Heart Shape Animals - Decorated Peppermint Patty Candy

There is something about cute animals that are different but look the same that I really love!  I pin these pics all the time and decided to recreate some in candy form.

How cute are these little edible animals? 

Fox, Deer, Bear, Rabbit, Koala, Giraffe, Another Bear, Tiger, and Skunk

Here's an example that I was trying to emulate:

I thought heart-shaped candies would be a really good canvas!

The heart-shaped peppermint patties are available around Valentine's Day time but you can also find them on Amazon.  Or if you can't find heart-shaped candies you could just use circles.  

Sometimes I use candy melts in various colors to decorate but this time I used royal icing as I wanted the icing to be nice and flat.

Dip or paint the colors onto the chocolate.  Ears and other details can also be piped onto parchment.  Wait until they are totally dry before trying to move / add to candy.  Use a dab of royal icing to attach.

Add the cute white cheeks and other detail for animals after the base color is dry. The noses are larger black candy sprinkles.   The giraffe and koala needed larger noses so they are made with more royal icing. 

The other detail is added with edible markers once all the royal icing is totally dry.  

They turned out so cute!

                                             

                                                                Which is your favorite??
 

Decorated Heart-Shaped Animal Candy

1 package of heart-shaped chocolates (I used peppermint patties)

2 cups of royal icing

Various colors of food gels (see photos as a guide)

Large black sprinkles

Edible food writer in black and pink

Directions:

• Prepare royal icing.  My fav recipe here
• Color royal icing with food gels (see photos as a guide to colors needed)
• Paint or dip each candy heart into colors.  Let dry for about 30 mins or more if needed.
• While waiting for hearts to dry make ears and other details.  Pipe royal icing onto parchment paper.  Let dry totally before moving (at least 30 mins)
• Add giraffe spots and skunk streak (you can add before the base coat is dry)
• Attach royal icing detail with a dab of royal icing
• Pipe white cheeks onto each heart and let dry.
• Add eyes and pink rosiness to cheeks with an edible marker.

Piped Heart Shaped Butter Cookies - filled with rainbow jams

One of my favorite cookies are butter cookies.  So simple, delicate, and delish.  I even love those mass produced ones that come in the tins that your mom or grandma keeps thread and sewing stuff in!

I had the great idea of making butter cookies but in the shape of hearts for valentines day.

Mix up a simple butter cookie recipe, add it to a piping bag, and pipe some pretty hearts.  

Sounds easy enough right??

Can I tell you how HARD it is to pipe butter cookie dough?? Piping these hearts took like an hour and much forearm strength!

But if you can persevere through it you can fill them with a lot of jellies and jams in fun colors.

or use marmalade - what's the difference between jelly, jam, and marmalade? I'm too lazy to google it today.

I must be getting old because I love butter cookies ESPECIALLY with a thin layer of fruit flavor.  It kinda goes along with my love of bundt cakes as well.  Welcome to middle age!

The hearts were supposed to look like rose shaped icing that is super popular.  However, my kids saw these and asked me if these cookies were supposed to look messy.  I of course said yes because I was just happy to have gotten through the batch without throwing the entire thing in the garbage.

They tasted awesome no matter how they looked.  Tender butter cookie sandwiches made with real vanilla beans with a layer of jelly inside - SO YUM! And I love using the contrasting colors of the jams - even the mint - I've always wanted to try mint jelly!

Although they take a little muscle your Valentine will definitely appreciate the effort - and did I  mention they are super tasty?!

Piped Heart Shaped Butter Sandwich Cookies

by Michelle Clausen February 5 - 2017

Ingredients

• 2 cups of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup of unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 vanilla bean
• Variety of jelly/jam/marmalades (blueberry, cranberry, mint, orange, lingonberry)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Whisk dry ingredients together.
3. Cream butter and sugar together until pale and creamy.
4. Add in egg and scraped vanilla bead seeds.
5. Add flour mixture 1 cup at a time until just mixed.
6. Pump some iron to build up arm strength then add dough to pastry bag and pipe heart shapes.
7. Bake until edges are just golden about 10-12 minutes.
8. Once cooled spread flat side of cookie with jelly and top with another cookie.

Prep time: 45 minutes Yield: about 2 dozen cookies

Star Wars Valentines Day Chocolate Boxes

Happy 2017 all! Can you believe it's officially 2017? 

