.

The rabbits really inspired this treat.  Cake bite bunnies (I'm still not comfortable calling them cake balls, that just sounds weird!).  They are made using the normal cake bite process:

• Crumble some already baked cake or cupcakes (I used chocolate)
• Add icing until you can get the mix to stick together.  

• Shape the mixture (about 1-2 tablespoonfuls of the mix) into the bunny bodies
• Freeze the pre-formed shapes (you don't have to do this step, but I find dipping goes much easier if the mix is cold/frozen)
• Dip in some melted white chocolate or vanilla candy wafers to coat
• While still wet, sprinkle on some sweetened coconut flakes
• Using more melted candy, pipe some rabbit ears and sprinkle on coconut before it's hardened

• Once the ears are set, attach to the bunny with more melted candy
• Attach a small pink sprinkle as the nose

You could add eyes, but I kinda like them without, like the fur is covering their little faces.  You can also make some small ones too as baby bunnies, which would up the cute factor by like x1000.

Happy Spring to you! We've had a couple of sunny 60 degree days as teasers, so I can't wait for the warm weather to come back and stay for good - or at least a long time.  Bring on the flip flops!

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It

Works for Me Wednesday

Made by You Monday

Carolyn's Homework Today's Assignment Be Inspired

Time to Sparkle Tuesday
Two-Cup Tuesday

Cast Party Wednesday

Tatertots and Jello - Weekend Wrap Up Party

Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday

Easy Graham Cracker Bars for Easter

So if your kids are like mine, Easter time tends to be a chocolate and candy overload since the grandparents like to buy them all some sweets for the season.  And 3 kids times 4 grandparents, makes for ALOT of candy!  (Shhhh don't tell them I give a lot of it away!).  

But, these graham cracker bars are a nice compromise since I do still like to do something special for the kids at Easter time. 

They are made from cinnamon graham crackers, some melted chocolate or candy melt, and some store bought cotton candy.  (Ok they are still sugary but at least it's not adding to the mix of candy bars, jelly beans, peeps and other spring time candies).

And as promised they are really are so simple to make:

• Lay out your graham crackers (keep them big, like out of the pack big) - the hardest part is trying not to break the bar!
• Melt some chocolate or candy melt in the microwave in a zip lock bag
• Snip off an end of the baggie and "pipe" on your design.  I went with bunnies because they are simple and really hard to mess up!
• While still wet, add a bunny tail with some cotton candy
• Customize with names or sayings as you like
• Add a border to cute'n it up even more and let the chocolate harden

See, so simple and a fun alternative to the store bought candies that are everywhere right now.

And simple is great for me because I leave for Costa Rica in a couple days.  My sister is getting married there (WOOT!) and I'm bringing my 8 year old with me for some 1:1 time.  Can't wait, and I'm looking forward to some warm weather, good eats, and some great time with my sister, almost brother-in-law, niece and of course my oldest kiddo.  Hopefully I'll be posting about some yummy Costa Rican treats soon!

Have a great week!

Here are some other great and simple graham cracker treats too!

Graham cracker sandwiches
Graham cracker s'mores candy
Ice cream s'mores pops
Graham cracker dessert treats
Owl s'mores

And stop by these fun sites too!

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It

Works for Me Wednesday

Made by You Monday

Carolyn's Homework Today's Assignment Be Inspired

Trick or Treat Tuesday
Two-Cup Tuesday

Cast Party Wednesday

Share Awesomeness Thursdays

Tatertots and Jello - Weekend Wrap Up Party

More the Merrier-DIY Home Sweet Home

Happy Hour - Freestyle Friday

Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday
Weekend Wander

Hula Bunny PEEPS and a Spring Hop Along PEEPS Party!!

Yay! It's PEEPS season! If you follow the blog or my posts at all you probably know I'm all about PEEPS.  Totally LOVE 'EM! Last year I had an entire week of PEEPS Pops including PEEPS dressed up as The Beatles, The Sesame Street Gang, KISS, Some famous Art Work, The Avengers, Baseball Players, Where the Wild Things Are and this year some Mickey and Minnie PEEPS Pops, and of course the Star Wars PEEPS Troopers!  You can say I kinda have a thing for Marshmallow PEEPS!

And this year a bunch of crazy bloggers agreed to do a Spring Hop Along PEEPS Party where everyone created a unique treat with PEEPS as a theme.  I know crazy, right? Well if crazy means super fun and awesome, then it's crazy! 

This year I definitely had some trouble coming up with a fun idea.  I had a couple and they just didn't pan out right, but then tried these hula bunnies!

Start with a square pretzel as a base and I used PEEPS bunnies (I like them better than the chicks for whatever weird reason).  Attach to pretzel with some candy melt or melted chocolate.  Then add a grass skirt with some more green candy melt (I put the wafers into a zip lock baggie, melt in the microwave, then snip a small end off and pipe on).  Use brown to do a belt on top of the grass skirt.  Add a "coconut top".  This is just some plain m and m's attached with more melted candy.  I wanted all brown to be more like coconuts, but apparently there are very few brown m n' m's in a single pack these days, so I used the other colors too, which I think work well with these colorful Hula PEEPS!

