Sugar Swings! Serve Some: dried fruit

Showing posts with label dried fruit. Show all posts

Friday, February 5, 2016

Valentines Day Iced Gingerbread Cookies with dried fruits

Hey there! Valentines Day is just around the corner so I thought I'd share some fun cookies. They are gingerbread too. I know gingerbread is usually saved for the holiday season, but why?

My kiddos all love gingerbread so I make them cookies throughout the year in this flavor.

These cookies are extra special because they have heart cut outs and are topped with a variety of toppings. I love all the flavors of freeze dried fruits available and they are simple to sprinkle on top of still wet royal icing.

The freeze dried fruits crush really easily and give an nice concentrated fruit flavor (and awesome color too!).

I also added some other fun stuff I had in the cupboard like dried blueberries, candied ginger, goji berries, lavender, and pistachios.The taste was great with all the flavors and the gingerbread together.

I'll admit the kids went for the plain iced gingerbread cookies of course, but they did make super pretty gifts for the past holiday season (and for cookies for Santa!).

What are you making for Valentines Day? Do you go for a special savory dish or something sweet or BOTH? (I'm the later!). Thanks for swinging by, have a great weekend!

How to Make Valentines Day Gingerbread Cookies (makes 2 dozen)

1 roll of refrigerated gingerbread cookie dough or boxed mix (follow directions on mix)
2 cups of royal icing
1/2 cup of dried or freeze dried fruit (such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, pineapple, pumpkin, goji berries)
1/4 cup chopped candied ginger
2 Tablespoons dried lavender (food grade)
1/2 cup chopped pistachios (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Roll out dough and cut out circle shapes. Use smaller heart cutter to cut out shapes in the center of each cookie.
Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until just slightly browned
Ice cookies with royal icing
While icing is still wet, sprinkle with crushed freeze dried fruits and other toppings.
Let cookies set until icing is dried to the touch.
Enjoy!

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Pea Pods made from Fruit

Summer is in full swing around here! The kids are in a few day camps, the days are 90+ degrees and humid, the cicadas are singing their hot summer songs - and I'm loving it all. It's hard to believe it's nearly the end of July - only one full month of summer left so I'm going to enjoy every second of it.

And I have a really easy healthy treat for you this time. Well relatively healthy when you compare it to the rest of the sugary sweets that you usually find here. Cute little pea pods - made from fruit.

I spotted these Joray brand fruit rolls in the food store the other day. Joray makes all kinds of flavors of fruit rolls, but I had never seen an all apple green fruit roll. (ps if you look for them, I found them in the Kosher section of my local Shop Rite food store).

I thought they'd make great pea pods with some green grapes as the "peas".

They are really super easy to make too. Cut out a leaf shape from the fruit roll. Add your grapes (2 or 3 "pea" clusters) and wrap the fruit roll around the grapes.

Twist the ends a bit and that's pretty much it.

Very cute as is or you can up your cute factor by adding some smiley faces. Faces added with an edible food writer.

Smiling pea pods - try not to smile yourself!

Make them for your veggie averse peeps. I was thinking they'd also make a super cute addition to a twin or triplet baby shower or maybe a fun April Fool's Day prank. So many options!

Thanks as always for stopping by. Have a GREAT week!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Easy Spring Flower Candy Pops

Is it spring yet???! I think I'm ready. After a couple weeks with colds around here which included 2 kids with double ear infections, pink eye, coughs, runny noses, nebulizer treatments, and then of course the grown ups get the same, yeah, I think I'm most definitely ready for spring time!

And these quick and easy flower pops, do remind me of the season!

Although I use a lot of color in my sweet creations which come from food colorings and food color gels, I do try to incorporate foods tinted from natural colorings when I can or as experiments, like these whoopie pies, this red velvet cake, these cupcakes with fruit glazes, these red, white and blue madeleines, these lego and super hero yogurt pops, and these cupcakes in fall flavors !

The color for these flower pops come from dried fruits including freeze dried blueberries, raspberries, and bananas, dried apricots, crystallized ginger, dark semi sweet chocolate, and pumpkin seeds (or pepitas). I pretty much raided the local trader joe's and whole foods nearby!

These really couldn't be simpler.

Melt some white chocolate in a zip lock bag
Snip an end and pipe your flower onto some parchment
While still wet, add your dried fruits/seeds
Let harden

I love the natural colors that deepen when the fruits are dried, and they really stand out against the white chocolate for the flower base. You can mix and match or make any designs you like!

This was my attempt to get my kids to eat some dried fruits etc so I can change up their school snacks every once in awhile. Because really, how can you eat pretzels and applesauce everyday and not be sick of it?? Although it was a big failure in that vein (I don't think I ate any of that stuff when I was a little kid either), my co-workers enjoyed them!

Did you know you can draw pictures in pic monkey?? Don't judge the art work people! This is why I work in sugar and not paint and pastels!

Thanks for swinging by, and have another awesome week!

Check out these fun treats made with dried fruits!

Mini dried fruit and nut cakes
Rice krispie treats with dried fruit
White chocolate bark with dried fruit
Fruity coconut cream truffles
Mexican bread decorated with dried fruit

And stop by these fun bloghops (and share your own!)

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