We celebrated the new year away from home and up in Maine on a snowboarding and ski trip with some good friends.  It was so nice to get away and detach from the usual routine.  It was also really cool to come down a mountain as a family! My hubster, oldest kiddo, and I all snowboard and the twins ski.  The kids can all get down most blues and greens and I have to say one of my favs from the trip was looking around and seeing my kids coming down on their own with us next to them.  It was really amazing.  One of my new years resolutions is to make sure I take time to enjoy these special moments many that happen everyday.

OK enough of the mushy reflectiveness, onto the treats! 

As you know we are huge SW fans so we went to see Star Wars Rogue One recently.  Can I say I loved this movie without sounding biased?  I mean I think I loved it more than The Force Awakens.  Rogue One is the story in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.  It basically tells the story that depicts the infamous opening movie crawl and provides context on how A New Hope (the first Star Wars movie) came about.  My oldest kiddo, a self proclaimed Star Wars nerd, also loved it as much as I did.

And what do you get a Star Wars nerd for Valentine's Day?

Star Wars chocolates of course!

I seem to have collected a plethora of shaped ice cube trays and that includes many Star Wars themed ones.  Great for jazzing up your drinks with fun cubes but even better as molds for treats.

Since one of my least favorite things to do is dip cake bites/pops into melted chocolate, I use these molds to make no dip cake bites too.  It's pretty simple.  Add melted chocolate or candy melts to coat the mold, let candy harden, add some cake bite mixture, cover with more melted candy and let harden.  

Pop the candy out of the molds spray with some color mist or similar spray food colorant to add some silver accents.  Darth Vader is done with milk chocolate, stormtroopers with vanilla candy melts, and Han Solo in carbonite (no cake mix in center) with dark chocolate.  Add the trooper detail with a black edible food writer.

Use Pearl or Silver spray!

If you have some heart shaped boxes you can add them and make some super special Valentine's for your favorite Star Wars fan!

Aww don't they make a cute couple?

Who can say no to Vader??

Happy 2017 everyone and I hope you are off to a great start to your year!

Star Wars No Dip Cake Bites

by Michelle Clausen January 11 - 2017

Ingredients

• 2 cups of chocolate chips
• 1 cup vanilla chips or melting wafers
• 1 and 1/2 cups of cake mixture (1 and 1/2 cups of crumbled cake and 1-2 Tablespoons of frosting)
• Black food writer
• Silver Color Mist spray

Instructions:

1. Melt each flavor of chips/wafers in microwave safe bowl in 10-20 second intervals until candy is melted.  Add to quart sized freezer bag.  Snip an end and coat mold with candy (ensure thick enough to coat all sides of mold but leave a space to allow for filling).  Tap mold to remove air bubbles and to make sure all parts of mold are coated well.  Reheat candy as needed.  Freeze mold for 5 minutes.
2. Remove mold from freezer and fill cavities with small ball of the cake mixture.  Press to cake fills mold cavity (see photos).  Cover with more melted candy.  Tap to cover evenly.  Freeze for 10-15 minutes.  
3. Pop cake bite out of mold.  
4. Add detail to Stormtroopers with black edible food writer.
5. Spray with color mist.  Let dry 10 minutes.
6. Add to Valentine's day boxes.

Prep time: 1 and 1/2 hours Yield: about 20-25 cake bites 

Wonder Woman & Aquaman Candy Hearts

Did you know Wonder Woman turned 75???

Still going strong for 75 if you ask me.   As so many do, I have a thing for Wonder Woman as a strong and powerful role model.  I know a lot of people probably have issues with her outfit these days, but I think you can kick some butt and still look good because you want to (not because dudes like it).  

Anywhoo, in additon to WW turning 75, I made some candy hearts for both Wonder Woman AND Aquaman since they both have their own movies coming out next year.  They both showed up in Batman Vs Superman so we got a preview of what they're up to.  Aquaman is no longer the blond hair blue eyed comic book hero who has the power of talking to fish.  He looks like a bad a$$ and is played by Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones fans will recognize him as Khal Drogo) and probably the furthest you can get from the traditional Aquaman look!

I know, right??

Although I love the new look, I still love the old orange and green colors as well.  

For these candies, start with heart shaped peppermint patties (scooped up on sale after Valentines day - freeze them and they are as good as the day you bought them!)

Dip each top and bottom in some candy wafers/melts in the coordinated colors of Wonder Woman and Aquaman.  

 

I know I just complained about hating to dip stuff here BUT these are really easy to dip and no expertise needed at all.

Dip one side then dip the other and add your accents while the candy is still wet.

Easy peasy.

Aren't they super cute?!