 You can make them alone, or add them to your favorite cupcakes or treat too! They'd be great for a luau or Hawaiian themed party!  I really had fun with these, especially the ties in the back for the coconut m and m tops!

The tiny bunny arms are some non-pareil sprinkles.  Add a candy melt/sprinkle flower to the ears and you have yourself some hula bunnies!

I really like how these came out and the little flower really pulls it together!

Please check out the other PEEPS creations from the other bloggers who joined in on the Spring Hop Along PEEPS Party! Thanks to all of you for playing along and especially to Christi from Love From the Oven for helping to put all this together! She also put together an awesome PEEPS giveaway, so enter via the Rafflecopter below to win some PEEPSalicious PEEPS stuff to make your own PEEPS treat (or to just eat 'em stale like I do!).

Ready for more fabulous PEEPS recipes and ideas???  Visit the following websites, each is sharing an amazing PEEPS post for you today, so hop on over and check them all out!   Don't forget to enter to win the fabulous PEEPS Prize Pack as well!   Happy Spring!

PEEPS bunnies in Chocolate Easter Eggs from The Decorated Cookie

PEEPS Cupcakes from Hoosier Homemade

Spring PEEPS Truffles from Java Cupcake

Pavlova Peeps Nests from Crazy for Crust

PEEPS S'mores from The Southern Institute

Giant PEEPS Cereal Treat from Dollhouse Bake Shoppe

PEEPS Candy Bars from The Domestic Rebel

Rice Krispies PEEPS from Creative Food

Easter Cake with White Chocolate PEEPS from Bird on a Cake

Hula Bunny PEEPS from Sugar Swings! Serve Some

Peeping Peeps from Miss Candiquik

Bird House S'mores on a Stick From Kitchen Fun with My Three Sons

Layered S'mores Brownies with PEEPS from Shugary Sweets

PEEPS Brownie Pops from Munchkin Munchies

Easter PEEPS in their Finest from Pint Sized Baker

Peeps Get Married from Haniela's

Peek A Boo PEEPS Cookies from In Katrina's Kitchen

Spring Hop Along PEEPS Party from Love From the Oven

PEEPS Eclair Cake Cups from Inside BruCrew Life

Raiding the Carrot Patch - PEEPS Pudding from Hungry Happenings

Very Vanilla PEEPS Cake from Pink Little Cake

Peeps Centerpiece Cookies from The Baked Equation

PEEPS Magician Hat from Not Your Momma's Cookie

Enter to win some fun PEEPS treats!

Open to US Residents Only.  Use the Rafflecopter Widget below to enter, please remember it can be slow to load.  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

THANKS to everyone who participated in this PEEPS Party, all are bloggers I totally look up to and admire.  And THANK YOU for visiting and indulging the slight PEEPS problem I seem to have!  Have a great week!

Sharing these PEEPS with more peeps here:

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It

Works for Me Wednesday

Made by You Monday

Carolyn's Homework Today's Assignment Be Inspired

Time to Sparkle Tuesday
Two-Cup Tuesday

Cast Party Wednesday

Share Awesomeness Thursdays

Tatertots and Jello - Weekend Wrap Up Party

More the Merrier-DIY Home Sweet Home

Happy Hour - Freestyle Friday

Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday
The Feature Friday Linky Party - Blissful and Domestic
Weekend Wander

simple bunny and lego mini cupcakes....!

...so my boy/girl twins turned 4 this past wednesday!....woohoo!!!...they are offically big kids...and life is finally getting a little simpler....no more strollers, huge diaper bags, pack n plays...the gear situation is much more manageable and we can get up and out of the house in record time these days (well most days anyway)....and for their preschool party they both requested cupcakes...and the only specific request was for chocolate....and one wanted blue frosting and the other wanted purple.....yay! an easy request....especially since it was mid-week....i'll take super easy, thanks kiddos....

...the bunnies were made from an ice cube tray mold that i found at a five below for like a buck...melt some candy melts/wafers in the microwave, fill with whatever color you like then put the tray into the freezer for about 10 minutes.....pop out bunnies and use either more melted candy or food writers to add the face details....(btw-i made these a few weeks ago for easter but then forgot about them because outta site outta mind....)....so these were relatively easy since i had them made already...

...and you get a bunch of these....chocolate mini cupcakes (made from a doctored box mix--add an extra egg and i cup of milk with a generous squirt of chocolate syrup for the liquid) with bunny toppers.....

....and the lego cupcakes were a piece of cake.....just topped with some of these.....which i found at a candy shop in my town......but you can order them here or just google "lego candy" and you can find a few places that sell them...

....to get a bunch of these.....the frosting is just my fav vanilla buttercream tinted with food gels....

.....since mini cupcakes are just too small for the awesome teachers at their preschool....and it's teacher appreciation week this upcoming week.....they all got regular sized cuppies with the same cake and frosting......

.....hard to believe my babies are all grows up (to quote swingers!)....but 4 is a pretty cool age...the baby phase is great for what it is...but i love this age so much more and how their personalities really come though....my little people....

....have a great weekend everyone....beautiful weather predicted for the nj area....and thanks a bunch for stopping by....!