And I would totally ship a Wonder Woman/Aquaman romance.  I don't think that's in the stars but it would be an interesting movie cross over angle!

Now go vote for your favorite Wonder Woman running for president! 

Wonder Woman and Aquaman Candy Hearts

by Michelle Clausen October-24-2016

Ingredients

• 18 heart shaped mini Peppermint Patty (or other heart shaped candy will work too)
• 4 cups of candy melts/wafers (1 cup of red, blue, green, orange)
• 1/2 cup of candy melts/wafers (1/4 cup of black and 1/4 cup of yellow)
• white non-pariel sprinkles
• green sugar sprinkles

Instructions:

1. Melt the candy wafers in microwave safe bowl in 10-20 second intervals until candy is melted.  Stir in between intervals.   Do one color at a time when you need to use them or candy hardens quickly.
2. Dip 1/2 of heart shaped chocolate in each of coordinating super hero colors.  Let candy harden 10 minutes in between dippings.  
3. While candy is still wet add sprinkles for accents (as in pictures)
4. Add some yellow melted candy to plastic freezer bag, snip a small corner and "pipe" A (Aquaman logo) onto parchment.  Let harden 10 minutes.
5. Using same yellow melted candy in freezer bag, add detail to Wonder Woman heart (see pictures).
6. Add some black melted candy to plastic freezer bag, snip a small corner and "pipe" blag band across Aquaman heart (for belt).  While still wet add the hardened "A" onto middle of heart.
7. Let dry 10 minutes.

Prep time: 1 hour Yield: 18 candy hearts

Gingerbread Heart Cookies with Rainbow Candy Curls

I know I just posted gingerbread cookies for Valentines day last week but I had to share another cookie idea with you all too.

This one also starts with gingerbread cut out cookies. Heart shaped 1) because Valentines Day is this weekend and 2) my kids love gingerbread all year round.  Also I saw these cupcakes topped with rainbow white chocolate curls  awhile back and its been on my to do list forever.  I thought candy curls would be perfect on these cookies.

Start with blocks of colorful candy.  Instead of tinting white chocolate chips, I used candy wafers/melts in various colors.  Melt the wafers in the microwave and then add to a silicon ice cube tray.  I have a tray for big square cubes that worked great for the candy blocks.

Once the candy is hardened again, pop them out of the mold and use a vegetable peeler to make the curls.  Keep peeling until the block is gone.  It takes some time but worth it and I have plenty left for other projects.

Make them in all the colors! Curling the candy was strangely therapeutic for me.  Aren't the rainbow colors so pretty?!

I decided to add the candy curls to cookies.

Add some royal icing and before it dries just sprinkle some of the curls on top. Mix and match as you like - there is really no way to mess this up.

If you follow my Instagram you know I'm a bit obsessed with these candy curls!

I love the fun and whimsical look they give the cookies.   You can use a couple of colors like purple and pink.

Or you can go full on rainbow too!

Super fun and really easy.  I can't wait to make more treats with these rainbow vanilla candy curls. I'll apologize ahead of time for using them in lots of upcoming posts!  

Oh and happy almost Valentines Day! We are headed out to Park City, Utah this weekend so will be spending Valentines Day with some of our oldest friends AND getting the kiddos up on skis/snowboards in Utah snow.  Boarding on powder is way different than on the ice and blown snow here on the East Coast!  Enjoy the cookies and thanks for stopping by!

Oh also sharing some fun printables here - there are labels for Valentines day as well as other holiday labels and stickers too.  Bonus they are all free!

How to Make Valentines Day Gingerbread Cookies with Candy Curls (makes about 2 dozen)

• 1 roll of refrigerated gingerbread cookie dough or boxed mix (follow directions on mix)
• 2 cups of royal icing 
• 1 cup of various colors of candy melts/wafers

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Roll out dough and cut out circle shapes.  Use heart cutter to cut out shapes.
3. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until just slightly browned
4. Ice cookies with royal icing
5. While icing is still wet, sprinkle the vanilla candy curls. 
6. Let icing harden.
7. Enjoy!

To make candy curls:

1. Melt 1 cup of candy wafers/melts in microwave safe bowl in 20 second intervals in the microwave until all candy is melted.  Stir in between intervals.
2. Add candy to silicone ice cube tray.  Tap to remove air bubbles.
3. Repeat with each color that you want to make curls.
4. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or until entire block is hardened.
5. Use the peeler and peel long sections (allowing candy to curl as you go). This gets easier as you do more curls.  
6. Repeat until the block is all curled.

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:

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